Can you smell it in the air? This year in Singapore, the Hungry Ghost month begins on 4 August. For a entire lunar month, practitioners of Chinese folk religion or Shenism will burn gigantic sticks of incense, joss paper, and offerings to the dead, sparking the perenial complaints of air pollution by the public and admonitions for multiculturalist tolerance by political leaders. As for more pleasant sights and sounds, visitors to Singapore can look forward to pentatonic Chinese wayangs and racuous charity auctions in the heartlands, organised by temples, clan associations, and neighbourhood business associations.
No wonder then that the Qixi festival has been recently revived by state fiat? And hence, the Straits Times report on Singapore's revival of the Qixi festival, with the newspaper's usual nation-building focus. But wait, there's something wrong in the ST story: a lengthly digression featuring a president of a Chinese association that isn't even an organiser or partner of this year's festival, but is a mere participant, among a field of scores of clan associations? It's as if the Straits Times is dog whistling to readers who have been trained over decades to read between the lines of SPH journalese: Pay attention to Wang Quancheng of the Hua Yuan Association! Don't you want to find out more about him?
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"William Tell and The Apple-shoot woodcut", from the printed edition Of Jakob Ruff's version Of The Canton Of Uri folk play "Von Dem Frommen Und Ersten Eydgnossen Wilhelm Thellen", acted by the townspeople Of Zurich, Switzerland, on New Year's Day, 1545. |
