Italian Cultural Fair at Sengkang Community Center

As mentioned in the previous post, there was an Italian Cultural Fair organized by the People’s Association and the Italian Cultural Institute at Sengkang Community Club.

I attended the event with my Italian Language Classmates – Chinguan, Lucy and Veron. I also asked Attilio along even though with him being a native Italian, as I thought that he might enjoy seeing how the event was organized. NTT, an Italiophile, was supposed to be part of my entourage too, but unfortunately, he had urgent matters to attend to at the last minute.

There I met Daphne Loo, one of the organizers from the People’s Association as well as Andre, an understudy to the director for the Italian Cultural Institute. They, along the other beautiful Italian ladies from the booths were very friendly. They answered our questions in an expressive and amiable manner.

While waiting for the video to start, we had a buffet dinner of Italian food and we mingled with each other. I was glad that Attilio came and met my classmates as it was such a riot listening to them trying to talk to him in Italian while Attilio patiently taught us slowly some Italian. We definitely need more practise!

At length, we were ushered in the theaterette where we were pleasanly surprised to see free goodie bags with some authentic Italian food. There was a short speech by Mrs Clorinda Lidia Canzio, the director of the Italian Cultural Institute. Shortly after, a film showcasing Italy started.

To be honest, I was quite underwhelmed by the video as it was not what I would expected it to be. Because firstly, the footage was quite dated. From the quality and the clothing of the people in the footage, it was obvious that the footage was in the 80’s. Secondly, it was full of cliqued and corny terms like “Calabria is like a young child holding a flower, greeting you mischeviously“.

I think that if they have chosen some like the Lonely Planet Six degree video clip, it would have been much superior.

Comparing the event with the Spanish Cultural Workshop, I would have enjoyed the fair more if it was more engaging and better organized. I was lucky that I was with company. I would imagine that I’d be quite bored were I to attend the event alone.

Nevertheless, being the first collaboration of this kind, naturally, there are a few kinks to smoothen out. Hopefully, the next collaboration would be improved.

Here is a short clip of the workshop :

You may also be interested :

• Learning Italian for dummies
• How to cook Penne Arrabbiata