24 September, 2010

Singapore Chinatown, Mid-Autumn Festival

It's Mid-Autumn Festival time here in Asia. Known in the western world as the autumnal equinox, this day is the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar, the day of the fullest moon.

Here in Singapore, it's all about the moon cakes--people carrying around moon cakes to give as gifts, people carrying around moon cakes they were given as gifts, people carrying around non-moon cake items in moon cake bags to show that at one point they bought moon cakes at the most prestigious moon cake shop, and so on. It's also tradition to light lanterns.

One day in the early days of Singapore life, as I was sitting at the computer and gazing out over our balcony at the beautiful clear blue sky, a ridiculously loud crack of thunder shattered my reverie, propelling me halfway to the ceiling before I realized what it was. Momentarily mystified by this thunder that was literally 'out of the blue', it was not until I peeked out the front door to investigate that everything came clear, or rather, cloudy. While the SE facing the view from the balcony was as aforementioned, the NW facing view from the front door revealed roiling, seething, turbulent black clouds, rain, and streaks of lightning. I have since come to view the weather here as 'predictably unpredictable.'

So as I wandered through Chinatown the other day snapping photos of lanterns and odds and ends, I kept a corner of my eye on the indecisive sky, wondering what it was going to throw at me. At first it just played some games with the sun, but I wasn't fazed. Then it raised it's fists and threatened me, but it the end, it tucked its hands in it's pockets, spit on the ground a couple times, and left me alone. Here are some photos from my walk:












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