Lottie’s Cultural Splash – a fun and exciting celebration and showcase of Malaysia’s multicultural heritage took place at Lot 10 from 22 to 24 November 2019, organised by YTL Foundation in collaboration with Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun. The showcase – one of YTL Foundation’s annual year-end events for the public, celebrated Malaysia’s multicultural heritage this year, giving Malaysians and foreign visitors alike the opportunity to immerse themselves in a wide variety of elements from Malaysia’s heritage through fun-filled activities held throughout the weekend.
Lottie’s Cultural Splash was launched on Friday morning by YTM Raja Dato’ Seri Azureen binti Sultan Azlan Shah, the Chairperson of Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun, together with Datin Kathleen Chew, the Programme Director of YTL Foundation and Dato’ Yeoh Soo Min, Member of the Board of Trustees of YTL Foundation. The launch was also attended by students from SMK Ampang Pecah, SK Convent Sentul 1, SK Convent Sentul 2, SK Bandar Baru Sentul, SJK(T) Thamboosamy Pillai, SJK(T) St Joseph, SMK Assunta and SMK La Salle.
“This year’s event is themed ‘Cultural Splash’ as we wanted to celebrate the different cultures of this country. Diversity should be embraced and not taken for granted. With this event, we were able to learn and experience the many different cultural representations that the country offers. More importantly, we want Malaysians to be proud of their heritage because cultural heritage provides a sense of belonging and unity. We saw this event as a great opportunity for children and the general public to get acquainted with the many different aspects of our cultural heritage like traditional dances, musical performances, art and even games. We wanted to catalyse a revival of our beautiful Malaysian culture. For example, I remember my school having an angklung band, but today we can’t easily buy an angklung anymore. At Lottie’s Cultural Splash, we aimed for the younger generation to get to know and embrace cultural elements that have become distant with time,” said Datin Kathleen Chew, Programme Director of YTL Foundation.
Commenting on the collaboration, Raja Dato’ Seri Azureen binti Sultan Azlan Shah, Chairman of Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun said: “Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun was very excited to be a part of YTL Foundation’s Lottie’s Cutural Splash, as our objective is to instil the importance of basic human values, appreciation of our local arts, heritage and culture and a love for nature. It is important to provide exposure to children to ensure our local arts, heritage and culture are preserved and passed on to future generations. It is events like this that keep our culture alive.”
At the launch, Raja Dato’ Seri Azureen binti Sultan Azlan Shah was presented a painting by renowned artist Shirley Chu as a token of appreciation by Dato’ Yeoh Soo Min. The painting showed three famous local fruits - the King of Fruits Durian, the Queen of Fruits Mangosteen and the Rambutan. All three fruits are harvested around the same time each year and we can enjoy eating them together. Therefore, these fruits are envisioned as ‘One Family’, just like the three main ethnicities of Malaysia - Malay, Chinese and Indian who are united as ‘One Family’.
Across the three days, the children of Pusat Kreatif Kanak-Kanak Tuanku Bainun participated in special performances and workshops, such as performances of angklung, traditional Malay dances like zapin, inang and silat tari and the Chinese fan dance, ran a traditional games station featuring games like congkak, batu seremban, flag erasers and coconut bowling, crafts workshops such as making beads accessories, painting acrylic handkerchiefs and shirts, painting ceramic clay, paper art cutting, name sealing on circle cards, decorating gingerbread men, making sock donuts and Christmas fireplace socks, and even ran a readers’ theatre session.
Many other performances and activities were also organised by partner organisations, including Bharatanatyam and Bollywood dance performances and exhibition and sale of items by the Temple of Fine Arts; workshops on children’s painting, drawing, painting and colouring, and soap making, as well as live painting demonstrations and a Chinese ink painting exhibition, all by the Malaysian Artist Society; a sago worm eating exhibition, blowpipe demonstration, and performance of traditional dances from Sabah and Sarawak by Borneo KL; gamelan workshops and exhibition by Gangsapura; and live calligraphy demonstrations and sale of items by the Calligraphy Association. In total, there were 9 fun arts and cultural booths and 11 exciting performances. Throughout the weekend, over 200 students from 7 schools and 3 refugee centres - the Karen Organisation Learning Centre (MKO), the Kachin Refugee Learning Centre (KRLC) and the Advance Children Education Centre (ACE), attended the event.
Visitors to Lottie’s Cultural Splash also contributed by donating their pre-loved toys to Toy Libraries Malaysia for use by disadvantaged children in rural areas, and also by purchasing flowers from the FLOW Flower Truck that sold recycled flowers, with all proceeds channelled to charity.
More information about the activities at Lottie’s Cultural Splash is available on YTL Foundation’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/ytlfoundation
