Written by Helen Sneha
Pictures by Jonathan Lim
On the tenth and final night of our stay in Iloilo, we held our cultural night performance. Attendees included our host from the University of the Philippines Visayas, Dr Rosalie Arcala-Hall, and many other individuals to whom we owed the success of our trip. Everyone gathered in the foyer of the UPV Cinematheque (where we had had our first international film screening a few nights prior) to mingle with one another and partake of some Malaysian snacks and finger food which we had brought with us. After dinner, which we spent chatting with our guests on the one hand and conducting hushed last-minute-preparations on the other, we all headed into the cinematheque for the cultural night performances to begin.
First up on the order of events was a belly dance by one of our travellers, Lestari Hairul. She wore a blue costume called a ‘bedleh’ (which was largely handmade!) festooned with gold coins, and received thunderous applause for a number of lithe moves, including one where she bent all the way backwards to touch the ground behind her. All in all, it started the night off marvellously. The hosts for the night, Traceline Choo (from Monash) and Peter Rapiz (one of our student guides from UPV), then came in to introduce themselves, thank the guests for being present, and keep the ball rolling. They explained that the theme for the night was ‘4-in-One’ – since the Malaysian and Philippino flags shared the same four colors (white, red, blue, and yellow), the night’s theme was supposed to represent a melding and mutual sharing and appreciation of the two cultures. We Monash travellers had all dressed in one of the four colors of the flag, while our UPV student guides had planned to showcase the enthusiasm of youth with their outfits and performances.
Lestari belly-danced to open the show
For the next performance, we, the student travellers, performed a traditional Malaysian folk song, ‘Rasa Sayang’, for the audience. The song began slowly and later became faster-paced as everyone clapped along. Many of our student guides had learned the song over the course of our time in Iloilo and from the stage, we could see them singing along gaily in the audience. Little cards with the chorus lyrics on them had also been passed out among audience members so that people who did not know the lyrics by heart could join in the singing as well. Following that, we performed a traditional rhythmic dance, the ‘Dikir Barat’, for our guests. This, too, gradually became more upbeat before ending in another rousing performance of ‘Rasa Sayang’.
Over the course of the night, ‘X-Factor’ style prizes were also given out to the travellers and student guides. Earlier, we had all voted for people on the trip in categories such as ‘most culturally sensitive traveller’, ‘most inspiring traveller’, and ‘most considerate traveller’, and gifts were presented to the winners of these awards on the night. A few short, hilarious acceptance speeches ensued as various people accepted their awards to sincere applause from the crowd.
Our student guides were unequalled in their wit and energy over the course of the trip, and cultural night was no exception. They took the stage twice, once to perform a song and once to perform a dance, which they got everyone involved in dancing. Their enthusiasm was infectious, and many of the guests quite happily joined in the dance moves. They ended by presenting all us travellers with little tokens of their appreciation – underwear with ‘I ‘heart’ Iloilo’ emblazoned on the front in silvery letters, which drew a good laugh from everyone and left us light-hearted.
Our student guides were unparalleled in their energy during the trip
We Monash students also performed a chicken dance, a simple dance involving four exaggerated movements, which was a big crowd-pleaser and also got the audience very involved. Many of us ran into the crowd and engaged them with our bird-like moves, and we were thrilled when every last person there, including our pathfinder Dr Yeoh, busted a move or two along with us, so to speak. We also performed a song chronicling our journey that was written by Emily and Sheril, two of our travellers, called ‘From the Jeepney We Hang’, which made reference to many of the things we saw and experienced during our stay in Iloilo.
Our guests doing the chicken dance
The night wound down with a short gift-giving ceremony to our guests, who were presented with a framed group picture of us during our sessions with them. Finally, Dr Yeoh and editor-in-chief Chrishandra both gave heartfelt speeches about the trip, gratefully thanking the people who made it all possible, before we headed off to sing our final-night sorrows away.
Dr Yeoh delivering closing remarks.
The plan to go to a karaoke place after cultural night had been in the works for a while, so we headed off to one as soon as we could, with Dr Rosalie Hall and her husband. We all worked off our feelings with numbers from across the eras - from 'Tie a Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree' and 'Moon River' to 'If I Ain't Got You' and The Fray's 'How to Save a Life' . There was a little friendly Philippines-Malaysia competition going on between our group and the student guides to see who could rack up the most perfect-100 scores, and just as it looked like Malaysia had it in the bag, Peter and L.A. hit the ceiling with 'Fame', by Irene Cara. As we laughed our way back to UPV to pack up for our flight the next morning, we felt that we had, quite literally, ended the trip on a high note.
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Helen is a third-year Bachelor of Arts student, double-majoring in Writing and International Studies. She is hopelessly interested in tennis, funky rings, dinosaurs, and the human hand.
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