Continued from part 1, I am going to show you more pictures of the parade.

There were 3 or more Gods from different Chinese temple joined the parade.  One of them was on a lorry, the other two were carried by some strong men.

There are Gods that like to run and there are also Gods that walk normally.  This time, we did not see the God that runs in high speed.  But we did see it many times in previous parades.  Is it because of the rain and the roads were wet?

A few men (usually 4) who carried the sedan chair of a God must had to synchronized they steps while running.  Sometimes, they would reverse a few steps back so that they have space to run.  The believer said that the God was actually running by itself and pushing the carriers to run too.

They played a drum while the Gods were on the street.  When they were walking, the sound of the drum was “Dong…. Dong Dong Dong” (one sound then stop and a few sounds).  When they were running, the drum player would play the fast beat “Dong Dong Dong Dong Dong Dong …………………………”

One of the Gods have a roofed sedan chair.

The other main attractions were the decorated vehicles.  They were from different organizations who participated in the parade, and some of them had performance on their stages on the trucks.

A lorry in red decorated with red lantern.

Girls dancing on a lorry.

She was looking at my camera.  :)

A decorated lorry by a local dancing group.

As you can see the decorated vehicles were coming non stop, they did move slowly and stopped sometimes.  While they were stopping, it was the best time to press the shutter release button on my camera.

After finished watching,  there were many cars on the roads and caused traffic jam.  We got into our car and stopped at the other location to watch the same parade from far away.  It was raining heavily, but luckily we were not hit by even a drop of rain.  We parked the car beside the road at Padang Merdeka (Kuching), and we saw a big building far away.  - the DUN.

We did not wait until the parade finished, but I took a left turn - (a big round) to go home.  It was still raining at that time.

As I told you before, there are quite a number of parades in Kuching every year.  There was even a parade last Christmas from churches in Kuching.

This time, it was the annually parade of a Taoism god called “Xuan Tian Shang Di” (in Chinese), which means Mysterious Heavenly Upper Emperor.  Every year, this parade takes place on the evening of the 4th day of the 12th month in Chinese Calendar no matter it is raining or not.

It was on last Monday (18 Jan 2010), SiewPeng and I went to watch this parade right after SiewPeng got off from her work at about 8pm.   It was raining but stopped and rained again.  Luckily we found a parking space in a short time, and it was not raining when we stepped out of our car until we got back into our car.

Lion dances and dragon performances are the most typical programs that can be seen in a Chinese temple parade (excluding Wesak day parade).  Sometimes they also perform dangerous actions such as jumping from one high pole to the other.  Further more, the lorries that were carrying them were always moving.

This is another lorry for lion dance performance.

The rain was unpredictable, it was not heavily pouring, but it kept on coming and stopping.  One of the dragons had its head covered by transparent plastic.  Some of the dragons have electrical circuit inside to light up the light on the dragon’s body, that was why they needed to protect it.

Lion dance always come with chimes and drum to guide the steps of the lion.

This is the lion dance drum player.  Look at their hands.

Another dragon, and as you can see, the ball is usually the guide for the dragon to follow.

There was a dragon resting on a truck.

We stood opposite a colourful building.  And there is a corner not far from us.  There were not many people there, mainly because it was raining which reduced the size of the crowd.

These pretty girls with braided hair, Chinese costume and candle lights looked similar to the one I saw last year but I am not sure if they were the same group?  I do not have a strong flash light on my camera.  It was always too dark when I took their photos.  I hope they can improve their lighting by installing a spot light or something on a vehicle in front of them like other teams.  It would be easier for me to take a better picture of them.  :P

There were many pairs of people, 2 in each group, carrying a long stick with a piece of cloth hung on the stick.  Good wishes such as peace, prosperity, “FengTiaoYuShun” (directly translated as “controlled wind and smooth rain” which means good weather), were written on the decorated cloths.

A school band also joined the parade.

Do you know what they are doing?

They are the believers of their God, who were following behind the 3 big incense sticks.  Their god statue was behind them.  Some of the leader were hitting the Chinese gong.

To be continued … … (I still have a few photos of decorated vehicles to show you.)

I tried it once when I was younger and it didn’t work.  And yesterday I tried it again, with a different method, it worked! :D  Alright…what am I talking about here?  Well, have you ever called in to a radio station and request for your favourite song or deliver a message to your loved ones through the song request?

Yesterday, I made a song request through the Internet and had our favourite song broadcast on an FM channel.  I still remember when I was much younger, I tried once.  Back then, it was using phone calls and the line was usually engaged.  They say those staying nearer to the radio station stand bigger chances of getting their calls answered.  I didn’t give up easily and tried for quite some time but still can’t get through so finally I decided to stop.  I still remember those who got their calls answered were so excited, and followed by a series of echo sound because they did not turn of their radios.  They requested their favourite song and dedicate it to their loved ones with messages and wishes.  I think song dedication is not as popular as before nowadays.

It was such a great surprise because I have never thought that I will have second chance to do it again.  It was a coincidence whereby I saw one of my colleagues on Facebook yesterday.  She also works as a DJ and it happened that I saw someone else requested a song so I just gave it a try a asked if I could too.  She said yes and after I told her the title, she immediately said it would be up right after that song.  We were so excited about it! :D  And what was more thrilling was she announced my name on air too! :D  Thanks to my colleague who has made our day!  Colin took the photo of our mini radio after the segment finished.

Give your loved ones a surprise today!  Make their day a special one!  Have a good day everyone!

He was shooting video at me!!!  Was I on the TV live broadcast?

He is the official videographer from RTM for Malaysia Day event.  He looked serious while he put all of his concentration in taking the video.  Occasionally, after he finished shooting someone, he paused his recording, nodded his head and smiled to the person he was shooting at.

Look carefully, he was also having a red 1Malaysia cap on his head.

Another Video camera from RTM (Radio Television Malaysia) which they put at one of the corners on the stage.

He always took video at a very close distance.  I guess that his video camera has a wide angle lense on it.

He was right in front of the performers on the stage, and he walked in between them even there was only a limited space.  His distance with what he was shooting could be as close as 1 meter only.

Besides, I also found that there were a lot of news reporters gathered in front of the VIP area taking the photos of the most important moments.

There is a idiom in Chinese says that, “Tang2Lang2Bu3Chan2, Huang2Que4Zai4Hou4.”

The meaning of this idiom is:-
     TangLang -  praying mantis
     Bu - is catching
     Chan- cicada (a type of noisy insect)

     HuangQue - canary (a type of yellow bird)
     ZaiHou - at behind.

The whole sentense means that the praying mantis is catching a cicada but it is unawared that a canary is trying to catch it from behind as well.

 The photograpers from the media were taking the photos of the VIPs, and I was taking the photos of them. And they might have not noticed me at all.

Yes, I like to take the photos of another photographer while he / she is talking photos.

Some of their tripods are taller than themselves.  I wonder how they were going to look at the viewfinder and press the shutter release button.  They must have used a remote control.

Again, this is my first time getting so near to a big group of media, and watching them doing their jobs.  The flash lights were flashing non-stop during the important moments which the pictures would have been published in their newspaper on the following days.

For VIPs, I believe they have trained their eyes to get used to flash lights.

Look carefully at the photo above, there is a video camera on a crane.  It can move freely in the sky.  It must be the video camera from the TV station.

The media was behind us, and I have to turn my head back to take their photos.

The college students have joined the media to take photos and videos.  I think they will use it for their school work.

I did not join.  First, I did not have a permit to do so.  I noticed that the staffs from media had a tag on their necks to identify themselves as a media from a news agent.  Second, I did not want to join the crowd among the media.  They might have to fight for a good and strategic location to be able to view the best scene.  Most importantly, I wanted to take the photos of the media while they were busy doing their work.  Muahaha haha… …  I might have taken more photos than anyone of them excluding the photos of the VIPs, which I am not interested.  :p

Besides the cultural dances from Sabah, Sarawak and Peninsular Malaysia, there were also youngsters in white, blue, red and yellow performing on the stage as a welcome to the VIPs and as the “background” for the singers :p.  They were also busy in between the programmes of the night where they appeared after a programme ended and before the next programme started.  They were also lined up to welcome the VIPs going up the stage for delivering their speeches.

Can I call them cheerleaders?  They looked similar to cheerleaders.

Watch the video above, they have different types of actions.

Remember I told you that we have a long wait before the VIP arrived?  This group of active youngsters were also waiting on the stages.   Before the ceremony started, they were bored.  Some of them took out their mobile phone and started texting, some of them were talking to their friends and laughing, some kept on looking here and there.

They were waiting, and we were waiting too.  Was this girl looking at my camera? Smile!

Waiting.

Still waiting.

They stood up and got ready, the VIP was coming.

They started performing.

They had different types of actions.

I noticed that they were divided into groups, some of them always had to look at the person in front and follow the action.  Sometimes they were slower by half a second before they can follow the action of the person in front.  May be they had limited time for the rehearsal, however they still performed well.

Males on the left sides of the stages.  I guess the man in the red shirt was their leader.  The rest of them always turned their heads and followed his actions.

The flag team was ready to go up the stage.

Our Malaysia flag’s colours:- yellow, white, red, blue.

Sometimes, they went up the stages while the singers were singing.  And they became the background for the singers.

They may not be 100% perfect, but I could see that they had put in a lot of effort, especially as a large group of people.  It was not easy to synchronize everybody’s steps and actions, unless they have trained for at least months.  Good teamwork!