Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Thirty Going On Auntie: Junior's a getai fan

Source Website: http://news.asiaone.com/news/asian-opinions/thirty-going-auntie-juniors-getai-fan
By Clara Chow, myp@sph.com.sg, mypaper, Monday, 31 August 2015


INFECTIOUS MELODIES: A getai performance at Pasir Panjang Food Centre on 20 August 2015. The writer took her 5¾-year-old son to one such free concert in a first for her family.
INFECTIOUS MELODIES: A getai performance at Pasir Panjang Food Centre on 20 August 2015. The writer took her 5¾-year-old son to one such free concert in a first for her family.
PHOTO: INFECTIOUS MELODIES: A getai performance at Pasir Panjang Food Centre on 20 August 2015.
The writer took her 5¾-year-old son to one such free concert in a first for her family.
Photo: The Straits Times
Posted by Clara Chow, myp@sph.com.sg, mypaper, Monday, 31 August 2015

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http://news.asiaone.com/sites/default/files/styles/w848/public/original_images/Aug2015/20150831_getai_st.jpg?itok=6IJtKV4x
http://news.asiaone.com/news/asian-opinions/thirty-going-auntie-juniors-getai-fan



THE getai is visible from where I am in the car, engine idling, waiting for the lights to change. It is housed under a white tent, like a jellyfish shooting forth purple laser lights.

I drive past, rubbernecking a little, then dial home from the carpark at the foot of my block. My 5¾-year-old son picks up the phone.

"Free concert!" I say. "Want to go and watch a free concert? If you do, come downstairs now!"

"I want! I want! Yes!" replies the boy, always on the lookout for a good deal, proving once again that he is my child and no hospital nursery mix-up.



吴佩芝 (Wú pèi zhī, Wu Pei Zhi) on stage
PHOTO: 吴佩芝 (Wú pèi zhī, Wu Pei Zhi) on stage. Kitsch as it may seem, Getai has a wide reach in Singapore.
Love it or hate it – some find the form of entertainment crude and even kitsch, Getai (歌台 gē tái) has firmly established itself as a very popular form of street entertainment in modern day Singapore. It had its roots not in the 1960s, but in the 1970s when waning interest in Chinese puppet shows and opera performances which were features of temple festivals and seventh month (Hungry Ghosts festival) auctions saw them being replaced by live variety shows which came to be referred to as Getai, which translates into “Song Stage”.
Posted by Jerome Lim on 07 March 2013
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFipxHuE63Ikr_mDexLeqoMnMYMzp5iy7XOv_plbBSYuSKoMBsEGqO5Ew-Bu2zotDggyNTxIUF7ejtKrXCMgK1DoAEShCJ5hkEoUseTTgoqPWnOj49e3KVeiYK3hCDEoanxNpa8ImTPo/s1600/img_9278.jpg
https://thelongnwindingroad.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/img_9278.jpg?w=510
https://thelongnwindingroad.wordpress.com/tag/%E9%BB%84%E6%8C%AF%E9%9A%86/



Before long, the Supportive Spouse and I, with the younger son in tow (at 9.30pm on a school night, his primary-schoolgoing elder brother already fast asleep), are tramping over calf-tickling grass towards the stage set up in an open field. A Seventh Month dinner-cum-auction is in full swing next to it, the auctioneer's rapid-fire speech competing a little with the musical strains coming from the getai.

It is a first for our family - actually attending a getai performance. My husband and I have gawked at such shows from afar, but never at such close quarters; never committing ourselves to an entire show. But when in Rome, do as the other getai spectators do. We help ourselves to some red plastic chairs stacked next to the tent, and plonk ourselves at an angle to the action, making sure not to block the view of others there first.



The GeTai Challenge’s craziest looks
PHOTO: The GeTai Challenge’s craziest looks
Photos: MediaCorp Channel 8
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvbE9kGozzl9Asfm58LZrOG4VSYJefa_ei0k_m0scd7HeB4RrEJH5h-ImoCzYY5oA2aWPpiwNbIIcCf6YcsHp4014HM06K8EpO9nyhsBeLx7AD5isbSc_MbVo36eI2v01Ie8oJ1ZNNXM/s1600/2z-ep-2.jpg
http://lifestyle.toggle.sg/image/5397362/16x9/1920/1080/5612936fcfae6c5a7ad8de6c292a9c55/wT/2z-ep-2.jpg
http://tv.toggle.sg/en/channel8/shows/getai-challenge/features/the-getai-challenge-s-5397512



The show is already in full swing, and the boy is immediately hooked. He sits on his red chair and stares unblinkingly at the female performers, who belt out Hokkien and Cantonese ditties, in front of two big screens projecting their names and glamour shots against psychedelic patterns. Even though he doesn't understand when the host and performers banter in a mix of Mandarin and Chinese dialects, he studies their interaction with the interest of an anthropologist.

One performer gives a credible rendition of Beyond's Boundless Oceans, Vast Skies ("E key," she'd requested sweetly of the electric band hidden behind the projection screens). Another, an attractive singer from Johor Baru, wears a costume of strategically sequinned black mesh, cut to show off her long legs and showcase her hair-eography. One audience member, a reed-thin grey-haired man, saunters up close to the stage and holds up not a smartphone to photograph her, but an ancient, black, portable cassette-recorder to record her voice.



The GeTai Challenge’s craziest looks
PHOTO: The GeTai Challenge’s craziest looks
Photos: MediaCorp Channel 8
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUvbE9kGozzl9Asfm58LZrOG4VSYJefa_ei0k_m0scd7HeB4RrEJH5h-ImoCzYY5oA2aWPpiwNbIIcCf6YcsHp4014HM06K8EpO9nyhsBeLx7AD5isbSc_MbVo36eI2v01Ie8oJ1ZNNXM/s1600/2z-ep-2.jpg
http://lifestyle.toggle.sg/image/5397362/16x9/1920/1080/5612936fcfae6c5a7ad8de6c292a9c55/wT/2z-ep-2.jpg
http://tv.toggle.sg/en/channel8/shows/getai-challenge/features/the-getai-challenge-s-5397512



Under a sky devoid of stars, we enjoy the night breeze as invisible clouds race over our heads. There is a certain heady scent in the air: of burning joss sticks and paper, the ash and embers quietly falling over in the pails, a few metres from us; of cigarette smoke, curling from the ends of bookish bespectacled middle-aged men's hands; and some unknown ingredient - either magic or belief, faith or superstition, or perhaps it's all notes of the same thing.

A SHOW FOR ALL
Royston Tan's 2007 film 881 did much to make getai culture mainstream, giving more exposure to the concerts, usually staged by Chinese towkays and business associations during the Hungry Ghost Festival. For now, at least, it is easy to believe that this magic, of concerts free for the spirits and for the living, will continue and find an audience with my son's generation.

It is one of those levelling experiences, where self-made millionaires can sit next to foreign workers, young next to old, and enjoy infectious melodies and rhythms.



Getai singers performing at the show on the night of 28 May 2013 received warm applause from the crowd.
Getai singers performing at the show on the night of 28 May 2013 received warm applause from the crowd.
Getai singers performing at the show on the night of 28 May 2013 received warm applause from the crowd.
PHOTO: Getai singers performing at the show on the night of 28 May 2013 received warm applause from the crowd.
Posted by Singapore Press Holdings, "Wayanging" for more then 100 years
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http://backstage.tnp.sg/backstage/content/wayanging-more-then-100-years



A woman in a purple floral house dress sits directly in front of me. From the way she is slowly leaning to her right, in danger of slipping off her chair - red, plastic, like mine - I can tell she is falling asleep. She always jerks awake in time, though, so I know she'll be all right.

Another woman, with leonine hair, brings her own yellow foldable stool. She grins at us, pseudo-apologetically, as she unfolds it right in front, the latecomer claiming pole position. But the gig is free for us, nobody paid for seats, so who can complain?

The Hungry Ghost Festival, which runs until Sept 12 this year, may be a cultural-religious tradition meant to appease restless spirits. Yet, it is ultimately more for the living than the dead: to blow off steam, make some noise and create some light to force back the night. To reaffirm to ourselves that we have bodies, capable of being moved and entertained. To know that this life is our turn in the spotlight, our only shot in this song-stage of a universe. To wholeheartedly celebrate and applaud this moment of splendour.



Getai dresses down
PHOTO:  Getai dresses down
Ms Chen Xiao Xin, 29, during a getai performance. On stage, wearing what resembled the fashion featured in the getai film 881, was belting out Hokkien and Mandarin songs to thunderous applause and loud cheers.
While the 29-year-old performer wore a hot pink tank top and shorts with colourful ribbons wrapped about her midriff, it was nowhere as risque as some getai performances from last year.
There was no stripping of clothes or acrobatic dancing about a pole at the start of the Hungry Ghost Festival at a getai at the field in front of City Plaza.
Posted by Ronald Loh, The New Paper on 9 August 2013 at 12:39am
TNP PHOTO: Gary Goh

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http://www2.tnp.sg/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/01b87152.jpg?itok=zdFQbr-w
http://www2.tnp.sg/tags/hungry-ghost-festival



As children, we want this show to go on forever - but who can resent a gift, a chance encounter, a fortuitous event espied from a traffic junction, if it makes you happy for a spell and then departs?

"Why did we get here so late?" complains the 5¾-year-old, as the music fades half an hour later, the chairs are restacked and we tramp home over the tall grass again. "I want more."

"I didn't know it was even going to be on," I explain, holding his tiny hand. "Aren't you glad we caught it?"



By Clara Chow, myp@sph.com.sg, mypaper, Monday, 31 August 2015
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Sun Cola (Yang Guang Ke Le), 18
Sun Cola (Yang Guang Ke Le), 18
PHOTO: Sun Cola (Yang Guang Ke Le), 18
In his line-up of performers this year, four out of 10 singers are Malaysians, double last year's number.
Photo Source: The Straits Times
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqu_sWOPkoJuE_Hchm3RPClBKAZgvEssYhWUGggaEDyvbrGWfojLTc1qnqPFyNM5giLhTVvjisce58hx9_64lmaU5spWfwEi6uU4cDuV1mRtsHU_C7Ejw3LsYY8fgs6Q_ly5cpjhFf-Cg/s1600/ST_20150823_LIFJIAYI2_1620991-2.png
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http://www.straitstimes.com/sites/default/files/styles/x_large/public/articles/2015/08/23/ST_20150823_LIFJIAYI2_1620991.jpg?itok=MBp2Uzcw
http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/johor-getai-singers-flocking-to-singapore



Belly dancers sometimes go barefoot and if the party you’re attending will be held inside<br>Wilma Flintstone and their baby Pebbles were barefoot.  Daisy Mae from lil’ Abner never wore shoes.

PHOTO: Belly dancers sometimes go barefoot and if the party you’re attending will be held inside Wilma Flintstone and their baby Pebbles were barefoot. Daisy Mae from lil’ Abner  never wore shoes.
Posted by Jan, Barefoot News on 17 October 2010
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http://allaboutbarefootsandals.jewels-by-jan.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/bellydancer.jpg
http://allaboutbarefootsandals.jewels-by-jan.com/barefoot-news/need-some-halloween-costume-ideas/




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