Mid-Autumn Festival in Singapore
24EN Editor's Note:As a country with most of the people being the Chinese, Singapore has long been the place where the Mid-Autumn Day is attached importance to. It is the time for them to greet each other and express their gratitude. As friends, relatives or business partners, they send moon cakes to each other to express their gracious greetings and good wishes.
Singapore is a tourist country. Mid-Autumn Day is a good chance to attract tourists. Whenever the Mid-Autumn Day is approaching, the renowned tourist areas including Wujie Road, Singapore Riverside, the Chinatown and the Chinese Garden are redecorated gaily. When the night falls gradually, the red lanterns come on, lightening the streets and lanes and filling them with the celebratory and festival atmosphere.
A giant dragon lantern was erected on the Singapore Riverside to celebrate the festival last year. The giant lantern, which was 300 meters (990 feet) long and 4.5 meters (14.85 feet) high, costed 70,000 USD. When the night came, the whole giant dragon lantern shined, tinting the river aglow. What a tremendous spectacle! In the China Town, there was not only the jumbo lanterns imported from the countries including Nepal and Vietnam, but also 44 little delicate dragons composed by 1,364 small red lanterns. All of them made the China Town even more attractive. A large-scaled dreamlike fancy lantern carnival was held at the Imperial Garden, a landscape garden with the style of the ancient Chinese garden. The popular Disney lanterns as well as the giant lanterns in the shapes of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing and the dragon particularly caught people's attention.