星州百姓庆己丑 - celebrating the year of the ox with the lao baixing – the connection hence

这个新年待在狮城 过牛年，和往年不同而又过得特别的不一样。虽然人在星州，但好像是在中国过年似的。自所以说好像在中国过年似的是因为初一初二在牛车水一带所遇到的都是来自中国的男女士们。本岛的华人从年三十除夕在牛车水办好年货后都躲在家里或到亲属朋友们家拜年去了。

牛车水就交给了- 有朋从远方而来的中国百姓们， 亲也，乐也!

The Lunar New Year period holidays were spent in Chinatown – together with the mainlanders – baixing - 百姓. They are the common folks who are here as foreign labors, students, and without a better place to hang out, they gathered in Chinatown – to be with their own kind and to seep in whatever air of festivities that the sights and sounds the Chinatown could bring them.

With the local eateries all closed for two consecutive days, the only place that one could have lunch and dinner was at the restaurants run by the Chinese – that is the Chinese Chinese.

Well to differentiate the Chinese Chinese from the Singaporean Chinese, let’s refer to them as the Chinese from the mainland or the Mainlanders for short (this reference here is purely for ethnic identity, and with respect).

The fellow ethnic Chinese from China mainland are by and large different from the local Singaporean Chinese. Different – is because this wave of immigration of the 21st century is from the Northern and interior provinces of China, while the early immigrants of our forefather’s time were from the South-easterly costal regions and the island of Hainan.

The overhead bridge garden was a convenient and busy gathering point for the migrant workers who had a long holiday break. I had a chance to join in and listen to the conversation that this local old man had on the evening of the First Day of the Year of Jichou - 己丑年 - with the three fellow Mainlanders.

The local old man – let’s refer to him as Ah Pek –阿伯- uncle in Hokkien - is in his sixties, and probably a resident of Ngau Chiar Shui - 牛车水- Chinatown in Cantonese - all his life. His teeth are almost gone. He did not cut his hair for the New Year, perhaps he has not much left, and is the typical kopitiam - coffee joint ala carte local flavor - Ah Pek.

Together with him were two other local Singaporean Chinese, but because they could not speak Mandarin, this Ah Pek was the live wire, interpreter and spokesman for the mini New Gathering of the baixing –百姓- the hundred surnames – meaning the common folks.

What was interesting of this conversation was that – this Ah Pek is perhaps typical of the older generation of Chinese educated Singaporean Chinese, who still has a feel and connection with the fellow Mainlanders – verbally and culturally. A passing breed –

He introduced to the fellow Mainlanders that he is by dialect group Cantonese, while his two other fellow local Singaporean is Hokkien, and Teochew. He spoke in a mix of Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and English. Whatever his two other fellow Singaporeans who could not connect with the Mainlanders in English, he helped them interpret to Mandarin.

He asked which part of China the Mainlanders were from and they replied – Henan – 河南省and Hunan 湖南. When he heard Henan – he immediately mentioned – Justice Bao – and sang and an aria from the popular TV drama series – Bao Qing Tian – 包青天-the incorruptible judge of the Song Dynasty – 宋朝 - 960 – 1279CE. And said the song Justice Bao is popular among the common folks here. Well, the cultural connection!

On Hunan, he mentioned Mao Zedong – 毛泽东- and Zhu Rongji - 朱镕基. Perhaps because it the Lunar New Year and with all its custom, beliefs and traditions, he proudly mentioned that Mao advocated atheism – wusen lun – 无神论- and demonstrated courage and break away with traditions. He mentioned that without Mao’s foundation, there would not be China today. You see, the depth and interest he knew of China !

Interestingly, he mentioned that previously the government was suspicious of Chinese education, and he was indignant about it. At the sideline listening, I was wondering how much the Mainlanders could relate to this episode of the local history where the Chinese schools in Singapore and the Malay Peninsula then, from the 1950/s to the 1970/s, were the hot spot of communist infiltrators.

On Zhu Rongji, Ah Pek spoke with respect and deference, and said that the former Premier Zhu had never allowed his children to be in politics - whether it is a fact or not. Well, …

He also jokingly related the difference between Cantonese - 粤语 - yueyu - and Mandarin –which he refers to as Guoyu - 国语 the National Language – that is – Mandarin or Putonghua – 普通话- which Taiwan -the Republic of China - still uses. He mentioned that in Mandarin, one would greet each other as - Ni hao ma or Hao bu Hao?– 你好吗? or 好不好? - in Cantonese he said that it would be disrespectful to use Ni hao ma - especially to female for cos in Cantonese - hao bu hao 好不好- means – are you sexy or not! In Cantonese hao means - sexy! Here, the ethnic connection!

Well, so much for the all the Bull… shit, it's time to leave for dinner!

It’s to North-Eastern China – Dong Bei Restaurant- 东北菜馆– at Mosque Street - for a treat of jiao zhi - 饺子- meat dumpling – a must have tradition in the Northern Provinces of China – regions north of the Yangzi River - 扬子江。

After dinner, it was off to the nearby LianZhong Wangba - 联众网吧- internet café to enjoy the recording of the – Spring Festival Year End Gala - Chunjie Lianhuan Wanhui – 春节联欢晚会。

A hundred years hence, 2109 - perhaps, it will be left to the descendants of these Mainlanders to make the connect with the Mainland…


Postscript -

1. Baixing – 百姓

Usually use with the adjective lao – 老 – Lao Baixing – 老百姓 - an intimate term – to mean the common folks.

President Hu and Premier Wen spent their New Year with the Lao Baixing in Jingangshang – 井冈山- the cradle of Chinese Communism, and the Wenchuan – 汶川- the epicenter of the Sichaun earthquake, respectively.


2. 己丑年 – Year of Yichou

The naming of the year using the Ten Heavenly Stems – 天干- tian gan - and the Twelve Earthly Branches – 地支 - dizhi - began more than 3000 years ago – with a cycle of 60years - is much older in origin than the 12 Chinese Zodiac cycle – 十二生肖。


3. 春节联欢晚会 - The Spring Festival Year End Gala

The Year End Gala Performance by CCTV broadcast on the eve of Lunar New Year - into it’s 28 odd years started with China opening up in 1978 - is a must see for the Chinese. It is as much a New Year traditional to the Chinese, as to the Japanese watching the - Red & White Song Festival - 红白歌合战大会 - broadcast by NHK on 31Dec, each year.




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where have all the tea leaves gone? a tale of the likes of - 牛车水- ngau chair sooi - in transition

It faded quietly into history. Unlike the 7 Storey Hotel at Rochor or the National Stadium – its passing was without any fanfare. As it was not reported in the newspaper, there was no shutter bugs buzz snapping a lasting shot for memory.

In it’s making over; the shophouse has kept its architecture very much intact. The new color tone of pastel purple, with the front painted light beige and the multi-colored frame on the upper floor patio gave it a pleasant refreshing look. Surprisingly or surprisingly not it has kept the motifs of the Chinese characters on the shop pillars. And for someone who does not read these characters, they might have thought that the characters are a part of the deco of the art gallery.

The boldly formed characters reads - 广珍茶庄 – Guangzhen Chazhuang - or - Gwongzhen Chazhong – (Cantonese) - meaning - Gwongzhen Tea Manor. Its former self was a shop trading in Chinese tea. It was one of the last of the - 老店铺 – lao dianpu – old shop houses along Smith Street, that had keep its original trade selling various varieties of tea from China. I believe, the dim sum restaurants- 点心茶楼 - or the bak kut teh - 肉骨茶 - in the vicinity of Chinatown would have gotten their daily tea supply from this shop.

Though painted over with a coat of emulsion the Chinese characters on the pillars are still very much visible. The Tembusu Art Gallery which took over the shop had perhaps thought that the characters have some artistic touch and had decided to retain them. However, there no longer is the fragrance of tea wharfing from the new old shop house though there are traces of tea lingering on its shop front.

About the Chinatown you can find this phenomenon repeated in the renovated shophouses - a modern establishments retaining an element or two of the old Chinese characters, which is an anachronistic miss-fit.

The new business that took over the shophouse had perhaps thought these Chinese words still look pretty and bold. It would not be too jarring to their trade, and had kept them there - feng shui or no feng shui – 风水 – even if it renders their name incorrectly. They exude a character – so to say – that the modern signage hardly could match.

It’s perhaps a reflection of the cityscape in transition - a reluctance to discard the traditional in total, but keeping elements of them but albeit in a masked mode. For these are the finger prints that have a distinguishingly unique local flavor in all that is modern and global.

Though the shophouses in the Chinatown area are preserved, however something seemed amiss. Perhaps that was what Kit Chan, the Singapore singing sensation, meant in her recently National Day interview, she quoted- that she could no longer recognized the Chinatown that she grew up in – the Chinatown of the 1970s and 80’s. Perhaps, she still could, the physical buildings are still much intact in form, however much of the soul is gone.

I came to Singapore in the closing year of the 1980’s and had a chance of to catch a glimpse the tail end of it’s past – the past that Kit grew up in. There was still the old Tai Dong dim sum restaurant along Pagoda Street – 大东海记。 It opened for business at 6am in the morning. Many a Sundays, I would jog from Geyland-Guillamard Road starting off at 5am, and be there as one of the earliest customers for the weekend morning treat.

After breakfast the bill would be settled in Cantonese. For a plate of dim sum costing $2.70 the attendant, already way past his prime, would called it out as – 两两礼拜 – liongliong leibai - literary meaning – two taels & a Sunday. It reflected a facade of the ingenuity of the Cantonese dialect with an entrepreneurial flowery pitch. For Sunday is equivalent to a seven. That was the way that they counted it out in the dim sum restaurants in Ipoh, KL and even in Hong Kong, too.

Alas, though they have cloned the Tai Dong Restaurant along the junction of Smith and Trengganu Streets – Da Dong Restaurant – in Mandarin - was no longer its former self – unpretentious, and for the locals. It has pretty lost much of this - Ngau Chair Sooi - touch and transformed into another Chinatown restaurant. The staff members are young pretty lass from China who speak in Mandarin. Weekend biz starts from 11am and as with much that is main street Chinatown, it’s targeted at the tourists. Well, and nobody wears wooden clogs anymore!

Well the likes of Gwonzhen tea manor along Smith Street are gone for good. Others have morphed into the pretty tea joints – offering a cool and comfortable place to sip Chinese tea in a hot Sunday noon. Their - lao dianpu – - 老店铺- old shophouses – will no longer be there , though their – lao zhihao - 老字号 – their old trade names – may continue business in modern convenience, without characters.


Postscript:

1. Shitamachi – したまち　－downtown

So much for downtown Singapore, how is downtown Tokyo –the shitatmachi district of Ueno-Asakusa －上野―浅草.

Well – along the streets of Ueno, Asakusa- you can hear the voices of children. You can see old ladies sweeping the streets. Old trades are thriving and there is a daily life 24/7.

This photograph was taken in downtown Tokyo in the Ueno area. It is an old shop cum office and residence engaged in the traditional construction business. It is next to a modern apartment building, but the old trade has continued to stay – a refection of old Tokyo of the Edo Era.　－江戸 。

As for Singapore – Chinatown – along the streets of Duxton and Ang Siang Hills one could hardly find a sign of life after the last of the pub closes at the wee hours or the night. There was still the shop that sold wooden clogs many years back – but it was mainly kept for the tourist, I thought then. However that was gone too, for you cannot just survive by tourist alone.

2。 老字号 – lao zhihao

Though they may no longer occupy their original the lao dianpu - 老店铺– the original old shophouse –many of the lao zhi hao - the established brand with a good old tradition and tale behind it - continue to prosper in Ngau Chair sooi - the Chinatown.

Some of the lao zhihao -老字号 - ( pronunciation rendered in Cantonese) :

白花油 – bak fa yau - traditional Chinese medical ointment – a must stop shop for tourist from Hong Kong
大中国 – dai zungguo - traditional Chinese pastries - with the hot selling moon cake in the signature paper bag come each Mid-Autumn festival
林志源– lam zhiyuen- Dried meat – when you see snake of long queue outside the shop, you know that Chinese New Year is round the corner.
东兴饼家 – dong heng bang-ga – Tong Heng pastry shop – a must for ordering traditional wedding cakes to sent to one’s bridge.

These are the brands that maketh the place and help to render it a continuing soul -

3. Photograph

Gwongzhen Chazhong – 05September 2002 - Smith Street

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no, that at south bridge road is not a kabuki-za

This picture was taken on Saturday night 19May, 8:45pm , on the night of street light up.

This building, located at the junction of South Bridge Road and Sago Lane - the BTRT S– 佛牙寺龙华院 - will soon adorn the tourist brochures of the Singapore for the master said -that you have not been to Singapore if you had not visited this place.

Well, to a Japanese tourist, his or her first impression could be – is it a Kabuki-Za? For its unique traditional architecture & location, smack in the city center, will bring to mind a Kabuki-Za (歌舞伎座) or a kabuki theatre. In Tokyo, the Kabuki-Za is located not too far from the Ginza shopping mall, at the Tukiji district (the better known tourist site in Tsukiji is the wholesale fish market – the biggest in the world), while in Kyoto it is the Minami-Za Kabuki theatre.

And for the local couple that was standing beside me on that night of the lighting up ceremony I over heard the husband saying to the wife – How ingenious the Japanese are in their architectural design. Look at the intricately style wooded beams. Indeed it looks very ‘Japanese’ for that. If one has seen the Heian Shrine （平安宫）in Kyoto （京都） or some of the ostentatiously painted crimson torii gates, it looks uncannily Japanese in style and color scheme.

Well, to be an easily recognizable tourist attraction, it boards well to be visually unique, and vibrant in color and style.

It brings to mind another temple and tourist site - the Chi Nin Nunnery （慈宁庵） in Hong Kong. Located at Diamond Hill, it too adopted the Tang architectural style - with the horse mane roof as a trademark of that era. The color scheme of this temple complex is much more subdue, and reflective perhaps of original Tang color.

For temples, and a Buddhist one at that, one would have it that it takes a more subdue and less glaring color scheme, that would be more soothing to the mind and less evoking to the senses. The red and crimson would have been left to the palaces of the emperors,

However, this building is more than a temple, it is also a masterpiece of Chinese Tang architecture, albeit with a fusion of temple and palace traditions – with the bodhisattvas inter-mixing with the flying dragons.

The tiles that covered the roof are from Nara （奈良） Japan. The label on the tiles red – naikyu Yamato Kawara - 大和瓦- dento no gijutsu o ikashita, jishin, taifu ni tsuyoi - translated as: long lasting Yamato Kawara tiles, a living traditional craft , able to withstand earthquake and taifuyu. The hopes and prayers of the believers are written on these tiles.

Taking about Nara – it was established in 701A.D as the fist capital of Japan. The city is modeled after Changan (长安) the capital of the Tang Dynasty -(618-907AD) – present day Xian (西安). The most prominent landmark in Nara is the Todaiji Temple (东大寺). Built in 752AD along Tang architectural style, it housed the Daibutsu， the biggest Buddha statue in Japan. For the past 1,300years it has been the center of Buddhist learning and culture.

The new landmark in Chinatown could easily be the most expensive single temple building in Singapore, and housed the most expensive – in terms of monetary term – Buddha stature on the island. Never mind that the fusion of Japlish-Tang architectural style and that is is incongruous with its environment. And that it is not styled after the local temple complex tradition which our forefathers brought with them from southern China. It is however a reflection of the continued influence of Tang soft culture and a landmark of our time in this globalize city.

As the Todaiji Temple in Nara has with stood the ravages of war, typhoon and earthquake thro the millenium, may this too long as long. Be it also known as far and wide not only for its rich imagery, but also as a citadel for reflection and meditation, and a center for the advancement of thoughts and leanings for the faith.


In the hustle and bustle of the pomp and pageantry of its opening ceremony, one hears the sound of the temple bell – echoing ever softly and gently . . . for it has been ringing for the past 2551 years, when the wheel was first set into motion.


postscript:

1. Lianhe Zaobao dated 6Jul07 -

联合早报 2007-7-6 ， 言论版 – 热点话题 – 万丙炎

也谈佛牙舍利 - 世界上只有两颗佛牙已经是广大佛教徒的共识。在此，笔者倒是建议本地佛牙以‘佛牙影骨’也未必不可。

Forum page of Lianhe Zhaobao, in a column on titled ‘Hot Topic’ by Wan Binyan

The column titled – Also talk about Buddha sarira. In it mentioned that it is a common knowledge among the word wide Buddhist community that there are only two pieces of Buddha tooth. It may not be impossible if the local Buddha Tooth be called - 佛牙影骨 - Foyayinggu - (i.e a copy of the Buddha tooth) , the author proposed.

The article stated that the two pieces of Buddha tooth which have historical records that could be traced to the Sakyamuni Buddha, and also mentioned in the sutra are located in the temples in Sri Lanka and Beijing, one each respectively.





References:


1) Chi Nin Nunnery – Hong Kong
http://www.pbase.com/jwctang/chi_nin_nunnery
http://flickr.com/photos/124330160/50412290/in/set-1076812/

2) Heian shrine – Kyoto
The Japansese capital moved from Nara to Kyoto in
Heian-kyo in Kyoto is the capital of ancient Japan during the Heian Period (A.D794. -A.D1192).
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/japan/kyoto-heian-jingu.htm

3) Todaiji – Nara
http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4100.html

4) Nara National Museum
Exhibition – Saidai-ji shutsudo kawara (Roof Tiles Excavated at Saidai-ji Temple)Nara period, 8th century, Two tilesNara National Cultural Properties Research Institute

http://www.narahaku.go.jp/exhib/2002toku/saidaiji/saidaiji-2_e.htm;


5) Kabuki-za (歌舞伎座) – Tokyo
It is the principal theater in Tokyo for the traditional kabuki drama form. It opened in 1889 during the Meiji-era.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabuki-za;
http://www.shochiku.co.jp/play/kabukiza/theater;






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