Dear Nyonyas and Babas,
CONVENTION ROUND THE CORNER
It is hard to believe that in just under four weeks the experience we have been preparing for three years for you will be upon us. Finally.
The 33rd Baba Nyonya International Convention will be held on Saturday 20 November 2021 at the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre. The journey is still not without uncertainties.
Our organising team met on Zoom with our key stakeholders just a few nights ago to further review our detailed plans for the convention. It was also largely to follow up on the Multi-Ministry Taskforce (MTF) latest advisories.
Fortunately, the hybrid event (physical and virtual) is on, but with major tweaks in seating arrangements for the performers and in some activities to better ensure safe distancing.
TICKETING
We have sold 520 tickets at the time of this posting. Tickets for the physical convention are sold out. Less than 100 e-tickets are available for the virtual convention. Act now or you may just miss the convention because we have set a cap on sales.
Admin and housekeeping instructions will be shared with all ticket buyers, nearer the day.
All said and done, the next several days and weeks will be a feverish swirl of preparation to ensure this much downsized half-day event is delivered smoothly in a manner that is elegant, informative, reflective and fun as well.
MANYAK2 KAMSIAH
On behalf of The Peranakan Association Singapore, we are grateful to President Halimah Yacob for consenting to be the Guest-of-Honour for the convention.
We have many parties to thank for partnering us: The Peranakan Museum, Gunong Sayang Association, Peranakan Indian (Chitty Melaka) Association Singapore, our venue partners Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre, and our supporters National Heritage Board and Singapore Tourism Board.
Also, the teams in these organisations which have so unreservedly stepped up to assist us.
Thanks too, to the other 13 Peranakan associations in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Australia for supporting us virtually even if they are unable to be physically in Singapore.
Our big thanks to the people who have made our theatre dream a possibility: Playwright and writer Stella Kon for allowing Emily of Emerald Hill to be used as the basis and reference for our play, The Matriarchs; the indomitable GT Lye who will act as Emily’s mother-in-law from a script he wrote himself for the role in Baba Malay; director Alvin Tan for his painstaking and almost intuitive direction during sometimes intense rehearsals; and to the inimitable Ivan Heng in his signature role as Emily. Ivan promised me, unprompted, “Colin, every time I play Emily, it must be different from the past.” Such is his professionalism and dedication to theatre.
We are so thankful to renowned historian Kwa Chong Guan, our eloquent keynote speaker for the Symposium, who will challenge our respective Peranakan associations and community to think deep and be open to an evolving culture, if it is to survive globalization and rapid socio-economic changes: “The conventional wisdom about the preserving and promoting of Peranakan culture is that we need to identify and define the key features of the culture to decide how best to preserve and promote it… However, I am suggesting that the future of Peranakan culture is not in finding some continuity of elements of “authentic” Peranakan culture from its Golden Age to today and how they are to be preserved and handed to the next generation. Rather, it is about the remaking of what we imagine we have inherited from the Golden Age of the Straits Chinese for a more global cosmopolis today.”
We are excited and look forward to hearing one of our panellists, the legendary Professor Wang Gungwu, speak his mind: “For a historian, I was attracted not so much by that hybridity as by the Baba community’s willingness to change over time.”
That is not all. We have 13 other moderators and panellists, all renowned in their own fields of expertise, who will identify the challenges facing the community and what can and should be done – which is the convention’s objective and takeaway for the Peranakan associations and community to act on.
GRAB YOUR TICKETS NOW
If you don’t get your e-tickets fast enough, or decide to wait till the last minute, you may just miss this historic hybrid convention themed Keeping The Culture Alive.
We will share more admin and housekeeping instructions to all ticket buyers, nearer the day.
PLEASE WATCH THIS SPACE!
Take care and keep well.
Blessings
Colin Chee
Keeping the Culture Alive
30 October 2021
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