Categories
ranting

native western-ness

I drug one of the girls from the office out last night to take two other Americans and myself to the Mid-Autumn Festival [ wikipedia.org ] here in Singapore. She did not want to go but I think she had a good time showing the crazy foreigners around. She told us the whole thing was ‘for kids’ and she was not kidding. I said before that Singapore is Asia by Walt Disney and if that is true then the Mid-Autumn Festival is like the electric light parade. The whole showcase—the Chinese Gardens—was filled with ten foot statues of Mickey and friends. There was Disney music playing everywhere. It was quite surreal. When we first got there they were playing ‘It’s a small world!’ We walked around for a while, I took pictures but none of them really came out as I did not take my tripod. Silly me thinking that we were going to China Town to see this and it was going to be crowded. But no! It was like going to Walt Disney Land only all the songs were playing at the wrong exhibits—and there was no haunted house! (The song thing is true—if the scene was from beauty and the beast they would have a song from Aladdin, and if the scene was from Aladdin they played something from The Little Mermaid, crazy!) But it was a fun night, hot and sweaty but fun. I expected some interesting Asian celebration but got Disney gone native!