Kuching Festival which is held annually in August is best known with the Food Fair, but what attracted us is the Garden Show.

A Wishing well can be a feature in garden landscaping.

I like the reflection in the wishing well.

This is a local style hut.

This is a Chinese style hut.  We felt that we have gone to the ancient time.

At the other end entrance of the garden show, there was a green neon light.

I noticed that they have the word “garden show” everywhere.  They also used some plants to form the alphabets, I think it is a good idea to tell visitors what event this was.

Different colors of fountains were created with different colours of lights shooting on the fountain.  I wonder if they were still colourful during day time.

A pond and a big stone with Chinese words on it.

It looks like hibiscus - the Malaysia national flower.

A tropical style water landscaping.

Somewhere in the garden show, we saw something real.  First I thought that it might be a decoration, but when we walked closer, we found some real mushrooms.

This time, my brother was the photographer, he helped to take the photos of SiewPeng and me.  :)

One of the sentences that touched me the most was, “When parents are 100 years old, they will still worry and care about their children who are already 8o years old.”

While everyone was entertained by the sign language performance, we have learned something valuable in our lives.

Another important message from this stage drama, “we should not wait to be nice to our parents.”  A famous Chinese proverb said that - “The tree want to stop moving but the wind is not still, and a child want to care about the parents but they have gone.”  So, do not wait.

If you are a parent, I am sure you know the feeling when your son or daughter are studying, working or having a life abroad.

One of the most interesting part in the show was, there was a story about a lady who helped her son to take his bag, but her son always rejected her, and the lady was very sad.

Then one day, the son came back and found that his mother was not there anymore.

He screamed… …

He cried over the rocking chair, but everything was too late.  He has lost the chance to show his love to his mother.  How sad…  Do not  let this happen in your life.

Another story told that the parents will feel sad when the children have done something wrong.  I have learned that I should not do something which is not supposed to be done and it will hurt my parents.

If you missed this stage performance, do not miss it next time.  I am sure you will learn or revise many good values in life at the same time enjoy watching the beautiful music, dance and sign language performance.  I hope that they can have the stage drama in other languages as well besides Chinese.

It really touched many people’s hearts.  They ended the stage show with all the performers got up to the stage.  From their brochures, I know that they have about 120 people joined this event as the performers and volunteers.  It was really amazing.

The stage drama was started with the picture of a grateful lamb.  Do you know that the lamb kneel down when it drinks milk from its mother?  Even a lamb knows what filial is, how about us?  Another animal that represent filial is the bird, I have heard some stories saying that the birds will feed their mother when their mother gets old.

This stage drama is all about the value of “filial“.  It is the most important moral value taught by traditional Chinese teaching since thousands of years ago.

The drama began with how the mother suffers when she starts having a baby.  From the slides shown, it presented that “The suffering is merely the beginning.”

If I am not mistaken, this mother and daughter was reading “The Sutra of Filial Piety” (or translated directly from Chinese - The Deep Kindness of Parents & Difficulty in Repaying It).

You can read the English version of The Sutra of Filial Piety here.

There are 10 kindness that we owe our parents.

1.  Kindness of providing protection and care while the child is in the womb.

2.  Kindness of bearing suffering during the birth.

3.  Kindness of forgetting all the pain once the child has been born.

4.  Kindness of eating the bitter herself and saving the sweet for the child.

5.  Kindness of moving the child to a dry place and lying in the wet herself.

6.  Kindness of suckling the child at her breast, nourishing and bringing up the child.

7.  Kindness of washing away the unclean.

8.  Kindness of always thinking of the child when it has traveled far.

9.  Kindness of deep care and devotion.

10.  Kindness of ultimate pity and sympathy.

The member from TzuChi Kuching performed this meaningful drama using beautiful sign language.  They moved their hands all the time following the music and their actions are well synchronized.

Thanks to TzuChi, and I would like to share this great performance with those who missed it, and hopefully TzuChi can organize more stage drama on good values.

To be continued … …

ps:  One thing I like about the events was they did not invite some politicians or government ministers to give speech which is usually boring and time wasting, they started the evening session right away with a meaningful speech from a leader of TzuChi (an author of a book as well) with a meaningful and inspirational speech.

We went to the BCCK (Borneo Convention Center Kuching) for the first time last night because we were attracted by the Sign Language Musical Stage Drama organized by TzuChi Kuching (a Buddhist Organization).

Now is the 7th month in Chinese Calendar, many Chinese thought it is  a ghost month but actually it is a month of filial (XiaoShun in Chinese, which means love and respect to parents) according to Buddhism.

It is a good time to perform the stage drama with the story based on The Sutra of Filial Piety.  They have put in a lot of efforts to make this performance a success.  The songs and the music were very nice, the sign language performance was amazing.

Most importantly the content of the Sutra of Filial Piety touched everyone’s heart, it let us know how our parents has taken care of us since we were in our mother’s womb, and explained that the relationship between parents and children.

Before the performance started, we took photos around, because they have set up some decorations, exhibitions and stalls selling books and CDs/DVDs outside the hall.

We also talked to a member of TzhChi to learn more about this event and their organization, and she gave us some souvenirs.

This is how the Borneo Convention Center Kuching looks like from inside the building.

We saw a news reporting scene.  It might be live-broadcasted on TzuChi satellite TV from Taiwan which called “Da Ai” channel.

Right before the performance started, we could see a beautiful sunset outside the building.  I took the photo before we went into the hall.

f/5, 15 sec, ISO 80, focal length: 45mm (approx. 252mm on 35mm equivalent), cropped, increased contrast.

The detail astronomy data of the photo above is as below:-
Time taken: 2010-08-11 20:43:36
Location: Kuching, Malaysia
Direction: West
Apparent Magnitude:-
1.  Venus: -3.4
2.  Mars: 1.5
3.  Saturn: 1.2
4.  Eta Virginis: 3.89

This is the first time I have ever taken pictures of the small objects in the night sky.  My other experiences are the moon, sunrise and sunset.

Last week, after I read a news from the newspaper about the 3 planets (Venus, Mars and Saturn) appearing very near to each other, I decided to take their photos and at the same time to test the capability of my camera.  I have waited for 3 days because it kept on raining.  Finally I got a chance to have a clear sky last Wednesday evening although the light pollution around me was heavy.

Since I used low ISO to reduce noise, I had to increase the shutter time, therefore I used 15 seconds to take the photo of the planets.

Well, you’ll never know something when you have never tried it.  There are 2 things that surprised me:-
1.  15 seconds of shutter speed is already enough for the planet to move and left a line on the photos.
2.  The camera can see more stars than the human’s eyes.

The question mark on the photo above is the star that I did not notice until I view it through my computer (zoomed).  Later I checked and knew that it is called Eta Virginis or traditional name called Zaniah , one of the stars in Virgo Constellation.  It has apparent magnitude of 3.89, which means it is supposed to be visible but I could not see it with my eyes because of the light pollution.

As you may know,  the brightness of a star as seen by an observer on Earth can be measured in apparent magnitude.  The smaller the number means the brighter a star is and vice versa.  The sun has apparent magnitude of -26.74, where as the limit of our naked eyes can see the darkest star of apparent magnitude 6.  With the help of optical or radio telescope, human beings are able to find the stars with high apparent magnitude up 30+.

f/4.4, 1/8 sec, ISO 800, focal length: 86mm(approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), heavily cropped, increased contrast.

My brother also joined my photo sessions of the planets, he took the photo above, and told me that there is something inside the Venus.  The noise is high, and I guess it might be out of focus.

We spent more than half an hour until the planets set into the building (instead of the Western horizon) because some buildings blocked the planets and stars.

Next, we pointed our camera randomly into the sky.  Long time exposure gave us the following effect.  Don’t be mistaken, they are not meteors.

Looking at the lines, I can feel that our Earth is moving all the time.

f/4.4, 60 sec, ISO 400, focal length: 86mm (approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), auto level.

f/4.4, 60 sec, ISO 400, focal length: 86mm (approx. 486mm on 35mm equivalent), auto level.

I have learned some theory part of astronomy and astronomy photography, but reading from books or webpages both give me different experiences.  I have never known that within 15 seconds, the stars have already moved silently across the sky but we didn’t feel it.

The darker lines on the photo above are the darker stars, I have never thought that there are so many stars in a small area of the sky.  With my eyes, I can only see 3 or 4 of them.

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I have seen the Milky Way with my naked eyes, have you?
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Milky way is the galaxy where our solar system is located.  From other galaxy it looks spiral, but we cannot find it in spiral shape because we are in one of the Milky Way galaxy’s arm.  I believe many people in the cities are unable to see the milky way.

Years ago, I saw it with my own eyes in Toowoomba, Australia.  It was a moonless midnight when the street lights were off.  I looked at the sky and found that there was a huge bright collections of dots  and random shapes of cloud formed a wide belt across the sky from the east to the west (Ecliptic path).  I was amazed because I have never seen it before in Malaysia.  And at that time, I didn’t even know that it is one of the arm of the Milky Way.  Later, I asked a friend from China who knows more about astronomy and she told me that it is the milky way.  And I confirmed that after I found the pictures from the Internet.

These few years, we went to the other part of Australia - Perth, but I did not see the Milky Way again because of the cloudy weather.  The Milky Ways is always above our heads, we can see either the inner arm or the outer arm at a time, but our Earth atmosphere does not always allow us to see it.

In Chinese, Milky Way has a beautiful name called- “YinHe” (means Silvery River).

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Wish List:-
1.   See the Milky Way on the sky again (not from books or Internet).
2.   Have a telescope that can connect to my camera.