Southerners in Singapore: The Chingay Parade

So last weekend was the Chingay Parade and it was an amazing experience even if just to see how Singapore puts a spin onto things. This year is the 50th anniversary of the independence of Singapore and to say that it is a huge milestone would be an understatement. There are SG50 signs and slogans all around - we even received in the mail 50 stickers touting 50 things that make Singapore special. Not sure what we are supposed to do with them other than just remind us that this is a great place according to the government (we're happy so we aren't complaining).

The parade was scheduled to begin at 8pm but you had to be in your seats by 7pm and were encouraged to be there by 6pm. There were 60,000 reserved seats in the stands that line the road where the Formula One race takes place each November. These stands lined both sides of the road and the President and Prime Minister were in attendance in the stands. An additional 600,000 people were expected to line the streets after the stands to try and catch a glimpse of the parade.

What we saw was a combination of lights, music, sound affects, amazing floats, unbelievable costumes, smoke and noise all combined with SG50 pride that turned the parade into something more like a Mardi Gras event but with no drinking, nudity, or misbehaving in any way. Not only did you not leave your seat, there was NO food, drinks, etc available. It never occurred to me that there wouldn't be vendors everywhere selling food, souvenirs, drinks, trinkets, candy, etc on every corner and in every step of the stands. But instead, there was none of that - we arrived at 6pm without feeding the boys because I knew they were going to be eating so much junk later on and yet we left at 10:30pm with two starving kids who had had nothing to eat or drink.

Of course, we had had an hour long tutorial on how to properly hold up the flowers that were in our goody bags at our seat and repeat "We love Singapore, We love Singapore, We LOVE Singapore" while moving the flower from our heart to above our heads. This was practiced 1,000s of times in case we didn't get it the first few times. It was then repeated throughout the parade whenever it was thought that we needed reminding that we did indeed love Singapore. Was a little afraid that if we did not do as instructed that we would suddenly be yanked out of the stands by a little drone flying around (there really were drones flying around taking pictures of the crown but I am assuming that was just to get cool shots of the fans).

Anyway, the parade was an amazing overload of lights and sounds and each group that was represented did a fabulous job of showing their nation's pride as well as their pride in Singapore. USA was represented by Stamford American International School where our kids attend and Ella was one of the lucky ones chosen to be on the cheerleading team that SAIS specifically created for this parade. As a base she had practiced 2-3 hours a day 5 days a week for the last month and it all came to fruition this night. They did an amazing job and she was euphoric after the event. What a fabulous experience for her. She said looking up into the stands at the thousands of people that she wasn't nervous at all and she just thought it was awesome. What a great experience!

Pictures are lousy because of all the lights/smoke and the fact that the entire SAIS community at the event stood up to cheer on our girls when they came by which made pictures just about impossible. Did get a few of the parade in general that might be neat to see.