Chap Go Meh

To the various dialect groups of Chinese, the 15th day of the Chinese New Year could mean different things. But of course, all knows that it marks the end of the Chinese New Year celebration.

The age-old Wak Hai Cheng Beo at Philip St, a Teochew Temple which had since a long time been popular to Teochew, Hokkien and Cantonese, continues its traditional eve-of-chap-go-meh exchange of flags and lanterns. This goes on right through the 15th day. Gone are the days when one could see the devotees carrying flags and a bigger joss-stick sitting on the trishaws as they rode home. These days, they have even bigger joss-sticks to withstand the wind as they ride home in cars and maybe taxis.

To some Chinese families, it is a time for some tang-yuen, the familiar southern Chinese rice balls.

In Chinatown, it was the last bang for the Chinese New Year with another round of celebrations. Alas, I did not get to see it as I was somewhere else attending a temple dinner. But I managed to capture some scenes of the full moon (it is said that the moon is rounder on the 16th day of the lunar month) overlooking Chinatown.