Miss Q is truly thankful to ALL to attempted to help me search for my mobile after the show. Clumsy Ms Q actually dropped it on the metal plank-like thing beneath the seat. My iPhone could have almost suffered its demise there!!!
Anyway, I think I will attempt to do something regarding the movie outing. Yes. I will try writing a composition, text type narrative/ personal recount... yet to be decided. But that's provided I have the time. Hees.
I'm sorry I did not get to take a group picture with ALL OF YOU, because I was in a flurry searching for my phone. I wasn't in time to stop you from leaving. Bleah!!! Means... we shall have to do this again!!! I enjoyed watching the show with you guys and gals. Yes, even with Binghui's corny remarks. You people look very presentable!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
School Days with a Pig
MOVIE OUTING IS CONFIRMED!!!
Date: 24 April 2009 (Fri)
Time: 5.45pm (Let's meet at 5.30pm)
Venue: Orchard Cineleisure
Please bring along $6 for payment during one of the EL lessons. You can bring an extra $3.50 on the actual day itself if you will like to enjoy popcorn and a drink during the show.
Points to note:
I hope i don't have to raise my voice outside, so long as you behave 'normally' (Hahs!). But this is a casual outing among classmates + me... so it's purely social yeah!
Date: 24 April 2009 (Fri)
Time: 5.45pm (Let's meet at 5.30pm)
Venue: Orchard Cineleisure
Please bring along $6 for payment during one of the EL lessons. You can bring an extra $3.50 on the actual day itself if you will like to enjoy popcorn and a drink during the show.
Points to note:
I hope i don't have to raise my voice outside, so long as you behave 'normally' (Hahs!). But this is a casual outing among classmates + me... so it's purely social yeah!
Qing Ming
Check out the article below. No fancy language, nothing that you can't understand. But the writing is fluent and smooth, with drips & draps of nice vocabulary to stimulate the reader's senses. I'm sure you can pick up a point or two from this.
********
April 20, 2009
MY THOUGHTS
QING MING: More than just a ritual
By Nikki Chan
IT IS that time of the year again. I am falling asleep in my parents' car. The inside smells vaguely of incense and home-cooked food. Drizzle dots the car windows. It is not yet bright enough for me to spot the ink-dark blots on the tar paving the long road.
Finally, we reach our destination. Torches out. Orders in whispers. We trek down rows of sleeping graves. After a few wrong turns and stumbles in the dark, we find my great-grandmother's grave. Next to her lies my beloved grandfather, whom I have come to miss every year on this special day. We were never close, though. It was not possible, with such a big extended family.
But somehow, today, just like on the same day last year and the year before that, I can feel him smile at us, the same way he used to smile from the top of the table at reunion dinners. It is as if he is still bringing us all together.
The food is unwrapped. We place it in front of him, complete with chopsticks. Surely he will enjoy this home- cooked meal like before. And then we light our joss sticks, hold them tightly and shake them gently against our chests with silent murmurs.
'I miss you,' I whisper. 'I miss what it was like with you among us.' The joss sticks are placed together and left to burn - our lighthouse signalling to him across worlds as though to say, 'Come join us, we're here'.
This happens every year. And every year I go, taking pleasure in the memory of my grandfather. But all these rituals turn meaningless when I turn to face my great-grandmother's grave.
It is sad, I know. But I never knew her - I have nothing to say, nothing to reminisce upon.
I have always thought sadly about the day when my generation passes on. Nobody else will know grandfather. Will they still keep coming? Will they still come and sweep his grave, offer him food, and gather our family to him? As it is, fewer and fewer people I know take part in this tradition.
Those who do so partake with a huge sense of obligation and sometimes, dread. I cannot blame them entirely though. I would find it difficult to put my heart into waking in the wee hours to offer joss sticks to someone I have never met, especially when I do not subscribe fully to these Taoist beliefs of connecting across worlds through incense and prayer.
What keeps Qing Ming going? Is it tradition and respect for the ancestors, or a chance to indulge in fond memories of loved ones? Surprisingly, overseas Chinese communities have been reported to take this more seriously than our mainland counterparts. Some people would even travel back to the mainland. But there is more than filial piety to this.
After ancestral worship, the whole family would gather nearby and feast on the food just offered to their ancestors. This happens to be one of my favourite parts. With our hectic work schedules, it is hard enough nowadays to meet up with the whole extended family.
So it seems that Qing Ming is more than just ancestral worship. It is family bonding, reminiscing, and paying respects all rolled into one. More than just reliving fond memories of my grandfather, it is a hearty and boisterous lunch with my extended family with our ancestors at the backs of our minds. Even if I never knew my great-grandmother personally, there is always someone there to reminisce aloud fond incidents involving her while we go about the rituals.
Every year I hear the same stories. And strangely, I never grow sick of them. Perhaps I find comfort in learning of my identity, my 'roots', by listening to my uncles' stories of my grandfather's childhood in a village outside of Guangzhou, where my great-grandfather went to work, and how my great-grandmother brought her children up, insisting they go to school and get an English education, and so on.
Memories of my grandfather will be lost with time, my great-grandmother's lost in my generation already. Perhaps this is why people look to leaving a legacy so much, at least in a family name - to keep the memories going in the form of heritage and hand-me-down family values. Ancestral lineage keeps at least respects coming. Like how I have my great-grandmother to thank for the endearing person I had in my grandfather.
The writer, 22, is a fourth-year law student at the National University of Singapore.
********
April 20, 2009
MY THOUGHTS
QING MING: More than just a ritual
By Nikki Chan
IT IS that time of the year again. I am falling asleep in my parents' car. The inside smells vaguely of incense and home-cooked food. Drizzle dots the car windows. It is not yet bright enough for me to spot the ink-dark blots on the tar paving the long road.
Finally, we reach our destination. Torches out. Orders in whispers. We trek down rows of sleeping graves. After a few wrong turns and stumbles in the dark, we find my great-grandmother's grave. Next to her lies my beloved grandfather, whom I have come to miss every year on this special day. We were never close, though. It was not possible, with such a big extended family.
But somehow, today, just like on the same day last year and the year before that, I can feel him smile at us, the same way he used to smile from the top of the table at reunion dinners. It is as if he is still bringing us all together.
The food is unwrapped. We place it in front of him, complete with chopsticks. Surely he will enjoy this home- cooked meal like before. And then we light our joss sticks, hold them tightly and shake them gently against our chests with silent murmurs.
'I miss you,' I whisper. 'I miss what it was like with you among us.' The joss sticks are placed together and left to burn - our lighthouse signalling to him across worlds as though to say, 'Come join us, we're here'.
This happens every year. And every year I go, taking pleasure in the memory of my grandfather. But all these rituals turn meaningless when I turn to face my great-grandmother's grave.
It is sad, I know. But I never knew her - I have nothing to say, nothing to reminisce upon.
I have always thought sadly about the day when my generation passes on. Nobody else will know grandfather. Will they still keep coming? Will they still come and sweep his grave, offer him food, and gather our family to him? As it is, fewer and fewer people I know take part in this tradition.
Those who do so partake with a huge sense of obligation and sometimes, dread. I cannot blame them entirely though. I would find it difficult to put my heart into waking in the wee hours to offer joss sticks to someone I have never met, especially when I do not subscribe fully to these Taoist beliefs of connecting across worlds through incense and prayer.
What keeps Qing Ming going? Is it tradition and respect for the ancestors, or a chance to indulge in fond memories of loved ones? Surprisingly, overseas Chinese communities have been reported to take this more seriously than our mainland counterparts. Some people would even travel back to the mainland. But there is more than filial piety to this.
After ancestral worship, the whole family would gather nearby and feast on the food just offered to their ancestors. This happens to be one of my favourite parts. With our hectic work schedules, it is hard enough nowadays to meet up with the whole extended family.
So it seems that Qing Ming is more than just ancestral worship. It is family bonding, reminiscing, and paying respects all rolled into one. More than just reliving fond memories of my grandfather, it is a hearty and boisterous lunch with my extended family with our ancestors at the backs of our minds. Even if I never knew my great-grandmother personally, there is always someone there to reminisce aloud fond incidents involving her while we go about the rituals.
Every year I hear the same stories. And strangely, I never grow sick of them. Perhaps I find comfort in learning of my identity, my 'roots', by listening to my uncles' stories of my grandfather's childhood in a village outside of Guangzhou, where my great-grandfather went to work, and how my great-grandmother brought her children up, insisting they go to school and get an English education, and so on.
Memories of my grandfather will be lost with time, my great-grandmother's lost in my generation already. Perhaps this is why people look to leaving a legacy so much, at least in a family name - to keep the memories going in the form of heritage and hand-me-down family values. Ancestral lineage keeps at least respects coming. Like how I have my great-grandmother to thank for the endearing person I had in my grandfather.
The writer, 22, is a fourth-year law student at the National University of Singapore.
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