～レイの日記～: 2月 2010

So.. it was my first time spending Chinese New Year in Adelaide. Previously, all my CNY in Malaysia were typically spent by sitting at the back of the car for 5 hours or so while my dad drives us to either Malacca or Singapore, or both, to visit our relatives. And at the end of the day, I would come out of the car with a sore back and butt.

Anyway, this year was different. As I was pondering how the CNY celebrations would be like in Adelaide, I found myself at the SA Zhu-Lin Buddhist Association. Let's just say it was a totally different experience.

Since me and my friends volunteered to be ushers for the celebration, we basically had to ask people to not move out of the ropes area. Doing this, it could only lead to a few possible outcomes:
1) "Oops, sorry!" *moves back into the audience area*
2) *silently shuffles back into the audience area*
3) *glares and moves back into the audience area*
4) *pretends not to hear* *Rei asks again* *shoots dirty look and moves back into audience area*
5) And this one was the icing on the cake. Some temple aunties who always helped out in the kitchen: *becomes very angry and raises voice* "I'M ONLY OUT HERE FOR A WHILE AND THEN I'LL GO BACK TO THE KITCHEN! EVERY YEAR I DON'T GET THE CHANCE TO SEE THE CELEBRATION AND THIS YEAR I MANAGED TO COME OUT FOR A WHILE!" *Rei becomes curious and asks if they were cooking behind since there weren't any cooking going on that evening* *starts making lame excuses about preparing drinks for VIPs and then grumbles to each other and to the audience*
Even though none of the VIP had drinks, or had anyone offer them anything through out the whole celebration. Oh and the aunties stood there till the end of the celebration btw.
- At the end of number 5, the audience started to move towards the VIP area since the aunties were standing there.

And this was what I did:
1) Asks audience nicely to move out of VIP area back to the audience area
2) Lather, rinse, repeat.
3) Until it became really uncontrollable due to the crowd seeing the aunties and the "Public relations" people (who did nothing at all, except of course,) standing at the VIP area, therefore causing the crowd to move in there, thinking it was okay to stand in there.
4) And then I gave up. When I asked people to move, they did. And 5 seconds later, more people went over to the VIP area.
In the end, I was drained at had a -_- whatever! look.

All in all, it was a great experience. I didn't know that there were so many Asians in Adelaide who would get themselves all the way to the temple.
Basically, the whole celebration consisted of singing from 贵英姐, followed by some dances from the Rushi Children group. The Kungfu masters had their debut next, and then came the lion and dragon dances. (Oh and apparently, a perverted aunty was touching the butts of all dancers of the lion dance, and at the 4th lion, she actually smacked the butt of the back dancer. The poor guy..)
At the strike of 12, there was a display of fireworks, and then the thousand-odd public rushed to do their blessings.

This in turn, brought about another hillarious turn of events:
1) Many many many many many people praying and getting bunches of incense.
- Rei's inner voice: Seriously, why does just one person have to get a bunch of 30 or so?!
2) Too many incense in the incense pot.
3) Smoke everywhere. Suddenly incense starts burning and a small fire breaks out.
4) Rei sees people crowding, including a guy friend standing there not knowing what to do. There was a fire extinguisher next to the big incense pot.
Friend: "How?! I don't know how to use a fire extinguisher!!" (originally said in Chinese, translated to English by me.)
5) Rei rushes to the rescue! Or not! She carries the fire extinguisher and tries to find the pin. Until she was stopped by someone who said not to use the extinguisher as the fire is small and would be contained by itself.
- Seriously. The friend who didn't know how to use the extinguisher was too funny. He ended up becoming the joke of the night!

Another hillarious thing that happened:
1) There was a 2nd lion dance after 12, unrelated to the aforementioned troup that had their butts molested.
2) Lion goes into the temple and dances inside the main hall area.
3) Meanwhile, all volunteers gathers at the rendezvous area, taking pictures.
4) While getting ready for a group pic, lion suddenly comes out of no where, blocking the camera.
- Rei's inner voice: Those cam-whores! XD
5) *Lion suddenly approaches Rei* *Rei steps back* *Lion continues charging towards Rei and pushes her back* *Rei starts to get a bit panicky and shuffles towards the back, making some weird noises in the process* *Lion finally gives up*
XDDDDDDDDD

That was definitely one heck of a CNY celebration that I would never ever forget! XD