Searching for some visual references.

Mood: Pek Chek

 

Whenever I research before designing, I get to this pekchek point where I just need to stop or I'll implode due to the excess amount of information. Chinese superstitions are slowly getting on my nerves. I feel no such attachment towards it of late because they really are quite ridiculous. THAT IS WHY IT'S A GOOD THING I'm doing this project - so that I can find the joy in reading about it and then, spread the love about it to the other people (see what I did there?). *Forgive me for my pessimistic vibe - hell week before recess is getting me down, naturally.

Anyway, I found out new information about Chinese Superstitions, but this time relating to Food, because:

1- I cannot live without my food

2- I guess that's a way to keep me interested in the topic

3- Everybody's interested in food, it's relatable, and you have to consume it alldayeveryday

4- The thought that there are certain rules to follow when eating around superstitious grandparents 

Personally, my parents always brought me up in a not-so-traditional, slightly more "westernized" environment where we wouldn't even hang CNY decorations during the festive season (Red's a little too jarring for our eyes). It's a little sad to be honest. My aesthetic preferences don't really tally with normal Chinese households (not sure if that's a good or bad thing though). For my info-graphic and project, I totally agree that the aesthetics should reflect my cheena roots. The thing is, I don't know where to find my roots :'(   ok sorry I'm whining again (long day today). 

What makes a design uniquely (Singaporean) Chinese?

When we went to Chinatown, I saw a lot of Chinese calligraphic lettering designs. Most of the signs were bilingual and they used bold colours to attract attention. It's possible that I'll have to include Chinese characters in my design (for formality sake and as a design element). I think it'll be interesting to see how I can abstract certain parts of a complicated Chinese character to form a layout. 

Park Sunset, Tokyo Banana inspired layout.

ALSO:

Elements abstracted from Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine packaging:

1- Rice paper

2- Calligraphy

3- Chinese characters

Possible? I think so........... Hmm.

VERY SUPERSTITIOUS

Finally got down to picking my "fading tradition" and target audience. I was kind of afraid to do this topic because it's quite ambiguous and research was going to be terribly difficult to find (i.e Rate of people practicing superstitious traditions, qualitative research on why they practice it). My idea was not to bring the tradition back (because I'm the last thing from superstitious), but to educate my target audience with our heritage so that it won't be just a forgotten past. This is what I figured out along the way:

Genre of Fading Tradition: Faith (noun) = "Complete trust/confidence in someone/something"
Superstitions = "Excessively credulous belief and reverence for supernatural beings. A widely held belief in supernatural causation leading to certain consequences of an action. A practice based on belief" 

Non-Chinese Superstitions:1- An apple a day keeps the doctor away (ok this may just be a saying)
2- Crossing fingers
3- Break a mirror 7 years of bad luck 

Chinese Superstitions:
1- House Cleaning during CNY
2- Buying new clothes for the new year
3- Chopsticks in a bowl represents death
4- Chinese people cannot marry people with the same surname
5- Cannot sleep infront of the mirror
6- Black is the colour of death
7- Red is the colour of fortune and prosperity
8- No cutting hair during CNY period
9- All the lights in the house have to be turned on the first day of CNY
10-  Dogs are believed to be able to see ghosts and spirits due to the fluid in their eyes. By applying this fluid over one's eyes, one can actually see ghost. This is how temple medium see ghost.
11- It signifies death when dogs howl for long periods at the wee hours of the mornings
12- Babies can sense spirits
13- Brooms are to be kept during CNY.
14- Wearing a moustache will bring bad luck
  

Chinese Festivals:1- Chinese New Year
2- Qing Ming Festival
3- Ghost Festival

*On a side note, I realise that most of the Chinese superstitions are based on Money/fortune, Health and Family. It shows as a precautionary measure that these may be the three most important aspects in life back then when they were created. Today, these superstitions have been replaced by Modern Medicine (i.e proper sanitation), Science and Education. It shows that our society is moving ahead. But without faith/beliefs/superstition, everything would become "fact by fact". Our society will put their trust in technology, which in turn will show no cultural heritage. It will be a boring place with no human touch or empathy.

Pai seh

I'm sorry I haven't updated this week :( I've been rushing Typo submission. I promise I'll post twice as much after class tomorrow!

Work in Progress Video (Artzine)

We're done! -Zine-

Working on a WIP Video for the Zine now. Stay Tuned~

Chinatown - Rituals and Traditions

Bev and I are at Starbucks now, working on our project. We make quite the team, I think. Not sure how she feels about that though. LOL. We're supposed to be doing our Zine but it's 1030am and no shops are open for us to buy a thumb drive for printing, so I figured I'd write.

Yesterday:

Chinatown was hot. We first entered the Chinatown Heritage centre. Spooky. The exhibits were surprisingly realistic, and creepy. It sent shivers down my spine, looking at the living conditions of Samsui women, seamstresses, etc. It did evoke many memories of when my parents would tell me stories of how Gramps sewed clothes and scrubbed floors for a living. Sometimes, I do wonder how it'll be like, living in the past- whether I'll like it or not, or if I'll be able to cope with the lack of technology. 

Because it was so quiet, we silently weaved through the levels, snapping photos within half an hour. That's where the bulk of mine came from. I really do want to say that what we saw at the Chinatown heritage centre was extremely interesting, but I think most of the excitement stemmed from our shopping spree there. We bought old school gadgets for drawing, really cheap wrist bands ($0.80 for leather straps btw), and henna. Ok, we were mainly attracted to the stores. But I think that there's where the interaction between people of different cultures and backgrounds really happen. It's fascinating to people watch. I enjoy seeing how tourist react to MGS girls in school uniform walking around, doing surveys. They're the most friendly bunch. Singaporeans will definitely walk away from them. It makes me sad to think that that's how we roll, sometimes. Singaporeans are so guarded and we adhere to strictly to our motto of "Don't talk to strangers". Obedient. Too obedient.

Cultural Vernacular:

So if you want to take it literally, most of the spoken "vernacular" was conversed in Mandrin, or dialects that I'm only guessing would be Cantonese/Hokkien/I'm not sure. Which brings me to the point: The tradition of conversing through dialects is fading. For me, the older generation doesn't speak to me with them so I hardly ever hear them.

Another thing that intrigued me was the community of elderly congregated under this particular pavilion playing chess. We rarely see a handful of people gathering around to play games anymore because everyone is so self entertained - also known as anti social  (be it through handphone games/ipads/computers/internet). Speaking of which, the bulk of the locals that reside in Chinatown also happen to be the older generation. Even shop keepers are in their mid 50s and above. Does this mean that because the younger generation is so involved in the world of technology that they forget communal interaction and preserving our heritage?

Local Flavors :

Sadly, the only other time I've seen Roasted Chestnut vendors was in Macau (not even in Singapore). The rarity of this delicacy is somewhat depressing.

Local vendors substituted by Old Chang Kee.

Ok. These are so pretty. We just had to buy the ruler to play with it hahaha

Fruit juice prices went up a lot.

Graphic Design/Design Language:

There wasn't much sense of design used for promotional sign boards (no design elements, more of just simple text). They would either be in a written form or printed in simple fonts with jarring complimentary colours to attract customers' attention.

Rituals and Traditions found:

1. Make Shift Pop Up Stores for vendors along the street side selling nick nacks and food.
2. Bargaining for goods
3. Festive mood decorations
4. Architecture: Low shop houses with fancy colours
5. Diversity in language/dialects spoken
6. Shops open fairly early
7. Mainly locals tending stores

On a side note, I just had to take a selfie @ Chinatown and send it to my Family Whatsapp Chat because mum was nagging at us to go to there during CNY period and all of us strongly detested the idea. She must have been laughing at me so hard for ending up there.

Nostalgia (ii)

She slammed the book on the table and screamed her guts out at me. She asked why I wasn’t clever enough. I took 6 tuitions for the 4 elementary subjects tested, and still wasn’t smart enough. I did try my best. It was never enough.  I'm the oldest child, and my mum spent hundreds on tuitions ever since I was in primary school. It's painful to watch her, because I know I was getting no where with my grades. You know how they always warn kids against wishing to grow up because they'll regret it? Yea, I never agreed with that. As a child, I was terrified of everything. I always questioned why my cousins could get 269/300 for PSLEs, or why I was always the slowest in card games, or always coming in the last for memory challenges. Pardon me, I put myself down on a regular basis. It's not very healthy, but I still do it. The past shouldn't matter much now, should it? I try not to hold on to it too tightly, to shake it off, but I know it’s what defines me. 

I don't like reminiscing much these days. It's probably just my current season in life where my past feels, somehow, a little bleak. Nostalgia doesn't really apply to me now.