Animal abusers

A cat torturer was sentenced to eight weeks’ jail – a report in the papers.

You read about some people who go about torturing and killing cats and dogs. Now, if I were the judge….besides the usual sentence, I would

send them to the areas where they have committed their crimes, hang a placard describing their evil deeds on their necks and parade them around the markets and hawkers' centres to let people see who they are,

add another few weeks to their jail term which would be spend at the zoo to learn to take care of animals and to clean up animal dung,

And I think caning should be an option for serious cases.

薌劇玉堂春

Hokkien Opera Yu Tang Chun

Just doing a bit of advertising for my xiangju blogger friends who are performing in this show. The details are in the poster. Click for larger version. The picture is copied from Amai's blog.

They have rehearsed hard, sacrificed their precious time ….. and some have shed a lot of tears too. Their Xiangju troupe has been invited to Taiwan to perform in the 2006 Taiwanese Opera Art Festival in September and they will be presenting this show, Yu Tang Chun.

Wish them a successful performance here as well as in Taiwan.

八和會館 - Pat Wo Wui Kun

Pat Wo Association is the umbrella body for cantonese opera groups and artistes. This show (19 August 2006 at KAPT) was to commemorate its 149th anniversary. There were 3 artistes from Hong Kong and one from China participating with local artistes.

This is Yuen Siu Fai and Tang Mei Ling from HK. Yuen is a versatile artiste with his own inimitable style of acting and singing. He, together Mei Ling, gave an excellent performance of Song Jiang kills his concubine, 宋江怒殺閻婆惜.

Another picture of Mei Ling.

This is Ting Fan and Joanna Wong. Joanna is the chairman of Pat Woh and the artistic director of Chinese Theatre Circle. She only sang a song with Ling Tung Meng. Ting Fan is a top artiste from China. He performed an excerpt with a local artiste. Unless the gap between the standards of the 2 artistes is not too significant, I do not quite favour this type of arrangement. It somehow mars the joy of watching an otherwise nice show.

This is Ting Fan and Lily Ng. Lily is the leader of her opera troupe at Kolam Ayer Community Club.

This is Ling Tung Meng and Joanna Wong. Tung Meng is the director and instructor of the Xin Meng Sing Opera Centre.

The girl on the right is budding artiste Chung Lai Yong. She performed an excerpt with Lily Ng. This is the second time I see her perform. She did well, I think better than many amateur artistes with more experience.

Terrorists

It was reported that some groups in Britian have written to the British Prime Minister that the hostilities in Iraq and the conflict in the Middle East "give ammunition to extremists to threaten us all". They blame the US and Britain’s policies in Iraq and the Middle East for the terrorist acts. So? Don’t blame the terrorists?

How unhappy or angry these extremists are with the US and Britain, they cannot do horrendous things like bombing 10 planes killing thousands of innocent people. Fortunately their plan was foiled.

A few days ago there was a newspaper commentary which explains why it was a mistake to put terrorists on trail and the best thing is detention. Even if there is not enough evidence, it doesn’t mean they are not guilty. They should not be freed. The rights of other people to live is more important.

Magazine

Chinese opera magazine, August edition.



王志萍 - 新版《春香傳》

周慧敏 - 效龍劍笙養尊穩守策略

Photos

Some photos of the 2 shows at Kreta Ayer People's Theatre on 8 and 9 August. Got videos also but YouTube and Sharkle do not accept the format and I doubt there is any software to convert them to another format.

Zhen Weng Sun, organizer and chief percussionist


young performers from Hong Kong


child artiste as a princess


.....in her normal self


from right, Mun Chin Sui and Leong Siew Sum (the children's teachers)


Pang Chee Quan


Chik Chiew Kuarn


Leong Sau Fong

41

Found this leaflet stuck at my gate. It is in 4 languages. It says ‘It is difficult to predict when an emergency will happen, so we need to be ready and prepared at all time.’

Some items it recommended: rice, cooking oil, biscuits, instant noodles, canned food, beverages, sugar.

Then I was thinking of emergencies……diseases, wars, disasters, food shortage.…...

When I was in HK, there were typhoons in China (HK only mildly affected) and earthquakes in Indonesia. Someone commented in a Chinese newspaper that HK was fortunate.

Are we not fortunate too.

On our 41st National Day, I wish that we will have infinite years of good fortune, be spared the natural disasters and diseases, and the sufferings caused by human acts.

Majullah Singapura! Happy National Day !