Dear All
Felicia FINALLY has gone for a school excursion. Today, it's to Little India and Chinatown. She had to write a journal on it. This is what she wrote (minus spelling and grammatical errors):
MY TRIP TO CHINATOWN AND LITTLE INDIA
My trip to Chinatown and Little India was very fun. First, I'm going to talk about Chinatown.
Chinatown Opera House was very nice. I got to try one instrument. I don't know what it is called but I know it was very hard to play it. The people who played their instrument played a tune to let us hear. It only took five to ten minutes to reach Little India from Chinatown.
When we reached Little India, it was very hot but we quickly go to the Indian kind of restaurant. We ate some types of food. My favourite is the Indian sweet. I ate two types. One sweet tastes like milk powder and the other one tastes like sweet water.
** end of journal **
Felicia came home enthusing about her excursion. She spotted a "puttu" on her forehead and a purplish bangle. She looked so cute. There was a food (possibly naan) baking demo where the food was as huge as a balloon. Then a spoon is used to push it down. She brought back the 2 sweet samples and bought some papadams for us to try. Tiffany commented that indian sweets usually have spices and she doesn't quite like them. I find them yummy. But I had to restraint myself from gobbling all down.
Next, she told her the history of Chinese Opera. Ever since I was small, I was always afraid of Chinese Opera. Their loud music frightens me, and so do their fearsome makeup and gaudy costumes. In addition, I don't understand a word they are saying as it's all sung in dialect. (I don't have a good working knowledge of dialect).
Felicia told me that Chinese Opera started about 3000 years ago as a street story-telling session. At that time, everyone gives the emperor a birthday present on his birthday. A man wanted to give the emperor an outstanding gift, and hence engaged the street Opera to perform for the emperor. The emperor liked it so much, he wanted the street performers to stay. However, they came from another province and did not wish to stay.
Later on, the emperor's son (emperor number 2) also fell in love with Chinese Opera. He loved it so much he secretly performed in the Opera. At that time, the mask was held on by a string tied round the performer's head, and performers used alot of hand gestures to explain the emotions of the characters as audience at the back would not be able to see. As emperor number 2 was embarrassed if he was recognised as a performer, he also felt the mask was difficult for him to sing. Hence, he had his face painted. It proved to be less restrictive to the performers and thats why opera performers to this day have heavy makeup. According to Felicia, the troupe that was invited by the emperor was presented with 2 gifts. I can't remember the other, but one was an umbrella. She said, the original troupe that performed for the emperor is still around to this day. You can recognise them from the umbrella that they would place at the side of the stage.
I was amazed at how much info Felicia had absorbed and could recall. We should have more excursions where other academic materials are taught in a fun way yah? Then teachers, parents and children would be spared all the tears, threats and arm-twisting to get the kids to study and get the info into their heads!
Akan datang....she's going for 2 more excursions, one after another, next week. Talk about hitting the jackpot yah?!?
Love Theresa
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