mid-autumn festival dinner

so yesterday was the mid-autumn festival (or otherwise known as mooncake festival or lantern festival) – the 15th day in the 8th month of the lunar calender. how did you celebrate it? i went for a dinner organised by our church’s chinese apostolate group (the dinner event has a long name – ‘mid autumn festival fund raising dinner for the sg ara building fund-raising comittee’). it was held at the church’s hall. (holy spirit cathedral).

picture left shows the dinning hall. notice the colourful paper lanterns hanging on the ceiling.
the dinner was a fund-raising event for the community centre in sg. ara. lots of money (millions) were needed to build a community centre cum chapel and thus many projects/events were being organised now and then to raise funds.

the sale of the dinner tickets (at RM30 per person) alone had netted about RM200,000, and during the dinner itself there were 2 events organised for donations. i was there with my family (mum, sis, brother and brother’s family), and the whole table was occupied by us. my nephew and niece who were supposed to be at our table were busy ‘working’ and hardly had time to sit down to eat. they were in the chinese youth group and had to collect donations during the dinner.

picture left shows children walking in with their lanterns at the start of the dinner.

there was a karaoke singing going on, and each time a participant went up to sing, the youth went round with a huge box to collect donations. if the people like the singing, they will give more. the highlight of the singing was when the cathedral’s assistant parish priest, an indian, who studied mandarin in taiwan, sang 2 mandarin songs. lots of people were seen putting in donations when he was singing (i spy lots of red notes, while the other singers, i spy small blue notes). fr. henry was dressed in a smart white oriental shirt! so was fr. francis anthony (the parish priest) and our bishop. the bishop also sang an indian song, which was very catchy and ‘beaty’ which made everyone clap thier hands to the tune… and everyone get to join in the chorus!

picture left shows the string of lanterns hanging high up, and below, a close-up of the lantern).

beside this karaoke singing to collect donations, there was also an auction. items that went on auction were 2 bottles of champagne, a painting of jesus from mynmar done in small gem stones, a set of crystal candle holder. the first champagne (hennesey) went for RM500 and second at RM700. the painting see quite a number of people bidding for it, until the highest price at RM2000. the most interesting bidding done was for the lovely gleaming crystal (with beautiful designs) candle holder. the opening price was RM500 and at first it looks like people were not interested in it when nobody bid for it for quite some time. then someone add RM100 to it, and later suddenly somebody shouted RM1000. from then on, the bidding become interesting when it jumped within RM500 bracket. 3 different people seemed to be interested in it and it was like they were ‘fighting’ to have it. RM2000, RM2500, RM300, RM4000… until finally it was RM8000 and when the autioner was saying “RM8000 going twice” suddenly someone shouted RM8200… and finally he got it for that amount. and this generous person donated the crystal candle holder to the church! (the money of RM8200, and the other donations collected, were for the sg. ara building fund, not for the church). it was very interesting to watch and listen in the auction as each person try to out-do each other. i also get excited! i’m sure they collected a lot of donations via the auction.

the food was nice. well, my favourite dish – prawns was served, that’s good enough for me. haha. i love prawns so much! the dessert (as seen below) was the peanut cream, which i don’t like. just take a few mouthful. and then of course there were mooncakes too – which i don’t take at all. haha. ya, i never like mooncake and have not try any of it at all (just like durian!). oh there were only 6 of us at a table of 10, so we get to eat a lot!! my nephew and niece were suppose to be at out table too but as i said they were busy collecting donations so hardly have time to sit at the table to eat.
all in all, it was a fun night. lots of entertainment (the singing) and of course the good food. it was a good mid-autumn festival night well spent!

pardon me for my bad photography skills, ya. of course i had already done some editing to the pictures… still not so good.