Chingay Parade

So upon returning from India I didn[t waste any times getting back into the swing of things in Singapore. My first night back I went to the 2012 Chingay Parade. This parade signifies the celebration of the Chinese deities and in Singapore a major festivity of the Chinese New Year.

The Parade symbolizes the end of the 14 days period after the beginning of Chinese New year in which you can welcome change back into your life. So much of the preparation for the Chinese New year is getting rid of the old and preparing the prosperity and fortunes the New Year is to bring. 

 (There were some balloon floating around, dipping and diving into the crowds)

 Once the New year is rang in, it is considered bad luck to make any changes, even something as simple as getting a haircut could be considered bad luck because its deemed a change. It's only after these first 14 days that you can start to welcome and embrace change, which will lead to your good fortune. The celebration of this 14 day period coming to an end is known as Chingay.

(Below is about 200 people carrying blue and red tubs, and to all of our surprise, when the lights turned off the tubs lit up and as they ran around into place they formed two long dragons)

The parade was quite immense and elaborate, and also very long. I would compare it to the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade except with lots of Dragon themed costumes (year of the Dragon), dance performances and acrobatics, instead of large balloons...and of course it's tropical weather not freezing cold :-D

Below was a chain of men forming a dragon, there were easily 30 people making up this dragon.

 There was float after float, and all different cultural representation of what Chingay means to them.

 These were dragon's made of balloons, followed by the different Chinese calendar animals.  I think I'm a rat.  If you look closely you can see that they flooded the street.  Many of the acts involved water theatrics, using thir costume to splash water around gracefully and in sync. 

 "We are one" is the motto of the parade, as demonstrated one of the last floats to pass.

 The lighting caused an extra dramatic effect as well. It was definitely something to behold, but I will say it got quite long after a while. It was several hours longs and obviously some dances and acts were more entertaining then others. If you're ever in Singapore for this Parade I would definitely recommend going if for nothing else but the experience of a traditional Chinese New Year Event. I must also say, the fireworks at the end were quite amazing. If nothing else I will hopefully manage to make it next year for the fireworks, you know me, always a sucker for fireworks.