One of the sentences that touched me the most was, “When parents are 100 years old, they will still worry and care about their children who are already 8o years old.”

While everyone was entertained by the sign language performance, we have learned something valuable in our lives.

Another important message from this stage drama, “we should not wait to be nice to our parents.”  A famous Chinese proverb said that - “The tree want to stop moving but the wind is not still, and a child want to care about the parents but they have gone.”  So, do not wait.

If you are a parent, I am sure you know the feeling when your son or daughter are studying, working or having a life abroad.

One of the most interesting part in the show was, there was a story about a lady who helped her son to take his bag, but her son always rejected her, and the lady was very sad.

Then one day, the son came back and found that his mother was not there anymore.

He screamed… …

He cried over the rocking chair, but everything was too late.  He has lost the chance to show his love to his mother.  How sad…  Do not  let this happen in your life.

Another story told that the parents will feel sad when the children have done something wrong.  I have learned that I should not do something which is not supposed to be done and it will hurt my parents.

If you missed this stage performance, do not miss it next time.  I am sure you will learn or revise many good values in life at the same time enjoy watching the beautiful music, dance and sign language performance.  I hope that they can have the stage drama in other languages as well besides Chinese.

It really touched many people’s hearts.  They ended the stage show with all the performers got up to the stage.  From their brochures, I know that they have about 120 people joined this event as the performers and volunteers.  It was really amazing.

The stage drama was started with the picture of a grateful lamb.  Do you know that the lamb kneel down when it drinks milk from its mother?  Even a lamb knows what filial is, how about us?  Another animal that represent filial is the bird, I have heard some stories saying that the birds will feed their mother when their mother gets old.

This stage drama is all about the value of “filial“.  It is the most important moral value taught by traditional Chinese teaching since thousands of years ago.

The drama began with how the mother suffers when she starts having a baby.  From the slides shown, it presented that “The suffering is merely the beginning.”

If I am not mistaken, this mother and daughter was reading “The Sutra of Filial Piety” (or translated directly from Chinese - The Deep Kindness of Parents & Difficulty in Repaying It).

You can read the English version of The Sutra of Filial Piety here.

There are 10 kindness that we owe our parents.

1.  Kindness of providing protection and care while the child is in the womb.

2.  Kindness of bearing suffering during the birth.

3.  Kindness of forgetting all the pain once the child has been born.

4.  Kindness of eating the bitter herself and saving the sweet for the child.

5.  Kindness of moving the child to a dry place and lying in the wet herself.

6.  Kindness of suckling the child at her breast, nourishing and bringing up the child.

7.  Kindness of washing away the unclean.

8.  Kindness of always thinking of the child when it has traveled far.

9.  Kindness of deep care and devotion.

10.  Kindness of ultimate pity and sympathy.

The member from TzuChi Kuching performed this meaningful drama using beautiful sign language.  They moved their hands all the time following the music and their actions are well synchronized.

Thanks to TzuChi, and I would like to share this great performance with those who missed it, and hopefully TzuChi can organize more stage drama on good values.

To be continued … …

ps:  One thing I like about the events was they did not invite some politicians or government ministers to give speech which is usually boring and time wasting, they started the evening session right away with a meaningful speech from a leader of TzuChi (an author of a book as well) with a meaningful and inspirational speech.

We went to the BCCK (Borneo Convention Center Kuching) for the first time last night because we were attracted by the Sign Language Musical Stage Drama organized by TzuChi Kuching (a Buddhist Organization).

Now is the 7th month in Chinese Calendar, many Chinese thought it is  a ghost month but actually it is a month of filial (XiaoShun in Chinese, which means love and respect to parents) according to Buddhism.

It is a good time to perform the stage drama with the story based on The Sutra of Filial Piety.  They have put in a lot of efforts to make this performance a success.  The songs and the music were very nice, the sign language performance was amazing.

Most importantly the content of the Sutra of Filial Piety touched everyone’s heart, it let us know how our parents has taken care of us since we were in our mother’s womb, and explained that the relationship between parents and children.

Before the performance started, we took photos around, because they have set up some decorations, exhibitions and stalls selling books and CDs/DVDs outside the hall.

We also talked to a member of TzhChi to learn more about this event and their organization, and she gave us some souvenirs.

This is how the Borneo Convention Center Kuching looks like from inside the building.

We saw a news reporting scene.  It might be live-broadcasted on TzuChi satellite TV from Taiwan which called “Da Ai” channel.

Right before the performance started, we could see a beautiful sunset outside the building.  I took the photo before we went into the hall.

I have just created a midi which is the song that has been hiding in my mind for years. I need help from you if you know the title and singer of this song.

If I am not mistaken, I heard this song from radio broadcast between 1988+ to 1990+. It might be a popular song at that time. I only remember the melody and incomplete pieces of its lyrics. I have searched on the net using incomplete lyric but did not find any results that refer to this song.

Well, click on the play button below to listen first and I am going to let you know more clues which I have used in google for searching.

The voice of the singer is similar to a singer called “ZhengZhiHua” but I did not find the broken pieces of the lyric in any of his songs which contain the important keywords:-

1. Yuan1Yang1 (in Chinese). - which means mandarin duck.
2. Xian4Mu4 (in Chinese) - which means “envying”.
3. Zi4You2Zi4Zai4 (in Chinese) - which means “freedom”.

Part of the chorus keeps on repeating “WoHaoXianMuTa … XianMuTa” which means I envy him…. envy him“.

I really hope that I can listen to this song again, but I do not even know the song’s title and singer, how do I tell the DJ at the radio station to play this song or even tell the search engine which song I am looking for?

Here are a few pictures of the decorated vehicles which were left out in the previous posts.  The picture above shows a decorated vehicle having a jade Buddha statue in a sitting position and a lying side way Buddha statue in front of it.

The less decorations on this vehicle makes it a bit more different compared to the other ones which are fully decorated for the purpose of the parade.  This one also had Buddha statues on it but smaller in size.  However, the little colourful lanterns added light and specialty to it.

This one has Chinese words stated on its decorated vehicles.  They proposed peace and harmony.  Like us.

They put a globe with lotuses and lotus flowers on the vehicle together with a cartoon characterized boy in traditional Malay costume and a girl in one of the traditional Dayak costumes.

I think the globe could rotate because from this angle, we can see another cartoon characterized girl in traditional Chinese costume.

Another creative decorated vehicle.

Take a look at the crowd! :O

There were also a lot of people opposite the road.

We shifted our position to another road that the parade was going to pass through that night.  There were less people but everyone was anticipating patiently.

This little girl sat on his dad’s shoulder to get a better view of the parade.

It was time to stop in order to ease the traffic jam.  Most walking teams took the opportunity to rest and have a drink.  Some checked their lines to make sure it was still in proper positions.  Some checked through their lanterns to see if extra lantern was needed or lighting was necessary to the candles due to being put out by the wind as they were walking.  Then, the police gave the signals that they could keep going.

As a result of the hot weather, this parade has produced a container of mineral water bottles.

We are not sure if they were going to recycle these bottles.

This is the last posts on Wesak Parade 2010, Kuching.  The following are the previous related posts.

1.  Happy Wesak Day 2010.
2.  Wesak Day Parade 2010, Kuching.
3.  Part 2 - Decorated Car.
4.  Part 3 - Panning Photography.
5.  Part4 - Walking Team.
6.  Part 5 - The Crowd (this post).