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 UU
Singapore celebrates the Chinese New Year with a tour to Haw Par Villa
in Singapore.
Built in 1937, Haw Par Villa showcases traditional
Chinese cultural values through sculptures and dioramas depicting
popular myths and historical events.
It was constructed as an educational space for the transmission of
Chinese cultural values. Popular Chinese legends were sculpted all over the
garden telling these stories and its moral implications.
 Some
of the legends covered during the tour includes Lady White snake,
Journey to the west, Burning of the Red Lotus Temple and 8 immortals
crossing the sea.
Historical and mythical personalities introduced
included Lin Zexu, Confucius, Xuan Zang and Maitreya Bodhisattva.
It
is an excellent opportunity to discover cultural values celebrated and embraced
by ethnic Chinese. A little card of key Chinese dynasties were given out so that
everyone could locate the information, facts and historical personalities
within the context of Chinese history time horizon.
As there were children joining the tour, a "spot the
sculptures" game was designed for their exploration.
The tour is part of UU Singapore's program to
understand different cultures and belief systems. UU believes in learning and understanding other cultures,
part of the seven basic
principles of UU.
These programs are open to anyone who is interested
to explore other cultural and belief systems. For future program, check
the
activities page.
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Unitarian Universalists Singapore
