I got less than 2.5 hours to update my blog. Here are some photos of Dragon Boat Race 2008 taken on 15 Jun 2008. Haha… so late.. Now I am trying to post backlogged old entries as fast as I can, coz new photos still keep coming in. On that day, I found a few Chang’E (Moon Goddness in Chinese legend) there. Probably they are bored with moon cake and wanted to try some rice dumpling instead.

Many Chinese believe that the origin of “Duan Wu” or Dragon Boat festival and dragon boat is to remember a great patriot poet (also a government minister) named “Qu Yuan” who loved his country so much. He was extremely depressed and helpless to see his corrupted country was invaded by foreign force, so he committed suicide by jumping into the river. The people heard the news, so they threw the food into the river to feed the fishes, hoping that the fishes would not eat his body and also an offering to his spirit. They also splahes the water with paddles and beat the drum, trying to scare away the fishes.

But the Duan Wu festival had already long existed before that tragedy. The festival is more closely linked to religion ritual practiced by the people to (1) worship the dragon, or (2) avoid diseases in mid-summer. There are many other theories as well. When the China historians were still debating whether the rice dumplings were for the Dragon or Qu Yuan, South Korea has gotten UNESCO to acknowldge Duan-Wu Festival as the “Intangible Heritage” of Korea. Goodness, it is our (Chinese) turn want to jump into the river, such a tragedy.

Hope people will always remember who is Qu Yuan. If you ask others what is Dragon Boat Festival about, many would tell you this is the festival “to eat dumpling”, and Lantern Festival is the festival to eat moon cakes. As a matter of fact, many festivals and celebrations have lost their traditional meaning today. Christmas is the most affected, as it has only becomes an excuse for shopping and party, the time when many got drunken and got laid, totally forget who is Jesus, even my Christian friends also really concern about the lost of identity of Xmas.

The capsize… probably the dragon was angry.

Someone was bored… I like this shot coz the meaning is so obvious.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

The Culture Extravaganza was over for more than a week. Sigh… I am posting “old” news again. I was checking out the City Street Parade on Feb 2 coz there were dance groups from Ireland, New Zealand, Poland, Scotland, Kenya, Spain, and Brazil joining the parade. To avoid traffic jam, I have arrived at 6:30pm, but the dancers arrived after 8:30pm, quite a long wait.

When they showed up, I walked around and snapped some photos of them. The Maori of New Zealand caught lot of attention. Whenever we took their pictures, they will stick their tongue out, making some funny expression, to greet us in their traditional way (see photos above). Lol… maybe I should greet them back the same way.

I love the costume of Ireland very much. It is so cute and colourful, like a toy, and each of them wearing unique design. The Kenya Safari Cats gave me very good expression. Despite their “wild” costume, they are very friendly and playful. The Brazilian dancers are the ones I really want to see, as they are one of the sexiest dancers in the world.

OK lah, a bit different from what I imagine, probably Malaysia is too cold to them, but their hot samba dance still can melt us. They are the center of the focus. So many people want to take picture with them…

Below are some photos for you to see. Not many coz I didn’t stay long. I left at 9:30pm to shoot pictures of Miss Cheongsam beauty pageant that evening. Hopefully next year we will have the same parade again. I want to recommend Hawaii to come, haha…

Click thumbnails below to see Bigger Photos:

The next day I went to UMS Chancellor Hall to watch their performance. Overall, it was a delightful experience. But the show started late and also ended late (8:30pm – 12am instead of scheduled 7:30pm – 10:30pm). Frankly, I am not interested in the Malaysian cultural shows. Not that I am not supportive, if the programme is too long, the organiser should remove them from the list. Under dim light, the camera flash from the audiences were quite disturbing. Not only it distracted me from enjoying the show, the strong light made my eyes very uncomfortable.

I also took a few pictures, but I have turned off the flash and preview LCD. I was nearly 100 feet away from the stage, so most of the pictures are blur. So I only pick a few usable photos and create a montage below:

Another funny thing is – 90% of the audiences have left before the show ended. When all the dancers came up to sing us a good bye song at the end, there were a lot more dancers than the audiences. Haha… I always think that Sabahan is the worst audience in the world. They are not “responsive” and they always disappear before the programme finishes.

Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo