An afterthought to the Dumpling festival

As depicted by the pictures taken by Edmund in the previous post, the Dumpling festival was a resounding success. In fact, I was thoroughly held in awe by the scale of this event that took place last Saturday. Bearing in mind that many of the old folks in All Saints Home are unable to have dumplings for snacks during the celebration, Michelle has thoughtfully subsituted the dumplings with the utterly divine yam cakes prepared by her mother. Although yam cakes may be a simple fare to many, the snack definitely brings nostalgic memories to the old folks and as evident from the absence of any remanents of yam cakes on their plates, the old folks utterly savored the delicious snack.

Probably half of the entire Dunman Secondary School (an exaggerated number of course), singers from City Harvest and volunteers from SIA were invited to stage performances during the entertainment segment of this event. They were without a doubt, a stellar performance. From the songs belted out by City Harvest's performers, the SIA volunteers and the choir from Dunman Secondary School, to Dunman Secondary School's orchestra and Malay dance, the performance completely captivated the audiences. However, the activity for the day that really got the audiences all fired up was 'Bingo' (a game that made regular appearances on the special events in ASH). With prizes up for grabs, the audiences fervently waited for the their numbers to be announced in anticipation of winning the prizes.

Although I scarcely celebrated the Dumpling festival in the recent years (except probably to gorge myself silly on the dumplings my grandmother prepared), I do understand the significance of dumplings in this festival. It is afterall the essence and symbol of this festival. Hence, I did feel weird that the old folks celebrated this festival in the absence of the ubiquitous dumplings that can be easily found during this festival. However, when I saw the elated expression of the old folks when they won themselves a prize during the games, overheard them heaping praises on the yam cake and catching a glimpse of their relaxed gaze when they were enjoying the performance, the celebration of this festival in the absence of dumplings suddenly seems trivial. I had learnt on that day that what mattered most is that we had made the most of what we could during this celebration, and through a concerted effort, entertained the old folks on the pretext of this festivity.