Chinatown Singapore’s second edition of The Five Footway Festival successfully concluded this week, featuring over 44 activities, including opera performances in dialect groups such as Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Hainanese, and Teochew. Other highlights of the festival include discovery tours that offer a journey through the history of Chinatown, traditional food workshops, and lion dance performances.
Organized by Chinatown Business Association, the Five Footway Festival is in collaboration with 20Six Productions, Char Yong (Dabu) Association Singapore, Chinese Theatre Circle, DoIt SG, Ge Yi Ge Zai Xi, Hey Lad Tour, Let’s Go Tour Singapore, Mr. Nigel Lim, Mr. Victor Yue, MWAC Live, Nam Hwa Opera, Nanyang Old Coffee, Pat Wo Wui Kun Singapore, Pek Sin Choon, Sin Ee Lye Heng, Singapore Chin Woo (Athletic) Association, Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, Singapore Hok
San Association, Singma Cultural Arts Association, Siong Leng Musical Association, Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan and Yue Hwa Chinese Products.
“The Five Footway Festival is a heritage and culturally rich Festival that allow audiences to experience a host of activities that bring them back to yesteryears. Tourists can imbibe the heritage and culture of the 5 main dialects groups from classical opera performances, traditional songs rendition, talks on local customs, local
desert making workshops, kite making, opera headdress making workshops etc. There are also walking trails themed on the Chinatown ‘s wall murals and another walking trail, with the tour guide, regaling participants through the eyes of a tailor, traditional shoe maker, songtress, coolie, Samsui woman. There is also northern and southern lion dance performances, rounded off with a Chinese martial arts performance,” said Ms. Lim Yick Suan, Executive Director of the Chinatown Business Association.
The tour highlight was presented by Let’s Go Tour, where tour guides weaved a Chinatown heritage narrative with The Red Lamp Tour in the night, navigating the back alleys of Chinatown through the eyes of immigrants, including a coolie, street hawker, Amah Jie, clogs maker and songstress.
Many of the activities were sold out, including the Yi Bua Hainanese Kueh workshop, a one-hour hands-on activity held at the Chinatown Visitor Centre. This workshop taught participants to to learn about making yi bua, a Hainanese traditional kueh made of glutinous rice flour dough filled with a rich mixture of grated coconut, peanut, and gula melaka.
The cultural performances held at Smith Street every weekend featured Opera performances in various dialect groups, traditional gongs and drums performances as well as singing and reciting in dialects.
For the Festival’s final act, Singapore Chin Woo (Athletic) Association performed the less seen northern Lion dance in addition to the southern Lion dance ,
showcasing their inhouse made northern and southern lion heads. They also showcasee a LED Lion dance, in line with the times, and round off with a wushu
performance.
The Five Footway Festival is part of the CBA programming, which aims to promote Singapore's heritage and culture. Besides opera performances, the Festival also offers a variety of workshops, heritage food sampling and old school games for all. All activities will be held at Chinatown Street Market, mainly Smith Street, Pagoda Street, Terengganu Street, Sago Street as well as at Chinatown Visitor Centre.
CBA will continue to organize a series of heritage food and craft workshops in the coming weeks.