Singapore Festivals Visitors Often Miss

Many of Singapore's festivals follow the lunar calendar, so they shift from year to year, but each has a season it usually lands in. The ones below are run by the temples and communities that hold them, and Places of Worship You Can Enter covers the halls you can visit on any day. Our pick is the Kusu pilgrimage, which has a published ferry from Marina South Pier, a season that lasts the whole ninth lunar month and a trip you can do in half a day. The Singapore Land Authority suggests going on a weekday, to miss the weekend crowds.

Kusu in the ninth month

Every year in the ninth lunar month, devotees make their way to Kusu Island for the Kusu Pilgrimage. The island has the Da Bo Gong Temple and a keramat, a shrine built to remember a pious 19th-century man, Syed Abdul Rahman, his mother Nenek Ghalib and his sister Puteri Fatimah, and the stairs up to the keramat are open for the season. The ninth month usually falls in October. Ferries leave hourly from Marina South Pier, run by an operator appointed for the pilgrimage, and the ordinary Kusu Island Ferry ticket isn't valid in those weeks, so buy the pilgrimage sailing instead.

Wear comfortable shoes, and leave pets at home, since pets and overnight stays aren't allowed on the island. The Siong Leng Musical Association, a traditional arts group that promotes Nanyin, or Southern Chinese music, also holds an annual heritage performance at the Chinese temple during the season.

The Nine Emperor Gods by the sea

The Nine Emperor Gods Festival begins around the end of the eighth lunar month and runs for at least nine to ten days, and many temples across the island hold it. The two oldest, each more than a hundred years old, are Hougang Dou Mu Gong, also known as Tou Mu Kung, and Feng Shan Gong, or Hong San Keong. The festival opens with the raising of nine lamps on long poles and closes on the tenth day, when the lamps come down after the gods have been sent off.

The key rituals, the receiving and sending-off of the gods, take place mainly by the sea. Today the sites include East Coast Park, Changi Beach and Punggol Marina, and every temple sends the gods off on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, mostly at night. A paper dragon ship, filled with salt, oil, rice, incense paper and joss sticks, is burnt at sea, and in most temples devotees can paste the names of family members on it to send their bad fortune out with it.

Between temples, processions called yew keng visit one another's halls, with palanquins and sedan chairs that some temples light with neon. Devotees follow a strict vegan diet, with no meat, eggs, milk, garlic or onions, and dress in white or yellow, which both stand for purity. We'd stand back at the sea-side rites and let the temple helpers work.

Theemithi at Sri Mariamman

At Sri Mariamman Temple on South Bridge Road, the Theemithi festival stretches over about three months and ends with fire-walking, usually in October or early November. It honours Draupadi, the heroine of the Indian epic Mahabharata, who proved her purity by walking barefoot across fire, and the temple has been its home since 1840.

Only men walk the fire pit, and women may watch as spectators. The Hindu Endowments Board organises it with the temple and requires online registration from anyone who takes part.

On the day, the priest and volunteers walk back from Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple on Serangoon Road, a 4 km walk, and the fire-walking begins once they reach Sri Mariamman. The festival draws many tourists. Sri Mariamman Temple has the visiting details, and the Thaipusam Procession starts from the same Serangoon Road temple on a different route.

Tiong Bahru's Monkey God

Tiong Bahru Qi Tian Gong, at 44 Eng Hoon Street, was founded in 1920 in an attap hut in a taro garden across the street, and its trustees say it was the first temple in Singapore dedicated to the Monkey God. You'll see more than ten statues of him, the oldest almost a century old. His birthday falls on the 16th day of the eighth lunar month, in September or early October. Mediums go into a trance, new idols and altars are blessed, and the temple's celebrations have included votive Hokkien marionette shows. The temple is open every day from 8am to 4pm, and A Slow Morning in Tiong Bahru walks the streets around it.

Mazu on Telok Ayer

Thian Hock Keng on Telok Ayer Street, the temple seafarers built, marks Mazu's birthday on the 23rd day of the third lunar month, which usually falls in April or May. The temple keeps up the tradition of getai, the loud open-air song and comedy shows staged as an offering to deities and spirits, and of Hokkien string puppet shows at the birthday. Guided tours on Chinese customs, history and the temple's architecture are available during major celebrations. Fuk Tak Chi, a small museum in an old temple, is on the same street.

Pesta Ubin in June

Pesta Ubin is a yearly festival that volunteers and stakeholders on Pulau Ubin have held since 2017, made possible by the Friends of Ubin Network with support from NParks, and it's open to the public. It's held in June, with guided nature walks, cultural tours and traditional games, and Ubin Day, usually a Saturday morning at the Assembly Area, is the highlight. Events and activities have a registration page. You cross by bumboat from Changi Point, and Puaka Hill, the highest point on the island at 74 metres, makes a short climb afterwards.

Arts in the heartland

ArtsEverywhere@CDC is an initiative of the Community Development Councils with the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the National Arts Council. It brings large-scale performances by established arts groups, and street performances by local artists, into the heartlands, and it gives artists who practise traditional and multicultural art forms a stage. Events are listed by district on the programme's own pages, so look up where it's being held before you go.

The ones with pages of their own

Vesak Day, usually in May, marks the Buddha's birth, awakening and passing, and the Vesak Day Temple Circuit starts at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in Chinatown. For a quieter hall, Palelai Buddhist Temple in Bedok lists five observances on its own festivals page: Magha Puja, Vesak Day, Asalha Puja, Ok Phansa and Kathina.

The Hungry Ghost Festival fills the seventh lunar month with street opera and getai in Chinatown and the heartland estates, and the front row is left empty for the spirits. Pesta Raya, the Esplanade's festival of Malay arts, comes around Hari Raya, and some of it is free.

Most of these follow a lunar calendar, so look up the dates on the organiser's own page before you plan.