A Flat Bush community association took its singing band to the mall for a free lunchtime show
At Ormiston Town Centre on Saturday, a familiar face, always smiling under his trademark black fedora hat, could be seen dancing and revelling in the live music on display.
That gentleman was long-standing Botany community leader and Howick Local Board member Peter Young, who founded the Botany & Flat Bush Ethnic Association.
The association’s Golden Harmonies Band was performing live music and songs in the mall, at an event that drew members of the audience into spontaneous singing and dancing.
Young told the Howick & Eastern Post the association continuously tried to create ways to help make the community “healthy and happy”, a tagline he ran on in the 2025 Howick Local Board election.
He said he established the Golden Harmonies Band to bring happiness to the community.
“We created a lot of healthy things like dancing, like yoga, like exercise, and these are good for [being] healthy,” he said.
“The singing class and also the singing band, these are for happiness. The band is more alive,” Young said.
The association recently celebrated its ninth anniversary of providing community education, social and health classes.
The association’s founding purpose is described as “promoting wellness, diversity and harmony in a fast-developing area”.
The association has more than 1,000 members, and its most popular offering, yoga classes, has more than 700 active participants.
Young said all the singers and members of the band were association members.
While Young sits atop the organisation as its founder, he expressed pride in association chairman Kai Zeng, his fellow Howick Local Board member for Flat Bush.
He described Zeng as one of “the next generation” of leaders in Flat Bush’s ethnic communities, with new ideas and new actions.
The goal had been the same since he started the association, he said.
“Be healthy and happy. This is my aim.”
