Little Nostalgia: My Memory Gallery

Exhibit 3 : The Annual Function

Our school held an Annual Sports Day every year without a fail. But when I was in 9th grade, an Annual Function Day was introduced for the first time. In this Annual Function, a lot of activities were put together for which the students could sign up.

I was very shy and had stage fear but I wanted to join in and I loved singing so I ended up joining the singing choir. And the song that was decided on was Michael Jackson's Earth Song.

We were going to sing along to the song rather than do it karoke style so it probably made things easier for a lot of us. Since we weren't exactly all professionals and this was our first time with an English song on a stage. The lyrics were projected on the screen and we sang along to it until we had learnt them by heart.

We practiced for days. We spent extra hours after classes every day. And we even came to school when we didn't have classes. We practiced hard and with enthusiasm.

It was exciting and it was different. This event was supposed to be much bigger than some of the other programs we had held before and all the parents were supposed to come. We were going to wear a matching set of clothes as a choir and the song was pretty good too.

But one day, very close to the actual function, we were told that we weren't going to sing along and were instructed to the lip sync when the music played instead.

I am sure we weren't very extraordinary in our singing but I still wonder just how bad did they think we were that they ended up deciding a live lip syncing choir performance would be better than the choir actually singing the song. With the actual song being loudly played in the background no less.

But for the next few remaining days, we actually practiced lip syncing the song. And on the main day, that's exactly what we did too. We gave a whole performance, with the same song and the costumes and we even had a little extra bit where we lit each other's candles in a domino chain.

I also experienced an additional bit of my own - and my Dad says that I got a screentime on the big projector as it happened - where the girl who was supposed to light my candle refused to light my candle even as I continuously asked while we were mid-performance (good thing we weren't actually singing I guess).

I still don't know why she refused to light my candle like I was asking for her lunch money. But she told me to get it from someone else. When literally she was the only one with a lit candle near me and everyone else was waiting on me to get it from her. Yet she was so adamant that she didn't do it until a teacher from the backstage told her to.

It was really silly but made up for a pretty funny moment in our very original performance.

The function was never repeated after that first year so I'm not sure why we kept calling it "annual" but we did. I always imagined it took too much out of their pockets to hold such a big event (it was a private school).

There were other performances that didn't need to be faked though like a ballet dance (my friend was in it and she got to wear a pretty skirt) and there was a small drama performance with a Jesus story and there was this one dance performance which was basically covered in smoke and lights.

To this day, I am both confused about why our school did that to us and find it pretty hilarious at the same time when I think about how they pulled it off.

We essentially fooled all the audience and gave a very fake performance with a very real set-up. Then again, I doubt anyone in the audience actually thought it was us singing, specially with the overnight grown American accents in the whole choir's voice.

I think at the end of the day for most of us, including me, the whole sparkle of this never-done-before function was still very bright so even though the lip syncing was quite a weird experience, we were still very proud and happy with our "act".

I do wonder though, how many from that choir still look back on this performance and wonder why the school did us dirty like that (me). And how many laugh about the originality of this new "dirty" (me).

And how many from that audience remember attending a professional lip syncing performance of the Earth Song.

Most of all though, I wonder what the actual choir whose performance we plagiarised so shamelessly has to say about this.