Category: Journal

For our team, we initially thought of focusing on Terracotta warriors. Unfortunately, there are none in Singapore. After emailing Sujatha, we headed down to NUS Museum to look at a similar medium – shards & ceramics.

Nice exterior of the architecture. Really empty that day, therefore I get a clean shot!

We found a museum and an orang utan. Oh right, this is lee kong chian museum, wrong one. Don’t be mixed up if you guys are coming, unless you wanna meet furry friend too!

We moved to the next building, and found the ceramics exhibition!

There were two exhibitions going on, one on ceramics and one on vietnam war.

Ceramics & painting

 

 

Interesting but mmm let’s see more since we’re already here!

Vietnam War Posters

‘For whom, for what you’re dying’ <- This particular line struck us.

Initially, we thought of using the Terracotta warriors with an Ah Boys to Men reference. This is somewhat linked to the idea of war and army and we are thinking of incorporating this whole idea with NS in Singapore.

Brainstorming in progress!

And that’s all for now, ciao! 🙂

 

This might come in belated, but better late than never! Approaching the end of semester, it’s also good to reflect on the past topics we’ve learnt.

As you guys have found out, my team went to three locations (Asian Civilisation Museum, Kwan Im Tho Hood Cho & Thekchen Choling) on the search of the answers to our project: What is this Chinese Buddhism art thing all about?

These are my partners in crime and our journey started on 23 January 2016Mandatory ACM shot featuring someone from Team 1 from another tutorial group at the back

Asian Civilization Museum

Being well ahead of the schedule (our presentation was three weeks away then), we did not have any idea about Chinese Buddhism or what to even start with. We started taking lots of pictures related to Buddhist Art aimlessly and even joined the museum tour. However, we couldn’t gather enough information to form a central idea for our presentation.

So we started taking even more pictures.

 

We gave up and zoomed off to the temple in hopes to be enlightened.

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho

Unfortunately, we were at Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho during a really peak period – a week before Chinese New Year. It was too crowded which made the environment unsuitable for an interview with devotees even.

Moshing through the Chinatown crowd to get to the temple

Oh no, way too crowded. Leave.

We decided to meet on another time as we were really exhausted from this adventure.

21 Feb 2016 – My birthday

Thekchen Choling

It was interesting to spend my birthday at a temple right after church. We arrived at Thekchen Choling temple in Lavender and in that moment, we knew this was a place with answers.

You know things are going right when you get free wifi, while humbly standing in courts of a Tibetan Temple. Enlightenment music played in my head the moment we were connected to the wifi and started surfing their website.

We got to know more about the processions and pujas that take place in the temple. Leon and Huizhong even partook in the blessing while I observed at a corner.

For our presentation, we focused mainly on the experience of a Chinese Buddhist devotee when they visit the temple and we did it in the form of a ‘walkthrough’.

Takeaways

Apart from learning why are there so many forms of Buddha and experiencing temple visits myself, I’ve discovered that religions are actually linked to one another. Lord Indrah from Hinduism was found in this Buddhist temple. And it is through art and form that we are able to see religions overlapping each other, resulting in some forms of religious appropriation.

Least but not least, I made great friends! It was tons of fun going all out for this project and going crazy with these teammates! Work hard, play hard.

 

+1 Enlightenment points for us.

Every time as I’m on the topic of temples in Singapore with friends, this particular temple will never fail to pop up in the conversation – you guessed it, it’s this one you see here

Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum

It’s impressive architecture has made it a hit with tourists as well as educational heritage trails amongst schools

Tang-dynasty style architecture and intricate details never cease to amuse me

I’ve been there a couple of times for field trips and I never knew that this temple costs S$75 million to set up.

It’s based on the elements of the Tang Dynasty and the Buddhist Mandala, which is a representation of the Buddhist universe.

What makes this temple my favourite is also the fact that it’s not just a pretty look on its own but it also holds relics (bone and tongue of Buddha), as its name suggest, which further brings value to this temple. Furthermore, it’s both a temple and a museum! So much history and value in one place itself!

The main Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is on the ground floor while the Buddhist museum is on the third floor.

Thousands of artwork (paintings, statues, tapestry, etc) related to Buddha and Buddhism are featured in this temple. Perhaps its really a place to visit for asian art history to come alive.

Stupa

What’s really amazing about this temple is the giant stupa it houses that is made from 320kg of gold, of which 234kg were donated by devotees.

We’ve learnt about temple devotees in lecture that they make these donations in order to earn themselves good karma and merit to live a prosperous life and many lives ahead.

Dedication

Each temple is dedicated to a certain deity/ god and as for The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, its dedicated to the Maitreya Buddha (Compassionate One, also known as The Future Buddha).

Not just a temple and museum

I also recalled that this is is not only a temple and a museum, there is also a rooftop garden, a library, a vegetarian restaurant in the basement and a bookstore.

Perhaps its accessible location in Chinatown has generated an influx our visitors and especially tourists, commercializing the scene quite a bit here.

Being a shutterbug now, I’d like to back here soon to try out some long exposure shots!

Anyone wants to come along? 🙂