One of those days.

I had wanted to write something very interesting earlier but somehow or other, I just could not get started. My mind is too clogged up with things to write so much so, its like getting into a jam. Its one of those days when the engine don't get started properly. Eventually I began browsing my Facebook account and read so many articles of Singapore's old heritage. I was totally engrossed in old memories and got carried away. Have to go to work now, but will write in the morning. 

The Chinese New Year feelings simply not there.......

The swelling around my lower lip has disappeared but the numbness around it is still there, anyway, today I can talk naturally only slightly uncomfortable. I will be driving tomorrow after having rested the past few days.

Chinese New Year is only three weeks away, on 15th February which happens to be on a Monday. The atmosphere again, is totally unlike those days during the 60's and 70's when there were fire-crackers and smoke from the joss sticks together with the burnt crackers' smell gives you a feeling of a different sort, more like a real Chinese New Year festival period. Back then, roads and pavements were always covered with layers of burnt red fire-crackers' coverings and paper packings, it was definitely very different then. The sight of it all tells you as well as makes you feel the Chinese New Year atmosphere.

This time around, it can never be the same anymore. For instance, Party-goers now wear totally 'BLACK' coloured outfits which is fashionable and stylish and more of a 'disco colour' thing during the festival. Even donning black and going visiting is just normal and acceptable, but during those days it was the opposite, unthinkable and forbidden simply because 'Black' meant death. 
Nowadays the celebrations will start with colourful night lightings together with the usual festive sales promotions of goodies and tit bits like in all other festivals, very boring and more commercialised.

To me, the only meaningful and customary behaviour which still remains is that of the Family Reunion Dinners which is still the most important and will always be. More and more people try to avoid visiting relatives by going away on holidays or making excuses. 
How true, that's what most of us do nowadays.

tales from the past..

In the 60s' and 70s', young women in their teens or early twenties were exactly like 'cinderellas', and do you know why? Well , this is because all of them had to be home by midnight and going out after 12.00 am was immoral and unheard of. Those days women were not so outgoing and you hardly hear of girls drinking liquor or even smoking, not that they were prudes, but to be caught indulging in those activities would get you branded as 'flirts'.

They would always be drinking soft drinks and huddle in groups laughing and chatting softly among themselves when they attend house parties or organised big functions usually held at NTUC building at Shenton Way or F & N Hall (building already demolished) at River Valley Road, or even at St. Johns' Ambulance house at Beach Road to mention a few. There were no discos then, maybe a local band performing or even just playing music from the turntables, and to go dancing would mean that you would at least know how to dance the waltz, foxtrot, cha cha or even rock n roll. You need to know the steps to perform these dances, otherwise you would be seated somewhere, be a spectator or maybe like wallpaper as they were termed. If your grandfathers, grandmothers or even great grand fathers and great grand mothers are still around, with present day going ons, I think they would all just faint or maybe even drop dead. Nowadays, girlfriends even send their boyfriends home first and thereafter continue home alone by themselves, very common. I have been ferrying these girls going home on their own so frequently, not only that, I have been picking up young ladies going out alone by themselves from their homes after midnight to meet friends in the city, nightclubs, pubs or just to party anywhere and most of them unconcerned about whether they have to work the next day or not. Just imagine sending home very high and totally drunk young women who can hardly stand up or know what is going on around them. They look a wreck with their feminity exposed, this is so dangerous, what if you fall into unscrupulous hands and be taken advantaged of, I would dread to know of the consequences.......