Culture « My Itchy Fingers

Oriental Beauty

September 19, 2009 at 10:32 am | In itchy mouth | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arts, Culture, Design, Museum, Uniquely Singapore

While on our way down from Fort Canning, Itchyfingers saw some sculptures across the road on the SMU field. My immediate reaction was, “Botero?” cos the corpulent figures looked similar to that of the famous Colombian artist. But when I went nearer, I knew they were not Botero’s. They looked too oriental to be his.

I was right. The sculptures laid on the field were indeed not from Fernando Botero, but they were equally beautiful! The figures had lines that were simple, expression that were so lively. Excited, I went around to take photos of all the sculptures…but Itchyfingers shall not show all of them here…yet…

toe
Beautiful big fat toes…

The toes really reminded me of Botero’s sculptures…

Attack! Charge!

I was curious who did these but was disappointed to see no credit given to the artist. Finally I found the inscribed seal…Ahhhh…Bingo! A Chinese name…

seal
So, they were from this artist called LiChen…

But why wasn’t there any sign to credit the artist? Then I saw across the road another sculpture standing proudly in front of the Art Museum. Have not passed by the area for some time so not very sure when were these put up. Could these sculptures been placed there for an upcoming exhibition? Maybe they had been laid not long ago, so signs were not put up yet. I decided to cross the road to take a look at the lone sculpture to find out if there was any sign there…

hug
He looked like he was gonna embrace everyone…so beautiful! And no,
no sign either…

Being Itchyfingers, I decided to check it out at the museum reception. True enough, the man at the counter told me the artist’s name and they were there in conjunction with his solo exhibition to be held at the museum on the 25th of September! Yeah!!! Certainly something worth waiting for!!!

Itchyfingers will definitely be back when the exhibition starts!

sculpture1
Do look out for Li Chen’s “Mind. Body. Spirit” exhibition from 25th September
to 4th December at the Singapore Art Museum!

Carving a Living – Varnishing Trades

September 11, 2009 at 10:36 am | In itchy backside | Leave a Comment
Tags: Culture, Humour, Travel, Vietnam

Walking on the streets of the Old Quarters of Hanoi, Vietnam, one could find many interesting trades and crafts. As early residents of each of the more than 36 streets at the Old Quarters came from the same village, so on every streets you would find them selling the same thing or making the same crafts. On some streets, you would see all the shops selling shoes (mainly Vietnamese wooden clogs); on some streets, you would see traditional crafts made of wood, silver, bamboo etc. All the streets were named after the things that they sell. This is quite similar to our Chinatown in Singapore in the older days, where early Chinese immigrants staying in the same streets were from the same provinces so they would be in the same profession. :p

Out of the many shops and streets, Itchyfingers found the street selling these the most interesting. It didn’t seem much of a taboo for them to make a living out of these…afterall, it is something that everyone eventually will have to end up in…hahah…our last purchase…

So you guessed it? Yeah, it’s the coffin…

Interesting to see the shops displaying coffins openly outside the shops. Many of these shops selling coffins also sell made-to-order tombstone…

stone
Didn’t see the making of the coffins..but saw these people carving the stones
instead…

Samples on display, and some ready made ones too…just fix in the photo!
Oh, wait…did you see some familiar faces???

Britney Spears! Since when was she dead?

And there was something else…

“还珠格格” 赵薇! Or Vicki Zhao from the “Princess Pearl”, the once popular
TV adaption of a novel…Since when was she dead also?

Haha..Chinese consider it a taboo and inauspicious to put a living person’s photo on a tombstone, well, unless you are in the television or movie industry where the script requires you to act dead. But the actress or actor involved would always be given a ‘red packet’ of token money to wade off bad luck. :p Wonder if the celebrities involved were to find out that they were ‘pronounced dead’ in Vietnam, what would their reaction be? :p

Also see related Posts:
> Paper Merchants
> Paper Goodies
> Money No Enough Too
> Death Notes

Paper Merchants

September 8, 2009 at 2:59 pm | In itchy fingers | Leave a Comment
Tags: Culture, Design, Religion, Thailand, Travel, Uniquely Singapore

The paper goodies that Itchyfingers just talked about were meant to be burnt for the deads, and in recent years there are more varieties and choices available. From daily necessities to luxurious goods, you could almost always be sure there would be a paper version of it. :p

Then there are these other kind of paper goodies that were used mainly during the funerals. These are the larger items like houses, cars, tv etc. Sometimes, there would also be paper figurines to be burnt as servants for the dead.

Itchyfingers always wanted to visit and take pictures of how these paper goodies were made. I remembered seeing them some years ago but couldn’t remember the exact location now. Then recently, we happened to pass by (again…:p) a shop at Joo Chiat area and saw how a paper house was being made.

sticks
These were to be the ’skeleton’ of the houses. Often, bamboo sticks were used
and taped together…like making kites… :p

Work-in-progress. See the chests at the side?

A completed paper house. The front portion was to be inserted or placed
on top of the portion at the back. They were left like this for ease of
transport to the funeral wake. A paper house of this size seemed to be quite
normal, though I have seen bigger and more elaborate ones…

Itchyfingers peeped into the shop and saw some people busy working on more paper models. We had wanted to ask them if they mind us taking photos, but the expressions of their faces seemed kinda unfriendly. So we had to give up the idea. Well, maybe we shall try other shops when we find the time to… :p

Anyway, seeing how they made these paper houses reminded me of our trip to Bangkok some times ago. We were in the chinatown area when we saw this shop selling paper goodies for religious ceremonies too.

deities
Ooo…the Eight Deities..short of four leh… :p