Enen's Latest Favourite After-school Activity : Feb-10

It has been more than a month since Enen began attending pre-nursery at Nativity Church Kindergarten. She has began identifying that place as her school and enjoyed going there every weekday. We would park our car at Mathew 25 and walk over to her class. Recently, she discovered that there is a stage at Mathew 25! She has since badgered me to stop by there after school everyday before walking back to our car. This is what she would do on the stage.. :)

Lotus Sutra - Chapter Sixteen : The Life Span of Tathagata : Feb-10

In the Life Span Chapter, Shakyamuni Buddha revealed that he has in the long past attained Buddhahood and has been preaching for the people since. Due to the capacity of the people, he has deployed the expedient means for the sake of the people to understand buddhism. Another important point he revealed in this chapter is that life is eternal and there is no such thing as extinction in life.

Lotus Sutra - Chapter Two: Expedient Means : Feb-10

Shakyamuni Buddha preached for more than 40 years but when he started to preach on The Lotus Sutra, he claimed that for his past 40 years he had yet to reveal the truth! Lotus Sutra is the ultimate sutra (Buddha's main purpose) he wanted to reveal for the sake of everyone to attain buddhahood like him. Thus, Lotus Sutra is also known as the King of the Sutra.

Every Buddhist should SERIOUSLY put in some time to read this Chapter two of Lotus Sutra for some important points revealed by Shakyamuni, eg, Why he preached so many different doctrines and sutras in the past, why he preached about Nirvana in the past, why he had not taught the way to attain buddhahood in the past, why he only revealed the truth after 40 years, and his purpose to preach The Lotus Sutra...etc

To help you better understand the meaning of this chapter, I had combined the original chinese version of Lotus Sutra (translated by 姚秦鳩摩羅什) together with the English version (translated by Burton Watson).

采青 : Feb-10

For more than 20 years, I have always enjoyed my Lunar New Year moments when I am out 采青. This year without exception, I joined 新洋, a troupe formed by our very Nanyang JC alumni members, for this special event. I supposed as age catches up, the kind of enjoyment in 采青 changes as well, from the physical 'exercise', I have now learnt to enjoy more, the mental aspects of things, like the atmosphere, company and watching the younger generation perform.

This year we performed at Benny's place as well. Benny had kindly sponsored a lion to 新洋, and Adrian (in-charge), had also shown his appreciation by performing the 'full-suite' at Benny's place. The kids particularly enjoyed watching the event, which lasted for more than an hour!

En'en enjoying Chinese New Year : Feb-10

It is En'en's third year celebrating lunar new year and she totally enjoyed this festive session. Right before the new year arrived, she is already setting up the mood for everyone, learning her new year songs, dances and even phrases for 'bai-nian'. She din stop there, when we do our visiting, she will quickly made new friends around her age and started her makan and playing session fast without hesitation. En'en has prepared and welcomed the year of the Tiger well.

《再见爱》The Musical : Feb-10

Hong's mandarin musical debut on the weekend before Chinese New Year, and they had nine runs in all with the final performance on Chinese New Year cum Valentine's Day!

Nine family and close friends bought tickets to support him on his second-night performance. Of course Victor and I were among the nine.. and there was Papa, Mummy, QQ, Jiun, Florence, Kai-ma, & mummy's next-door neighbour Aunty! That Saturday show was a full-house and we were sitting on the second last row of the cozy theatre.. It's really cozy considering its 70-ish seat capacity and the second last row was really the third row! The venue was a novelty, the lack of backdrop was a novelty, and the entire presentation was a novelty too. I have never attended any play or musical whose producer and director emerge after the finale to ask the audience for feedback and at the same time offer any background or explanation to the production! I would have imagined the exchange would have been the most interactive part and one of the highlights of the evening, but alas, Singaporeans must be among the most reserved crowd in the world!

The mandarin musical was very well executed. Although the 7-pax cast boasted of almost all fresh faces, no one, well.. almost no one, forgot his or her lines; every actor or actress who came on stage knew his or her part very well, and sang very well too. Hong was very impressive - how could he memorize his lengthy script so well?? My only remorse was not being able to bring Qiqi and Xuanxuan along for their QQ's first leading musical..

Nevertheless, the opportunity to bring Qiqi and Xuanxuan to watch《再见爱》came when I won 2 free tickets in the 100.3 radio contest after they interviewed 玖健 and Hong!! I was very excited and even bought a bouquet for our male lead that night - something I had kicked myself over when nine of us turned up empty-handed with nothing to encourage our budding artiste..

Qiqi and Xuanxuan were the first to enter the theatre that evening and we sat right in the centre of the very first row, where we caught every subtle expression of each actor and actress on stage! And I really get to appreciate the devotion and the exquisite acting skills of all these fresh faces, Hong inclusive. I was very to be able to watch the show for a second time.. to support Hong and to catch up on the details I have missed on my first show.. :)

Choose one? : Feb-10

En'en is at her mischievous TWO now... recently she learnt to let people choose things from her hands, but the bottom line is... You cannot choose it correctly!

New Painting for the Chinese New Year : Feb-10

Look at our new painting just in time to receive the Year of the Tiger!! It's painted by our very own Xuanxuan in her art class this morning.

First thought was, "What a cartoon tiger!" But on second look, "Wow.. what a fierce cartoon tiger.." Victor and I were impressed that Xuanxuan could draw such a distinctively angry look! Upon further scrutiny, we thought we found the reason for the angry tiger - tiger doesn't like to eat oranges, so chinese new year or not, the heap of oranges by the tiger's side must have antagonized the resting tiger! Hahaa.. whatever it is, this tiger is now framed up and hung on our wall to receive the new year. Hmm.. i think this is the first painting of our children's to be framed & hung up! For times like this, i wish i have a bigger house with more wall space..