Owen Residents Committee 奥云居委会

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Rainforest Kidzworld

A pictorial insight of Rainforest Kidzworld inside Singapore Zoo.

Duan Wu Jie (端午節) is also related to the Dragon Boat event and is a widely celebrated festival amongst the Chinese, to pay respect to the patriotic poet, Qu Yuan Qu Yuan (340-278 BC) (pronounced as Chue Yuan). Qu Yuan was an important minister back in Chu Kingdom in ancient China. He had been known for his loyalty for the emperor of Chu, and loved his country greatly. However, The emperor had not taken Qu Yuan's advice seriously, and he eventually got himself trapped and captured in a foreign land by his enemies, which then lead to his own death. Qu Yuan tied himself to a big rock and threw himself into the River of Puo Luo. The people then made rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves and threw them into the river. They believed this would stop the fish from eating Qu Yuan's body. Some would even row down stream in a boat, beating drums and shouting out loud in the hope to scare the fish away , this is how the Dragon Boat event comes into place. This incident happened on the 5th day of the 5th month in the Chinese lunar calendar thus this date has been set as Duan Wu Festival to remember the incident.

The rice dumplings (ZongZi) are glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, or other large leaves (lotus is one of the more commonly used leaves). You can find all sorts of different fillings in the rice: pork, roast pork, chestnut, egg, salted egg, mushroom, red bean, or just simply without filling. They could be just white rice dumpling (not pre-fried), or brown (pre-fried with soya sauce).

Community centres and RCs also celebrating these festival in various ways: organising outing to view dragon boat racing at reservoirs and Singapore river, some even organise classes to teach participants how to wrap and make rice dumplings. Owen RC have organised the'hand-on' rice dumpling making - ''on-the-job'' training concept.

Nowadays, you can buy Zongzi almost everyday of the year, in restaurants or hawker stalls in Singapore, not need to wait for the festive season to taste these rice dumplings.

Today the Dragon Boat Festival has evolved into a respected international sport. In Singapore, the festival is a noted tourist event and competitors from the Asian region and throughout the world participate in the annual race. Tied to the event are fundraising and community work, following in the same vein of patriot Qu Yuan who contributed his life as a sacrifice for his country.

"Saying No, your Choice" at Senior Activity Centre - CHTSAC

"Saying NO, your Choice" - a 'survival' skills set for our seniors" - a talk in Mandarin at Chong Hwa Tong Senior Activity Centre by Ms Hiew Woie Ling from Tsao Foundation's Hua Mei Training Academy on Saturday - 25 April 2009. It was a very informative talk enlightening our seniors to be cautious of some of the well-known tricks or gimmicks used by the sales peoples or impersonated government officers seeking entry into their premises with no good intention.

This talk also high lighted several incidents of strangers seeking for assistance and our good samaritan seniors ended up parting his hard-earned wealth to these strangers.

All the presentation slides in photo-form are in chinese, please click onto the photograph to view more information (160 photos).

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Danga City Mall - Johor Bahru

The press have been given too much publicity of this "infamous" Mall and I thought it is worthwhile to pay this Mall a visit. So yesterday, 22 March 2009 I took that train from Tanjong Pagar to Danga City Mall. Fare was S$5.00, so called Superior Class ticket with 'free seating'. Free Seating means that you can seat at any place you like provided that the seat you are seating is not assigned to long-distance travellers. Rather embarrass as I have to shift seats a couple of time and even change to another cabin due to the seat I seated is being reserved. So before embarking the train better check with Station-Master which cabins are UNRESERVED.

As for the immigration issue, it is a bit of inconvenient. The Malaysian Immigration officers at Tanjong Pagar Station will ONLY endorse your entry by stamping the date with "KTM Tanjong Pagar" on the "WHITE Card". At the Woodland ICA Check Point all passengers have to alight and does the normal Immigration clearing procedures, and the train need to be checked and cleared by Immigration Officers. It takes another 20 to 30 minutes before all passengers are allowed to board the train to continue the journey to Johore Bahru. At that time the train was only 20 percent occupied, else the waiting time would be prolonged.

The train stopped again at the Johore Bahru Train Station for another 10 minutes to pick up passengers before proceed to its journey. A short distance away from JB Station the train stopped again and I thought this time was due to 'technical reasons' never realised that I had already reached Danga City Mall. There is no announcement and no visible signage at the platform. Lucky I asked and get down fast else I will end up in an unexpected trip to KL..........

Too much hassle by taking train so decided to came back by bus through Johor Immigration check point.

At the Immigration counter the 'young' Immigration Officer refused to stamp-out for me and keep questioning why my passport was not stamped and portion of the "WHITE Card" not submitted during my entry into Malaysia. The delayed had caused a long queue behind me, making me look like a 'target man'. Finally his superior came and explained to him and get my passport stamped.

I am sharing this experience to 1st-timer fellow citizens wanting to visit this Danga City Mall by train, to be more aware of these immigration matters and train ticket issues.

Click onto the below Photos Link icon to view more pictures of this Danga City Mall.

Tan CS