Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:26a.m.
It’s the Hungry Ghost festival, and all around the island, there is burning.
Joss sticks are lit and left smouldering next to footpaths. Rusty barrels are piled with burning stacks of paper ‘money’.
It’s the 7th month of the Chinese lunar year, when they believe that the dead emerge from the underworld to roam the earth. This month, the living appease the dead, paying respects to them - paper ‘money’ is burnt to replenish their afterlife bank accounts. The living also burn miniature paper versions of condominiums, Mercedes Benz and even shaving kits, for the dead to use in the afterlife. It’s a common sight at funerals.
More fascinating than the perpetual burning throughout the island this month, are the Hungry Ghost getai concerts. Getai, meaning song stage, are put on for the benefit of the roaming ghosts during their annual respite on earth. Performances range from shrill and dramatic Chinese opera (wayang), to the more modern, garish performances of young women in midriff-bearing outfits and thigh high vinyl boots, singing Hokkien dialect songs of another generation.
Many Singaporeans consider these getai concerts to be something of an old fashioned indulgence, more often than not drawing mostly a crowd of ‘dirty old uncles’ – older men whose purpose is to not to mingle with the undead, but to perve at the scantily clad performers. Lately, however, these getai concerts have been experiencing a revival, with more people below the age of 50 in attendance. I popped over to a getai concert near my grandmother’s and found a surprisingly packed crowd.
The crowd was thick, and yet nothing compared to some of the bigger getai concerts held elsewhere. I arrived expecting to see a congregation of all the neighbourhood’s ‘uncles’, but instead found families, young adults, teenagers and children. Even the coveted first row seats have gone from being unoccupied (and reserved as a prime spot for the ghosts to chill out) to being the prized seats of eager families who brought along snacks and drinks for the show.
The other day, I saw on the news that some of the bigger venues even had pole dancers! Is this evidence that Singapore, notoriously sterile and prudish, is keeping up with the times?
It’s hard to say if pole dancing is a sign of its appeal to a younger crowd, or whether it is a cause rather than effect, but it seems most of the [living] audience enjoyed it.
Sure, getai organizers were issued a warning for indecent exposure, but that aside, the protests seemed to come from one particular subset of society. A friend pointed this out:
“It’s not the uncles who are on the news complaining about the pole dancers. It’s their wives, who obviously aren’t too happy watching their husbands lao nua* next to them!”
* salivate (in Hokkien).