Hello Halloween: 'The Night Safari's promise of a "ghastly time" will be fulfilled in more ways than one.'
Letter from Lee Boon Chuan Straits Times Forum 10 Oct 08;
I READ with bewilderment the report about the Night Safari's three-week Halloween promotion ("Frightfully fun Night Safari", Oct 3).
For an attraction which has always taken pride in providing its animals with "naturalistic habitats" (all quotes from the Night Safari website), the latest promise of "Dracula, The Mummy, Jiang Shi the Chinese vampire and vengeful Malay ghosts lurking at every corner" seems starkly out of place. Unless, perhaps, there is a corner of the African or Asian wilderness from which the Night Safari sources its animals, where residents include a cosmopolitan assortment of ghouls and their creepy kin?
One wonders how "eternal torture", a "train of terror" and women in blood-soaked rags cradling dead infants deliver on the Night Safari's promise of "wholesome night entertainment"? Or why an organisation which is fastidious in its reminders to guests not to use flash photography or otherwise disturb the resident animals would now subject its animals and the tranquil Mandai jungle to three weeks of screaming, wailing and all manner of unnatural noises.
The Night Safari has remained an attraction of choice for both tourists and local families, with its unique combination of animals in natural habitats and family-friendly and educational entertainment. It should not cheapen itself with an amateurish and ill-conceived attempt to be different. By doing so, it loses its distinctiveness and begins the downward slide to becoming a second-rate, schizophrenic attraction which has lost sight of its niche and competitive advantage.
Wildlife Reserves Singapore (the Night Safari's parent company) states on its website that it strives to provide "excellent exhibits of animals...presented in their natural environment, for the purpose of conservation, education and recreation". It should stay true to this laudable mission, or else The Night Safari's promise of a "ghastly time" will be fulfilled in more ways than one.
