Jason’s Blog

Saturday, 09/06/2007

Went over to Wan Cheng’s place to wait for Mun Yee as he would be driving us to Mines for the Buddhist Cultural & Arts Festival (BCAF) which is currently held at Mines International Exhibition Convention Centre (MIECC). Turns out that 2 of our friends wouldn’t be able to make it today; one had just flown off to Holland on a company trip while the other was busy with work. Mun Yee and his cousin, Chong came in 2 separate cars as he had expected a large company from our Setapak area. I sat in Chong’s car while Wan Cheng & Pam sat in the other car. Our first stop for today would be Haw Lun’s house.

We drove over to Sentul, picked him up and headed towards Mines. Stopped by Desa Petaling and had breakfast; porridge - which was quite delicious since it had a blend of salted eggs, peanuts and various condiments and hot coffee. Halfway through breakfast, Mun Yee got a call urging us to head there ASAP since there was still loads to do.

Reached Mines half an hour later and immediately headed off to work. We were supposed to build a 12m X 24m structure that resembled the Buddha’s foot with 84,000 lotus flowers that were donated from Thailand. The flowers were placed in 1.5L plastic bottles (filled with water to keep them alive and fresh), placed into individual compartments in boxes, and the boxes would form the structure of the foot.

Since the flowers arrived on Sunday, many of them had either withered or were blackened. Besides arranging the flowers into their correct position, we also removed the dead flowers and peeled off the outer layers of those that had turned black. The opening ceremony by the monks would commence at 11 a.m. and yet there were still so much to be done!!! Thanks goodness we had help from various other buddhist groups - SJBA, KCBA & Nalanda.

Somehow we managed to more and or less complete the structure in time for the opening ceremony. We stood around the perimeter of the giant structure and folded our palms together as a sign of respect while the monks recited some prayers. Unlike other ceremonies I had attended before, this one was particularly special for me since monks from 3 different traditions graced the opening ceremony simultaneously; the Teravadian, Mahayanese and Vajrayana traditions.

Aerial view of the almost completed giant structure:

The 5 circles on the left represents the 5 toes of Buddha’s foot. The middle flat area represents the base of the foot while the curve part on the right side shows the curved part of the foot’s heel. After the opening ceremony, there were still many flowers that weren’t perfect yet, so we continued peeling off and removing those dead flowers away. As always, we D2Y can’t resist to Shiok Sendiri in the course of working and took the opportunity to snap some really nice shots:

 

 

Took a break around 1 p.m. Lunch was sponsored by someone and although simple, was quite filling. Halfway eating, Francine asked me whether I would like to volunteer as an usherer since no one was willing to be one. We were given a yellow vest to wear, brought to the second floor and were stationed by the escalator. Our job was pretty simple; to direct visitors to the right side of the exhibition hall for a blessing ceremony by the Maha Sangha of 3 different traditions using ancient relics placed on their heads.

 

When there were no visitors around, we took the chance to experience how a Hak Sei Wooi or Tai Yee Long would act as in demanding payment or during negotiations with other triad members. Haha~~~ (,")

After our shift, I took a stroll around the vast hall. There were many interesting exhibits on display, among them replicas of the ancient Buddhist University (Nalanda), Mahabodhi Temple and Borobudur Temple.

 

At the Tzu Chi Merit Society booth, there was a long line of devotees queuing up to bathe the Little Buddha. There were guides that were showing and explaining many video clips and maps about the origin and propagation of Buddhism throughout the ages at another end of the booth.

At another end of the hall, there was an interactive booth of "One Day Life In The Monastery" where visitors were given the chance to experience the life of a monk. Since the queue was rather long, I didn’t feel like waiting for it and wondered to other booths instead. There were many booths that sold Buddhist books, hymms, postcards, fragrant incense, Chinese paintings and various souvenirs. Every now and then, there would be anouncements over the PA system asking people to donate blood while reassuring them that it was painless and that it would be over in no time. Sure enough, there was a long line of visitors queuing up to donate blood behind the booth that displayed many Chinese paintings.

The second floor sold mainly vegetarian food like Zhang, Nasi Lemak, Pau, mee, fried rice, coffee and tea. I was feeling rather hot after so much walking and bought an ice-cream cone from Izami Soft Ice-Cream stall. It was tasteless and was rapidly melting onto my hand. In my opinion, it should have been called Izami Melting Ice-Cream. I didn’t really enjoy that particular one. :<

Went back to help my fellow D2Y members to build more boxes to place more lotus flowers in them. Since we ran out of bottles, we just placed the flowers into the individual compartments, hoping that they would last a day without water for the exhibition that would end on Sunday. We worked fast to complete our task so that we would be able to catch the Shaolin performance which would commence at 4 p.m.

These Shaolin performers came all the way from the Southern Province of Fujian from China. While displaying various Kungfu stints, a Mandarin rendition of Wong Fei Hong accompanied them as background music, putting us all in the mood and we really enjoyed the performance. According to my friends, we were lucky to be able to witness this performance for free since it would normally be quite expensive to buy the tickets were it to be held at private functions.

Left Mines around 6 p.m. and was exhausted by the time I got home. Still, it was a day well spent being able to help out and contribute ito society in events such as this one.

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