Happy Lunar NIU [ 牛 Cow] Year 2021 - 新年快乐 - No COW-VID.

UP TO 1,600 VIEWS

Good Moo-ning Everyone

Happy NIU [牛] Year - Ox Nostalgia - Singapore 1950's

The streets, roads, avenues and lorongs [lanes] in Singapore today are mostly clean and well-paved for the expensively paid vehicles that use them 24/7. During this country's early years from about the 1940's onwards, the roads were not heavily utilised so, beside vehicles, we had animals too, parading the grounds as these creatures were used to move people and goods. The horse was well-known and even today, laboured to carry people, pull wagons and carriages.

It was no surprise then, as a child that I used to watch another domesticated animal go by on Singapore roads lugging heavily laden wagons, possibly in pain and misery. It is the bullock. There's usually a man sitting in front of the cart, directing the poor creature to its destination. And they were in the middle of vehicular traffic. And frankly, like most animals, would soil the streets whenever they wanted to. It's a fascinating sight but I would just run away.

The scene that I used to witness as a boy is not to diminish the image of this creature but to explain that it's one up for the bull, cow, ox, bison, cattle, bovine or whatever you might want to call this sure-footed beast that has been useful to Man generations on. Yes, the milk you drink, etc. - how now brown cow - that's from a bovine too. It is surely one of the most useful animals created. 

It took a few years before bullock carts were taken off the roads in Singapore together with the animal itself to pave for a modern metropolis. There's even a road on this island named after it - Buffalo Road at Little India in the Serangoon district.

A creature humbled by Man, yet tough, will resist the enemy that is still lurking in our midst this Chinese new year... It's the Lunar New Year of the Ox - a symbol of power, determination, fertility and even stubbornness [how true]. This creature warrants praise and is even sacred across many cultures.

We should hope to have a wonderful ox year this 2021, especially in getting rid of the virus. Hopefully not another cow-vid year, seeing the rat scuttling away to remain unseen for another 12 years.

A HAPPY LUNAR YEAR OF THE COW 2021 EVERYONE. 

STAY SAFE, 8 TO A VISIT. 🐮

12022021 - a palindrome - read it forward and backward - that's 12 February, 2021.

邓丽君 - 新年好 [Teresa Teng - Xin Nian Hao].

From LIFE RECORDS Chinese.

The symbolic truth of the ox lies in its multi-nationalistic popularity; it's been painted, put up as a statue, represented in country stamps, sung about and so it goes. I have seen the Manitoba bisons [above image] in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, and they are huge. The ones that provide milk are from New Zealand, the dairy farm kind.

[Manitoba - minotaur - in Greek mythology - body of a man, head of a bull].

Here's one pop country western by Elvis that not many people know about. I have a copy but on an EP with a different vinyl cover. A lovely song indeed, the type that all Elvis Presley fans in Singapore would love to listen to during a Chinese New Year get-together. No. Believe me. Yes.

Milk Cow Blues was composed by Kokomo Arnold in 1934. Subsequent changes led to 4 more versions. Elvis Presley did his version based on Johnny Lee Wills and made it rock-a-billy style, turned the cow with a boogie beat and recorded the version in 1954.

Images - Google.