Yesterday, all Arts Management students of Lasalle College of the Arts, year 2009, was taken on a docent trip on Asian Civilization Museum....
It feels... Rather off, because we are trained more to the art side (we do learn art history) but the exhibition pieces are more like something you would find on deep archeology or history. Those are art, true, but somehow just having an art degree wouldn't do enough to take care of those ancient things...
Well, we were there for the docent training for tours and the art history anyway, but it still weirdly came up to my head as my consideration.
The trip was absolutely fun. It's been a long time since I learn actual history and now that I think of it, it was the best time. I do sleep over my history lessons back days and still can't memorize clearly what artifact belongs to Paleolithic and the Neolithic. But at least the trip briefed up my memory and it's nice to learn them again.
We started on China's ancient artifacts. We were shown on an Emperor's Robe. I think it was the Emperor's son's robe if I'm not mistaken. It was said there is a lot of symbolism in it. And I never knew that Yellow was the color for the Emperor. We looked at the plates, it was well made for thousands years back. Mostly they had pictures but the yellow one, for the Emperor, was rather plain.
We learned some of chinese teachings of Confucism and Taoism as well. I didn't get those lesson back in high school so I rather went blank about it. But the Buddhism went well to me as I'm familiar about it.
There was statues of several Buddhist Gods and one of them, stands Kanzeon (Kannon, Guan Yin in Chinese, Kwan Im in Indonesian). Why people refers Kanzeon as a woman is because her gentleness and caring personality.
But the western mistaken her as Virgin Mary O.O;
There was a statue of her riding in a tiger too. Still, westerns at the time thinks it was Mary riding on a tiger. They didn't even bother why Mary IS riding on a tiger anyway, so the docent said...
And there were also scrolls of what is going on in hell. There were ten of them and their exhibition rolls over because the space can't put all ten together. Though it was telling a rather gruesome story about your punishment in hell, it was painted on bright colors. The tenth scroll was pretty different from the rest, it said that the tenth one is telling that after you went through all the karma of what you did in the world, you will be given the tea of forgetfulness and your sins will be forgiven. You will once again be born on earth.
I think there goes the roots of Buddhist believe in reincarnation...
And I think I just saw Enma on the scroll...
We went over to the Indian artifacts. Even Buddhism originates from India, in this section, more of the Hindu artifacts are shown. Hindu is interesting for its many Gods, just like Shinto. So it's kinda nice and go exploring, getting know more of the Gods.
We have the Trimurti at first as they are the central Gods of Hindu. Shiva is the most worshiped among the three. From my previous history lessons, because Shiva was feared as He was the God of destruction. Therefore, people worships him to prevent him destroying things. But yesterday it was explained, that Shiva has a drum that He keeps it sound that it will keep the world from destruction. He also has the flame of creation. (Which reminds me I think I should learn this more...). Brahma is the Creator, it said that less people worship him since he already done his job =__=; last but not least there was Vishnu, the caretaker and maintainer. He's known for his many avatars and constantly visits the human world.
I also learned one version of Ganesha's history. In Indonesia, Ganesha commonly known as the God of Knowledge as it becomes the symbol of Bandung Institute of Technology. But Children in India pray to Ganesha as the Protector of any Obstacles. They usually pray to Him after exams =___=;
There is also some examples how Hindu temples in India are. They usually hung some water barrier which will fall into Shiva's four faces and from there you can drink water that has been purified by Shiva.
After all done, we went to the shop... ^ ^
It was rather expensive though. One of my classmates did buy something. There are some interesting items, especially books. Mostly tells about Southeast Asia, China, India, and Malay (as Singapore is in Southeast Asia, and formed by three cultures). Too bad they didn't put Japan history on it... I'm excited about ancient Japan and Shinto lately...
Why are there no pictures?
Singapore is kinda strict on taking pictures on such events or places. Though I didn't really see no taking picture sign, I was not sure. So I rather take nothing than causing troubles... =___=;
