Sabah Cultural Carnival 2008

One thing about this carnival is, there was not much hype about it until about two weeks before the dates (26 and 27 Jan). I was a bit blur of its whole purpose. It's not even listed in the tourism calender despite having a strong tourism attraction. Some people even come up with theories that it is held as part of the silent or hidden political campaign for the coming election. Whatever it is, most importantly it creates a funfair atmosphere and provides some good entertainment for the public. It's very informative as well. A piece of shocking information revealed through the carnival is that Sabah actually has 100 ethnic groups instead of 35 as currently known!. And the government will probably make an official announcement of this finding soon. Hmm...is it necessary to have that many!?

I was with the crowd during the opening ceremony on Saturday night (26 Jan) with the primary aim to watch the concert...:). The ceremony was scheduled to start at 7 pm but Datuk Masidi who represented the CM only arrived slightly past eight. Instead of heading straight to the VIP grandstand he was led to visit the exhibition booths. While waiting for him the crowds were entertained with instrumental melodies by a traditional band who seemed to know only four songs including the late Minie Inus' hit something with the lyric 'nosusu....' (I forgot the title). Since it took Datuk M longer to visit the whole booths, the band repeated the same four songs over and over again much to the pain of my ears (the solo flute was very annoying, often out of tune). Having realised how late the VIPs were, the organiser finally directed Clarice, Everistus and another filler named Bendy to entertain the bored crowd.

Somebody struggled with the lyrics Sayang Kinabalu...:)
After the fillers, the MC pleaded the crowd not to leave yet "we have Ekin, Adam, Abu Bakar Ellah, Imuda and Linda Nanuwil" he announced. Once Linda's name was mentioned, immediately we saw Datuk M about fifty meters away rushed (brisk walk) to the grandstand, almost leaving the other VIPs far behind! *LOL* (actually it's a pure coincident that he completed visiting all booths when the announcement was made and rushed to the VIP grandstand). I checked the time it was ten minutes past nine which means the event was delayed by two hours plus!. Boring speeches followed up next.

And to cut a long story short, here's Linda with Ku Percaya

Ekin vs Candy (looks like Ekin got inspired by Candy's fashion style)



Adam vs Dafi (a song popularised by Dafi but I guess meant to be sung by Adam)