lantern night and innocent kids

Last night I went to the Lantern Night at Bishan Park, organized by the Grassroots Organization. The guest-of-honour was the Prime Minister, so you can imagine the security guys dotted around. He didn't wave at me though :P

What caught my attention though, was the performance on the stage. They were having a game for children, so close to a hundred kids rushed onto the stage, the oldest of the kids was in her 70s. It was the freeze game, in which they would play the music and everyone would dance, then when the music stopped, you were supposed to freeze. So one by one, the participants got disqualified.

Having dozens of kids jumping on the stage must be a problem for the engineer, anyway.. So with so many kids, it was taking too much time and eating into bed time, so the emcee decided to break them into 3 groups. Within each group, one person moves, whole group gets disqualified. It kind of reminded me of days in disciplinary group, one for all and all for one. Each is not only responsible for yourself, but also the person next to you, and the next. I mean, they are only less than 12 years old, do they have to go through that now? And another funny observation, those who got disqualified earlier, were crowding around the stage and pointing fingers at those still on the stage and who moved an inch. It was like those white terror era when neighbours tell on others and no one can trust anyone.

Screw the prize, now I have second thought on becoming a kid again.