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The recent floral fest parade in PutraJaya has show many execution weakness by the executive officer.

Besides the planning and execution issue, I notice something : besides from beauty and innovative point of view, something important is missing to boost the spirit of the parade.

The missing part that make the holding company make an commercialise float without thinking; and the same factor which make Ministry of Tourism ignorant close one eye on the poor taste float.

After checking the parade photo for the third round, browsing through the poor taste Kentucky Fried Chicken – Pizza Hut commerciallise float again, I found the answer.

Hawaii Aloha fest Rose tour and any other grand floral fest in the world is actually a show of cultural blend.

On the other hand, the PutraJaya floral parade is merely a staged tourism show without a soul : cultures.
It intrigue me when I read the participation requirement, which is unrealistic for Malaysia, a country with poor flower consuming cultures. Here is the condition for “usage of flowers on the floats” :

• Fresh flowers – not less than 70%,


• Dried flowers – not more than 10% and;


• Not more than 20% of plants and other nature products.

Besides the poor taste QSR commercial floats, most float lack the spirit of blending local culture. Without the culture, the parade is nothing but expensive soulless show. For example, why Pahang go show a floats with 2 bare elephants? Why can’t they blend it with elephant from Indian culture? While Sabah chameleon is nothing unique; anyone who visit Sabah Bajau Laut village will notice their unique frame structure, why don’t they blend the unique structure into the floats?

In Melacca, Thaipusam float parade is one of the tourist highlight. More than 100 floats participated in the parade. These floats mostly sponsored by local privates or organisation, while the local government play the part of assistant. The private float that join the parade can be NGO, private company, religious body such as Taoist, buddhist temple (I have yet to learn that any church or mosque are joining the parade).

From the parade, the tourist will learn Melaka multi-culture besides the Melaka empire. And so call buddhism parade is more than simple religion parade :

• Some riders will join the parade with their well decorated “beca”; the riders can be a Malays(muslim) or Indian(probably a hinduism or buddhism).




• A flagging and martial art presentation along the way


• A “Nyoya” body will join in the parade with a float decorating their culture


• A Siam temple may show the variance of buddism structures


• You will notice there is various regional association, from Guandong, Shanxi, Fujian.


• A school alumni float


• Local interest association/alliance such as hawker association, taxi drivers association,etc.


• Other organisation which display a float with local cultural theme such as mythical figures, old folks story, etc.
  

People will stay around the parade route. The organiser will arrange with various school to arrange the boy/girl scouts to help the crowd : not restricting the crowd on a line, but advise them for possible danger, e.g. danger of getting knock by passing by float.

If you miss the PutraJaya floral parade, you lost nothing. Just go to Melacca on 1st Febuary. Grab a place around Jonker street. If you can’t get a “good sight”, just mentioned that you are tourist, some warmth Melaccan might even invite you to watch the parade from 1st floor of their home.

————————— My mistake. Actually the Melacca floats parade mentioned is not in Thaipusam day, but Vesak(Wesak) day. You can check some google cache photo here from some blogger