Serangoon North Village SPRING Festival Opening, Pt 2

After the speeches were delivered, the emcee invited Daisie Yip, the Chairman of CCC for Sg Gardens and all the grassroot leaders up onto the stage, to join Mrs Lim Hwee Hua in setting off the Official light up. They proceeded up the stage with some handy poppers. As soon as Mrs Lim

set off the mechanism for the light up, there were flashes here and there and popping sounds crackled. Suddenly, the entire front of the stage area was swirling with huge confettis and streamers, which helped by all the fans around, created quite a magical spectacle of sorts. Photo shows some GRLs from far left...Benedict, Thana, Victor, Edmund, Patrick ( Chairman of the Association, was struggling with his popper) "Sifu" Lee, Daisie.

In the good old days, real firecrackers were used to usher in the C N Y...and the pavement and streets all over Singapore were covered in a sea of red.

But I guess, time changes many things and this is just one of them.

And it is definitely SAFER !

Middies and oldies like myself can tell you all the nostalgic and fun-filled things about firecrackers in our time. We can also tell about the horrors they have caused.

Photo:
Patrick....still struggling, while streamers were cascading down after being popped. Haha! Maybe Patrick would be consoled if he knew this...in the old days of firecrackers, when shopkeepers lighted up each packet with a joss stick and threw them onto the road...most would explode. But some would not. We call them "duds".

We boys would wait until all firing ended and then rush to look for such "duds" among the exploded red debris. We knew how to turn duds into goodies again!

So was Patrick given a dud? I don't know. You'll have to ask him.

Key people of Serangoon North Village!

More key persons of Serangoon

North Village!

Photo credits: Unk Dicko