Visit to the Monkey God Tree

Went to Jurong West St 42 with Slug after dinner to check out the Monkey God appartition on the tree, which had been making headlines in the newspapers lately. Out of curiosity, really. I thought it would be a quiet affair, just a night walk along that street, but we were shocked to see a noisy crowd surrounding the trees.

As we jostled our way through the crowd, we came face-to-face with nothing more than a wrinkly hump on the tree bark. The so-called 'smiling Monkey God'. Bunches of joss sticks were stuck into the ground beneath it, and fresh chrysanthemums, flower garlands and bananas were strewn all over the ground.

Monkey God imprisoned in this tree?

They are practically making a shrine out of this!

The uncles were lighting more joss sticks and praying furiously. The aunties were crowded around another tree, trying to appreciate an imaginary Guan Yin portrait (on its flaking tree bark) like stuck-up connoisseurs. The Indians were fascinated with their Elephant God on another tree. The youngsters were snapping away on their camera phones, Singapore-style. Me no exception. The rest were just standing there, arms folded, and murmuring away.

As I was staring rudely at the Monkey God pop-up from the tree with the glow of the candles slowly roasting my chin, suddenly, a man pushed me aside and without any qualms, pushed a banana right into the 'Monkey God's' face. His pampering of the Monkey God was bordering on the senselessness. (I had a phobia of bananas and I quickly slid my way out of the crowd.)

Feeding time?

After a while, we grew bored and left. I know this tree had brought some 4D punters a small fortune, but are Singaporeans too superstitious or too money-obssessed to the extent of being silly?