Happy Chinese New Year 2015

Assalamualaikum.

Happy Goat Year, MEKKK~

First of all I would like to wish all my friends and family a Happy Chinese New Year, 恭喜发财gong xi fa cai! I know it is quite late to wish on the 12th day of CNY but better late than never right? This was my very first Chinese New Year since I reverted. I was very excited and I planned to tailor-make a long Cheongsam but unfortunately I haven't got time to do it. I will definitely make one next year!! But the most important of all, I am very thankful, Alhamdulilah, all my friends and relatives are very open-minded and respectful towards my faith. That is the greatest head-start for the year.

In today's post, I wanted to share some photos that I took yesterday during the "Penangites' CNY Celebration - Cultural Extravaganza 槟城人过年 - 槟城春晚". It was quite interesting as this was the very first time having this kind of CNY celebration (that we normally see in TV held in China or Taiwan) and they have mix heritage performance as well which make this event even special cause multicultural is what made Malaysia Malaysia.

Performed by secondary school students. Their opening sketch before the dance amazed me as the Malay and Indian student speak really good Mandarin. Kudos to them!

The longest Dragon dance in Malaysia... if I was not mistaken...

There are performers and also audiences from different races. In between of the show all emcees, about 9 of them came on stage to introduce themselves and greet the audiences. They made the CNY greetings in different dialect and languages including Mandarin, Hokkien, Hakka, Teowchew, Cantonese, Tamil, Malay and English which I thought was cool as well. When one of the emcee greeted in Tamil, the crowd applauded cause most of us were amazed. The overall event was great and my only suggestion was maybe for future event, they can put at least one emcee in charge that will convey and make explanation in English or Malay language throughout the whole event so that the non-Chinese audiences will not feel left out. And I definitely hope that they will organize more 1 Malaysia concept event to bring all the races together and become a platform for people to know each other's culture better. 

I stood at the same spot from 7pm till 11pm so I apologize for the 'one-sided shot'. Haven't go for any photo outings (not for working purpose) since FOREVER. I was actually pleased with myself for being able to stand for so long and bathing in sweat even though I did thought of leaving in between of the event but the lion dance had successfully kept me waiting till the end of the event. I do miss being official photographer for school events or my photography work. Last but not least, I think it is time to save money to invest for a zoom lens. Ngeh Ngeh Ngeh.

I will write another blog on how I celebrated CNY as a Muslimah in the next blog, insyaAllah! For now, Assalamualaikum and hope you have a nice day!

(Photos taken with Canon 5D Mark III, Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM lens)