The eighth lunar month is upon us and so are the Mid-Autumn festivities! Keeping to KWSH’s tradition, our premises have been decorated with an array of lanterns hand-painted by our volunteers and nursing home residents. More than 800 lanterns are on show across our two nursing homes this year, most of them adopted by generous donors in support of the “Light a Lantern, Warm a Heart” theme for this annual celebration.
To kick off the festivities, a light-up ceremony was held at the Mid-Autumn celebration at our Serangoon Road main campus on 16 September. Among the lanterns that came to life were the 100 lanterns surrounding a historic tree situated in our iconic pavilion garden. This Flame of Forest tree was planted by Mr Lee Kuan Yew during his visit in 1963 and is one of the oldest surviving trees planted by him in Singapore. It was the 100th anniversary of Mr Lee’s birth that day and these 100 lanterns commemorated the contributions of our founding Prime Minister as well as his support toward KWSH.
Another highlight of this year’s celebration was the release of the Kong Ming lanterns at KWSH @ Potong Pasir the following Saturday on 23 September. While they may be a relatively rare sight in Singapore, sky lanterns have been a constant at KWSH’s Mid-Autumn celebrations as donors lighted up and released the lanterns every year. With six gigantic 1.6m tall lanterns rising into the Potong Pasir night sky, it marked another milestone in the Hospital’s Mid-Autumn tradition as we extended this magnificent grandeur to our second nursing home for the first time since its opening in 2022.
As we count down to this year’s Mid-Autumn Festival which falls on 29 September, let’s also flash back to our celebrations in the recent past and take a look at the highlights we had down the years!
2012
Kong Ming lanterns made their debut at KWSH’s Mid-Autumn celebration as donors penned their wishes on the lanterns and released them together with their messages of peace, love and blessings.
2015
A sky lantern measuring 3m tall and 2.5m wide, the biggest ever in Singapore, was released as part of the celebration.
2019
A lantern wall was fabricated along the entire corridor at Block C where the KWSH Heritage Gallery is located. Built in 1857, this is a former ward building and is one of four conserved buildings at KWSH. The lantern wall, close to 2m tall and about 30m long, made its way into the Singapore Book of Records for being the Largest Lantern Wall in Singapore. A new record accomplished at an old historical site!
