Mayday

I am never much of a car fan. The first vehicle that I ever thought of owning was a Renualt Kangoo, a van that I could drive around comfortably with Jackie. 

I never did get around to buying one. Too much of a liability, and I have no excuse. Singapore has excellent public transport. 

Hence Singapore F1 Night Race did not really trigger much of my interest, but I am very proud of Singapore. 

That was until W got Walkabout tickets, wohoo! And Mayday was performing!

Truthfully, I am not exactly a 100% true blue Mayday fan, but I like their songs. I like bands in general. Like Wu Bai (伍佰) and China Blues. Yes, I know some would probably categorise them into the auntie, uncle category, but hey they are good! I used to like Beyond, Gun N' Roses and Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but that was really ages ago when I stayed up late in the night to watch the MTV. 

So yes, I like bands. 

I like bands because it is not solo effort, and especially when it centres around creativity. Having a couple of creative creatures coming together is hell of a tough task.

SO for the first time in many years, I left home at 930pm; in Singapore that is. Malaysia is a different story though it is not that frequent too. Well, I am getting older after all. 

Once I met W, things were FUN! 

I never knew the night race was organised in a fun-fair style. It was more than just hanging around the grand stand trying to catch a glimpse of the racing cars. I tried taking photos of the cars, but no luck, they were too fast, and I was too uninterested. 

The Padang where the concert was held was cool! Plenty of people sitting on the grass, chilling and relaxing with beers, food, and nothing. 

I wanted to squeeze right up to the front of the stage, but as what W said, we were no match to the true blue Mayday fans. 

I never take W as a concert goer; as in doing everything that the performer asks. Man, I was totally wrong! She is one fellow that I am keeping in the list for concerts! She was SO MUCH FUN!!!

I had a great time during the two hours! W was jumping, singing, shouting, waving, everything that I thought that she would not be doing, haha! It was great to have someone shout/sing with, somehow the stress that I was carrying the last couple of days before the concert kind of evaporated too :)

Mayday belted out numbers but they interacted too. I like performers who interact and not sing throughout the concert in their own world. Hmm... a CD would serve pretty much the same purpose in the comfort on my bed. True? No? 

There was this part when Mayday told everyone to activate the handphone's torchlight. It was beautiful from the giant screen, and I am sure it looked lovely from the stage. Well, Mayday said so :)

The concert and Mayday reminded me of my love for the language; Chinese in this instance. Nowadays, mostly due to work, English dominates as my choice of language. But I continue to use Mandarin in most of my social settings, except for a couple of friends whom I used English as the primary language. 

Somehow it saddens me ever so slightly when I see Chinese parents using English as their main mode of language with their kid(s). I am not judging. Every family has their reasons and rights to use whichever language they prefer. I just thought if we are Chinese, it would be good to keep the mother tongue going. It would be great if the kids can speak the parents' dialect too. 

During my time, when technology was so minimal in our life, we learnt Chinese by memorising and writing out the characters again and again. It was that simple and straight forward. Chinese was always the easiest subject. Our parents spoke to us in Chinese and dialect. I only started to speak actively in English from primary three. Believe it or not, and I do not think it was a deliberate choice made by the school, the entire school had Chinese students only, except for an Indian boy who spoke Chinese too. It was only when the school moved and became a government primary school that the race mixture was a lot more balance. I think my siblings and friends did not fare too badly in our mother tongue or English. We speak and write okay English? I think so. 

How did we get to today when Chinese become such a difficult language? Especially with the advancement in technology.

By the time, the concert ended, it was way past the usual public transport service time. But hey, it's Singapore - the trains and buses' services had been extended to cater for the event, and I was home in a jiff - 40 min!