Monthly Archives: August 2017

class trip to the NTU CHC

这是中国的遗产中心。/ This is the Chinese Heritage Centre.

Last week, we went to the CHC. Since NTU was built originally as a Chinese-medium school, naturally there would be a heritage museum dedicated to all things NTU. The museum itself was built based on Chinese architecture, from the use of feng shui to the types of statues placed on the roof. The characteristics of the building are heavily rooted in Chinese customs and culture. For instance, the roof of the building (that has now been closed off) is in the shape of an octagon which is linked to the auspicious number 8 in the Chinese customs (linked to the 8 trigrams as well, I think?) and the lions/dragons that are placed to protect the building and so on. It’s quite a contrast to see things from the past of NTU in this time where we have become an international educational institute, against the modern architecture. Of course, we haven’t completely let go of our Sino-centric roots but generally our buildings are more Westernised so the CHC (and Yunnan gardens) stand out.

Inside the building was a lot of bits and bobs from history. Very Chinese, naturally. But we could get a feel of what it would have been like had we been a student here long ago. A lot of aesthetic decisions were made alongside longstanding traditions and whatever was considered auspicious or inauspicious. In modern day context, we generally make decisions based on practicality.

The guide also mentioned a lot about the importance of preservation. He said that rather than replacing worn out components completely, they would find ways around it to sort of reinforce whatever that was falling apart with modern materials in order to preserve the original materials. Also monuments like the gate that people did not want to tear down because it was built for the people, by the people, are a good example of how highly valued such monuments are. However, there will always be those inevitable parts that start breaking off, which have no choice but to be replaced but largely they seem to have maintained the original structure very well.

Also, there are a few design elements that aren’t so obvious unless you take a closer look. For example, there are the Chinese words written at the end of the green roof that spell out NANYANG and something else (we weren’t in a position to be able to see) but these wouldn’t be so obvious without concentric observations. Also there’s the strategic location of the CHC – on a hill and right in the middle of the garden, so everything appears to be symmetric. Pretty cool when you see it (it’s my featured image).

All in all, a pretty interesting visit. Also very aesthetically pleasing and inspiration-inducing. Probably will go there again.

the villain – the edited ver.

This is our film from last week’s prod class. The audio was really not good so I replaced it with some filmreel sound effect and added title screens for context. The lighting also kept changing from warm to cool for some reason so black & white-ing it was the easiest way to make it all uniform. Wanted to add old timey saloon piano songs as the bgm but I think I’ll save that level of whimsy for bigger assignments.

In the event that adding title screens is cheating, there’s a version of it without the titles and audio.