Mid-Autumn Festival Is Coming … #haveyougottenyourlanternsyet?
The annual “Mid Autumn Festival” happens October 4th this year - which means there’ll be mooncakes to be munched on, and the bootleg hand-carry lanterns are out in force! Shown here are some choice picks found in my neighbourhood sundry shops - prices are around SG$4 to SG$6 each (for the ones I’ve shown here anyways), excluding price of AA Batteries (2 x each, kept in the handles - the store auntie took care to tell me that).
Yes, gone were the days when bare flame and wick lit our beloved old-skool accordion-folded paper lanterns. Also scroll to the bottom of this post to see battery-operated “lanterns” in action!
While I was there thumbing the lanterns (contemplating and eventually giving in to my post-STGCC desires to buy MORE toys than I could afford), when I saw this little girl off 6-7 years old (maybe?) being utterly enthralled and fascinated with a light-up Wayang Lion lantern, who was busy flickering away with a festivity ditty pumped out of it’s hidden mini-speakers … and I wondered out loud to the store-auntie, about the “change in tastes” of different generations these days - of me looking at cutesy characters, while the young’uns attention is taken ahold of by flickering lights and sound LOL
I’ve excruciatingly faded memories of carrying lit-hand-carried lanterns in my youth (and by that I meant “teen hood” :p), but never had my lanterns caught gone up in flames, and neither did it eminate music! Normally it was us hooligans that were singing out loud LOL
These days, it is a wholly different situation - from music to sung-songs (mostly Mandarin songs). Here is an “example” of “music being pumped out” from mechanical “lanterns” for the millennium :p
I’m not a “parent”, so I can only imagine how it might a “irritating noise pollution” if your kids play this non-stop il the batteries die out hahahahahaha - but for me, I look on these as an “interesting” occurrence hahahaha even until NOW, actually hahahaha
