Singapore to London

MALAYSIA | Monday, 24 November 2014 | Views [260] | View Smaller Image

Birthday celebrations continue throughout the day with a feverish schedule of music, concerts and offerings. A Yap clan performer assumes a more casual pose away from the heat and commotion at the temple. Just moments earlier, he had formed a picture of ancient wisdom in fake waist-length beard and elaborate headdress. The actors are not professionals, but merely familial revellers, friends-of-friends and neighbours enjoying their moment in the spotlight.

A costumed clan performer briefly breaks the illusion of her confronting attire by flashing a cheeky smile across the smoke drafts, before resuming her role in the procession. It’s a rough recital, peppered with awkward pauses and self-conscious glances. But the show isn’t for the living. They perform before the altar of the god of prosperity in the hopes of bringing forth an auspicious year ahead.

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As dusk falls, a lone smouldering drum is the only remaining sign of the day’s earlier frenetic activity outside the Yap clan temple. Late-arriving devotees drift like ghostly spectres as they light their candles, say their prayers and enter the golden glow of the hall under the protective watch of stone dragons and lazy whirls of smoke. The party shows no signs of slowing.

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Singapore to London

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