Humour « My Itchy Fingers

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 Goodies

September 6, 2009 at 12:16 am | In itchy fingers | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arts, Culture, Design, Humour, Religion, Uniquely Singapore

In Chinese, perhaps more specifically Taoists’ culture, ancestor worship is commonly practiced. Besides the daily offering of joss sticks, flowers, fruits and food are also offered on certain traditional festivals. The Hungry Ghost Festival is one of these special times where more offerings were made to the deceased. During these special occasions, incense papers, hell notes, as well as all sorts of paper goods are burnt in the hope that the dead can have a better afterlife in the other world. There are such a wide selections of these paper goods that one is almost spoilt for choices! Hahaha….

Itchyfingers happened to pass by a shop selling these paper goodies after their business hours and I was wondering why didn’t the stall owner keep all their merchandise?

“Don’t they worry that they would get stolen?” I asked Tisu Boy.

“Wow lao! Who wants to steal these things! They say steal liao will suay one!” Tisu Boy said.

He meant to say the mysterious ‘they’ said that stealing these paper goodies meant for the dead will bring bad luck. Besides, who would wanna steal these otherwise useless stuff? Somehow I always wonder who are these mysterious ‘they’ people often like to make reference to…hahaha….

Anyway, since the paper goodies were out there in display, being Itchyfingers, we couldn’t help but start taking photos of some of the funnier and interesting ones..like these…

bars
We all know about the hell notes, how about gold bars? There were silver
bars available too…

Cars were pretty common items on sale. Many came with chauffeur too!
Oooo….the logo looked like a certain sports car brand with a ‘F’?

bike
Oooo….bikes were less common…at least it was the first time I saw this..

For ultimate luxury, how about a private plane for the afterlife?

Er…if you couldn’t afford the plane, a plane ticket will suffice…

What if you couldn’t afford all these ‘expensive’ vehicles?

Then i guess you would have to send these nice sports shoes instead…haha
These were actually life size, about man’s size 8 or 9 shoes!

sewing
How about a sewing machine for the creative fingers, or to help kill some
time in the other world?

For ancestors who were fashionistas, they would be happy to receive these… :p

bags
Not just any brands, must be the IT bags!

Couldn’t afford a LV while alive? Well, at least you could get an XL in the
other world…

And then something caught our eyes…

lingerie
Black lacy intimates! Hahaha….Er, no cup size to choose leh…hahah...

Very creative hor? Next time you pass by these shops, take a closer look at what new items are available!

House of Fame @ JiuFen

August 30, 2009 at 9:53 pm | In itchy backside | Leave a Comment
Tags: Arts, Design, Humour, Museum, Taiwan, Travel

At the ghost mask museum at JiuFen, Taiwan, not only you were able to see hideous looking masks as well as hilarious looking ones, there were also a few masks of famous people there. But, to be displayed in a museum with a name like ‘ghost masks’ ( 泥人吴鬼脸馆), does that mean that these famous people were also regarded as ‘ghosts’ by the creators? :p “Ghost” or 鬼 in Chinese has many layers of meanings. Besides the literal meaning of ‘ghosts’ or ’spirits’, it also means ‘evil’, ‘mischief’, ’secretive’ etc. Whatever meaning of ‘ghost’, certainly it is not a compliment to be part of the exhibits…hahah…

Most of these famous people were politicians and celebrities. Among all of them, the most notorious and deserving ‘ghost’ must be him…

osama
Osama Bin Laden! Like a devilish ghost, his whereabout is unpredictable
and mysterious…but once he made his appearance, there would be havoc
and disasters…!

Taiwan’s former President, Chen Shui-bian 陳水扁, who was arrested and
charged with financial shenanigans

Chen’s son-in-law, Chao Chien-ming 趙建銘, who pleaded guilty in court
to perjury. Do you know why was he made with eyes looking up?
Well, that should be meant as a mockery for his habit of looking at people with
chin raising up according to the local news media…

James Soong 宋楚瑜, another politician in Taiwan

Lee Myung-bak 李明博, President of South Korea

安倍晋三 Shinzo Abe, former Prime Minister of Japan

There was also some historical figure…

wu2
Wu Zetian 武则天, the only woman in the history of China to assume the title
of Empress Regnant

Among the celebrities, these were the more well-known ones..

andy
Andy Lau 刘德华…not as life-like as the waxed figure Itchyfingers saw in
Hong Kong…

Jackie Chan 成龙. Since Itchyfingers do not like him, we din take any of
his waxed figure in the Madame Tussauds Museum

Fans of Jay Chou 周杰伦 are gonna scream when they see their idol being
portrayed so uglily :p

Luckily the creator redeemed himself with this second mask… :p

Wow, even 茂伯 from Cape No. 7 made it to the list of celebrities…

This one was bizarre…Why was it there?

You would have thought this was a piggy mask. But the name said otherwise.
This was Lin Wang 林旺 , the famous Asian Elephant that served with
the Chinese Expeditionary Force during the Second Sino-Japanese War
(1937 – 1945) and later relocated to Taipei Zoo. He died in 2003 at the ripe
age of 86…

If only Itchyfingers were to visit Taipei Zoo six years ago….Nevertheless, we saw the huge container used to transport Lin Wang during the zoo’s relocation.

Huge container…

Sign outside the container

Old photos of Lin Wang inside the container

Try to look for the mask of the creator when you visit the museum…not tough to miss it though!

The 搞蛋鬼 (mischievous ghost), creator Wu

Do visit the ghost masks museum 泥人吴鬼脸馆 at JiuFen 九份 next time you are in Taiwan for a good laugh or good scare! Haha…

Entrance to the museum…Only now on closer look at the photo that
Itchyfingers realised that the admission charges were NT50 for adults and
NT30 for students…and we were asked to pay only NT30 each! Hahah!
So Itchyfingers still look like students??? Hahaha…. Biggest joke…