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| Photo source: https://www.facebook.com/teochewfest2014 |
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| Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza Singapore Teochew Festival 25 Sep - 5 Oct 2014 |
Experience glimpses of Teochew culture at the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014 that will be held from 25 Sep - 5 Oct 2014 at Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza. This event is organized in conjunction with the Teochew Poit Ip Huay Kuan's grand 85th anniversary celebrations in Singapore. Sprawling an area of 30,000 square feet and featuring more than 20 vendors, this event offers visitors glimpses to delectable Teochew delicacies, historical artefacts, unique art performances and more.
There has been a lot of media publicity on the event. The publicity has been very successful and brought about a huge turnout at the Singapore Teochew Festival when I was there on the evening of 27 Sep 2014. Even though admission fee is S$5 per person, many people were willing to pay the fee to experience glimpses of Teochew culture and to savour a number of authentic Teochew dishes.
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| A good turnout at the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014. |
Teochew Food Street
The Teochew Food Street is clearly one of the most popular sections of the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014 exhibition. The braised duck stall and the roast meat stall seemed to be pretty popular. Other Teochew delicacies that were hot favourites were the Swatow dim sum, the Bak Kut Teh and oyster omelette. Please check out Eastcoastlife's blog, Teochew Festival 2014 (25 Sept - Oct) - Photohunt, for snapshots of the Teochew Food Street.
Prices of the food start from $2. The braised duck rice, Bak Kut Teh and the Teochew fried rice noodles with kailan and preserved radish each costs $10 per serving. Be prepared to spend at least $10 per person for a meal from the Teochew Food Street.
During meal hours, there is a long queue to enter the Teochew Food Street section. I learnt that due to fire safety regulations, there is a limit to the number of people who can be present in the section at any one single time. It will help to exercise patience to enter the Teochew Food section during meal hours.
More Teochew delicacies
I was very intrigued by the demonstration of the making of peanut candies. Visitors were given opportunities to sample freshly made peanut candies. These peanut tidbits tasted good even though they were on the sweet side. If you like them very much, you get buy them home to share!
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| Demonstration of the making of peanut tidbits. |
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| Teochew tidbits for sale. |
I heard that the Teochew rice dumplings sold at the Thye Moh Chan stall were very popular. These rice dumplings were sold out before the end of the day.
I was acquainted with Fish Maw when I was at the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014.
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| Fish Maw at the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014. |
Arts and Culture
Be fascinated by the intricate Teochew embroidery and wood carving. The organizer has also arranged for various cultural performances such as Teochew Opera (小梅花) to entertain the visitors.
The lanterns caught my notice. I was interested to figure out how these were weaved.
I observed that many of the visitors spoke Teochew dialects with the vendors. Teochews are likely find it heartwarming to visit the Singapore Teochew Festival 2014 and to converse in Teochew with other Teochew speakers.
I am not a Teochew. Nevertheless, it was quite an interesting experience to experience glimpses of the Teochew culture during the two hours visit I had spent at the Singapore Teochew Festival. The organizers could help to improve visitors' experience by facilitating the ease of the ordering of food during meal hours, and by putting up clearer information on the festival's programmes in both English and Chinese on its website.
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Singapore Teochew Festival 2014
25 Sep - 5 Oct 2014
11 a.m. - 10 p.m.
Ngee Ann City Civic Plaza
391 Orchard Road
Admission fee: S$5 per person.
For the programme schedule of Singapore Teochew Festival 2014, please visit http://www.teochewfestival.com/highlights.html (text in Chinese).
An online copy of the brochure is available from http://teochew.sg/?portfolio=%E6%BD%AE%E9%9D%92%E8%8A%82
The Festival's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/teochewfest2014
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You may also like to read:
- The Sunday Times: Teochew clans use catchy videos to woo young
- Eastcoastlife's Teochew Fesvital 2014 (25 Sept - 5 Oct) - Photohunt
- 新潮
- 3 reasons why the Singapore Teochew Festival is actually hipster heaven by Tan Xing Qi
- Chinese craftsmen show lanterns for Singapore's Teochew Festival by Xinhua English
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