Chinese New Year merry-making

singcitizen — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 02:17:45 +0000

Did you enjoy your Chinese New Year holidays? Well, the Chinese here have been merry-making the past week. With the first day of Chinese New Year falling on a Wednesday, it meant that the rest of the week till Sunday was a super-long weekend for much of Singapore’s population.

Though there was school on Friday, attendance was less than half in many classes, whether they be in the primary, secondary or junior college levels.

It is said that the Chinese have a propensity for gambling. Chinese New Year is that festive season when everyone, whether gambler or non-gambler, partakes in a tradition that transcends generations. Children and adults put moral rulebooks at the back of their minds as they gamely sit in a circle on the floor of the living room, indulging in games of Blackjack or some other games.

That’s when the gambling streak in everyone shows up, albeit for a fortnight till Chap Goh Meh*. That’s also when parents tolerate gambling among their young. In fact, many parents, grandparents, and their children join the gambling sessions that go on in almost every Chinese household across the island, and the world.

With the current TOTO jackpot standing at S$3,888,000, long queues have begun forming at the local betting outlets in town. The annual TOTO Hongbao draw on Thursday, 17 Feb 2005, with its jackpot prize of S$10 million, has resulted in queues at betting outlets snaking out of the outlets into the surrounding areas.
What am I saying? That we are a nation of gamblers? No. Not that, certainly. It’s just that we, Chinese, are in a celebratory spirit during the Chinese New Year. It’s that time of the year when tradition takes hold and we all put aside our anti-gambling principles and indulge in merry-making to our hearts’ content.

Once the fifteen days of the Chinese New Year are over, we will return to our old reserved, closeted selves. So, in the meantime, we are all just having fun!

Chap Goh Meh falls on 23 Feb 2005. That means another weekend of gaming sessions for many, many Singaporeans. Most Chinese will not want to be left out of the fun, for it will mean waiting till the next Chinese New Year before they can let go of their self-imposed moral restraints.

In a rat-race society such as ours, being able to set ourselves free of our inhibitions, albeit for two weeks, does wonders for our stressed-out minds. Don’t you agree?

* 15th day of Chinese New Year

Scratchit! cards a hit with older Singaporeans

singcitizen — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 02:19:59 +0000

These days, a new craze has hit town. Scratchit! is so popular that stocks of the game cards run out within days of them reaching the 4D betting outlets. The people who buy them are mostly older Singaporeans – Ah Peks and Ah Sohs. You can see them at these outlets buying strips of such game cards for themselves and their friends.

Just what is Scratchit! and why is it a phenomenon here? Scratchit! is a scratch-n-win product launched by Singapore Pools on 30 Nov 2004. The game is printed on a square card called a ticket. There are S$1 and S$2 scratch game tickets available at the local betting outlets.
What you do is simply use a coin to scratch the surface of a game ticket to reveal the figures, pictures, letters, symbols or words printed beneath. A player wins by matching three of those figures, pictures, letters, symbols or words out of a total of eight.

Prizes vary from S$1 to a top prize of S$10,000 for a S$1 game ticket, and from S$1 to a top prize of S$20,000 for a S$2 game ticket. There is one game for each S$1 ticket and two games for each S$2 ticket so theoretically, you could win twice for a S$2 ticket.

Each series of game tickets has a theme such as Go For Goals!, Wildlife Treasures, and Jewels of the Rainforest. The proceeds of the game series go to beneficiaries such as Football Association of Singapore (FAS), Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) and Jurong Birdpark.

While it is difficult to win the top prizes, it is quite easy to win amounts such as S$2, S$4, S$5 and S$10. So, if you buy a strip of, say 3 S$2 cards, it is quite possible for you to win, say S$5. So, in this case, for an outlay of S$6, you get S$5 back. This means your net donation to the funding programme is S$1.

Just what is it about Scratchit! that fascinates the older Singaporeans? I guess it’s fun and a chance to win big money. I mean, who can resist surprises? Here you have a game that instantly surprises you with cash prizes.

Those born in the 50′s and 60′s will surely remember a popular game for children then – the ang pow game tickets stuck to a long rectangular cardboard. For 5 cents, a child could peel off a ticket and unfold it to reveal hidden money prizes. One could win 20 cents, 50 cents or even a whole dollar! If you have played such a game before, you will remember the times you spent pondering over which of the 100 tickets on the board would hide the biggest prizes.

Well, kids nowadays don’t have such fun anymore. Now, I am not encouraging gambling. I am for the occasional things that bring fun and excitement, with the possibility of pleasant surprises, to the individual. You have all these things on TV today – eg. buy some provisions, get a lucky draw ticket and if your ticket is picked by a presenter, you win a prize. Sure, the games are in different forms, but they do provide fun and excitement, and occasionally a reward.

I don’t deny it. I am a fan of the Scratchit! game too. But, I don’t go crazy over it. I spend a few dollars a week, get some nostalgic fun scratching the panels on the tickets, collect the S$5 or S$10 that I win, and go off thinking that as I am having my fun, I am also contributing to the programmes run by the FAS, Wildlife Reserves Singapore or the Jurong Birdpark.

Hey! This is life that we are living. Why go complicated over such a simple fun-raising idea that benefits both the fun-raiser and the contributor? If the idea is wrong, then those raffle tickets, in whatever form, that are sold to raise funds for community groups shouldn’t be sold, for they too provide fun and excitement, with an occasional reward, too.

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Chinese New Year merry-making

Scratchit! cards a hit with older Singaporeans