Apparently, Chinese Taoist/Buddhist temple folks are simple heartlander Singaporeans. They go about organising their colourful traditional cultural & religious activities in a low key grassroots manner and even take complaints of noise and others in their stride, adjusting this and that for the sake of not inconveniencing others.. such as getai or lion dance performancers. Even if they get booked or fined eventually for noise or pollution, they don't blame society for it.
I also noticed that during the October season, many temples offer free simple vegetarian food to everyone. It is open to all, Singaporeans or non-singaporean, even Bangladeshi, PRC workers ..anyone can just walk in and have the food. No proselytisation, no mention of religion, no need of offerings, no need tithes. Very secular and community minded. Quite impressive.
Uniquely chin chai Singapore heartlanders.
I guess Singapore continous and relatively harmonious inter religious harmony are partly due to the makeup of Singapore religious community...these Taoist/Buddhist majority lead the way and has shown great inter community tolerance and even readily accept the earlier Government resettlement policy for the greater good of nation & societal benefit.
I also noticed that many of the devotees are aged Singaporeans. Guess their children and grandchildren would not want to get involve n all these stuffs. The young, educated and modern would even see these as superstitious and noisy and prefer other religion which are seen as more rational and modern.
As the Population Census show these groups declining year after year, will Singapore delicate racial and religious harmony be affected as well? How will the State relations with religion be affected by this demographic changes ? Will Singapore society still enjoy heartlander temple activities which are always so colourful, noisy yet very cultural?