Singaporean Chinese Orchestra and China Town

On Sunday we finally had a bit of a cultural program. We (the usual bunch of exchange students) met with two Singaporean friends of mine (Dorothy and Winston), who wanted to show us some interesting parts of Singapore. At first we went to the Botanical Gardens to see the Singaporean Chinese Orchestra, the only professional Chinese orchestra in Singapore. We planned to walk a bit around in the gardens before the concert - unfortunately that day there was one of the worst thunderstorms I ever experienced in Singapore. It calmed down when we arrived in the Botanical Gardens but it kept raining moderately - not the perfect weather to visit a park... Anyway we once again braved the unpredictable elements in Singapore and went on to the stage.
Finally when the concert started it stopped raining and we could enjoy the open air atmosphere. The orchestra was really great! It was actually the second time I saw it and I was equally impressed this time. First of all, the instruments they play - traditional Chinese instruments - are completely different from the Western ones. The only familiar instruments I could spot were the celli and the contra basses - or did you ever here of instruments like Yangqin (揚琴, yángqín), Yueqin (月琴, yuèqín), Pipa (琵琶, pípa) or Sheng (笙, shēng)? Therefore the sound of the orchestra is really different from a Western symphonic orchestra, especially for the Chinese pieces with a pentatonic scale. The program was very diverse, ranging from traditional Chinese pieces to famous Western pieces like Brahms' Hungarian Dances... All of us agreed that it was really awesome.

After the concert we all went to China Town to have a splendid dinner there. We took seat at a big table (we were actually 11 people) and everybody got some food from the different food stalls. So we had a great diversity of food and everybody could try all the different things. Especially great was the sting ray and the dessert (glutinous rice-flour-made balls). Finally we enjoyed a private guided tour through China Town. Dorothy actually grew up in a 3-storey house in this quarter. So she could tell us some stories about living in those old houses as well.

This was the perfect ending for a great an very entertaining weekend in Singapore. The only drawback is that I will have to work a bit harder for my assignments during the week now. There was not much time left to do that in the weekend...