Ever felt magic flowing in your fingers, transforming the night – making things happen? Well folks, we did! The night was February 23rd, 2006; the venue: Mercator Common Room; the occasion: the South-East Asian Country Information Day (SEACID). And on this night, four girls (in alphabetical order) – Bairavee Balasubramaniam (from Malaysia) , Isabella Balce (from the Philippines), Kristina Bautista (also from the Philippines) and Huifen Joann Hu (from Singapore) – got the magic going.

First Stop: History till WW2

To begin, we were chased by a screaming Japanese chick (Isabella), a feminist spin on reconstructing WW2-era Japanese colonialism. We then found a cave to hide in and began a discussion on how things came to this, i.e. we retraced our national histories from antiquity till the colonial era. After understanding how things came to be, we were saved by a passing (reasonably hot ;) ) American (Leon Keefer).

Second Stop: WW2 till the present day

Fifty years passed and all is not well. We (now as the descendants of the three women in the cave) met in a Japanese restaurant, and began to discuss contemporary politics, culture, food, you-name-it. We were most disappointed at the unavailability of blood porridge, duck embryos, and fish head curry.

Third Stop: Trivia and Entertainment

There's one thing the travel brochures don't tell you about South East Asia: Spooks, ghosts, superstitions, and (much believed) folklore. According to Kristina, if you sleep with your hair wet in the Philippines, you'll die. In Malaysia and Singapore, you're not supposed to hang out your laundry at night as your scent will be traced by vampire-like ghosts of women who died in childbirth.

Kristina and Isabella (jointly) presented a monologue, with Kris at the mike and Isa at the front (acting). Isabella was a bereaved rich widow whose husband Paul drowned in their swimming pool.

A few things to remember when you're in the Philippines:

Who is calling = Who schooling?
Mansion = Mention
Oh no, those trees (are on fire) = Uno dos tres (are on fire)
My husband Paul died after falling into the swimming pool = My husband Paul died after pauling into the swimming paul

We then had a Filipino dating game, with Isabella as the eligible bachelorette and Kristina as the host (with Leon as the announcer). Deepu Kumar,  Alexandru Stan, and Xingui Wang were chosen as the eligible bachelors.  Tip to remember: In the Philippines, when trying to impress the chick or her parents, the best thing to do is to eat their food and not try to make small talk. Apparently, Isabella was a bit too young to participate in the game and the three bachelors went back with long faces.

We then had a Malaysian patriotic song by Bairavee (as a self-critical remark – the horror did not end with ghosts...!!). This was followed by an exotic South East Asian dance involving two large bamboo poles, two strong fellas to hit the poles together, and two extremely graceful (and coordinated) dancers (Isa and Kristina) jumping in between the poles.

Then came.... fooood – And lots of it! We served Filipino, Malaysian, Vietnamese and Thai food. (We did receive reports of people overeating the spicy curry and running to the bathroom afterwards – We do apologize :) !!! )

Why was this magic?

First of all, there were only four women organizing the entire event and working their a*ses off for weeks. Secondly, we tried to rehearse everything (but failed as there was just so much to do) – and ended up improvising on the spot (especially as we had technical failures). Thirdly – and perhaps this is the most magical bit – we had a great time working on the CID and everyone who watched it felt the same at the end :). And, as a side note,  Bai's curry did not kill anyone.



You can find more pictures here.

(Text by Bairavee Balasubramaniam)