Does it tally?

Topic of discussion: Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion and My Website.

Post no. 9

I have received some useful constructive criticism from my Media Culture and Histories Lecturer, who stated:

"My big gripe would be that the moody background has a haunted connotation. The graffitied named of CFZ on his photo is not appropriate lah. Needs some formality. "

      Speaking of haunted connotations, I was reminded on how I would love to insert Cheong Fatt Tze's many ghost stories on my first website. That's how I first came to know about this mansion. My parents would always drive by and tell my sisters and I about how it was the most haunted mansion in Penang and that only daring tourists that are adventurous and brave enough would rent a room there. To me, it was called the Haunted Blue House. However, I have decided to filter down the information as I didn't want to scare off my target audiences that come across the page. Come to think of it, do ghost stories actually make a site more interesting to visit? It depends. Therefore, I have attempted to implement the old scroll style as well as an ample amount of vignetting, to somehow convert the many mysteries and stories the mansion carries into image. What I am trying to convey is that this Mansion should not only be recognised by its bright blue exterior, but should also be known for its history, ancient beliefs and facts that reside in it.

I couldn't agree more on his second comment though. I had a gutt feeling to remove that Graffiti-ed 'Cheong Fatt Tze' on his image in the 'Cheong Fatt Tze' tab. That's the one thing I let go. It was definitely my laziness to create a new image as a title. Ha-ha. It does displease me every time I look at it.

Since I did not have the chance to input any interesting Cheong Fatt Tze ghost stories into the site, I might as well put them up here!

My dad around his younger years would loiter around the CFT Mansion with his friends as his grandfather cooks for the CFT in the Annex, right opposite the Mansion. More info on the Annex here.

Father and the tourguide tells us that the people in charge of the heritage preservation projects painted the Mansion bright blue to get some attention from the media. Which worked, and saved this iconic Mansion from being destroyed. I could say the colour of this Mansion is pretty iconic. Everyone would refer it to the Blue House, or Blue Building without knowing what it actually is.

Anywho, ghost stories. Babies were born there, people passed away and generations regenerated among the Cheong Fatt Tze family as well as the renters after CFT's death. My parents heard stories from their relatives, who then passed them onto us and now me, passing them on to you.

In the middle of the night, travelers and the people renting the rooms could still see the ghosts of the maids and concubines working in the mansion, carrying sheets and blankets in and out of the rooms without using doors.

Stories by travelers also said that they could hear the concubines descend and ascend the  blue spiral staircase in woe.

Gates that were locked with keys the night before, were mysteriously unlocked in the morning.

The tour guide didn't mention all these, but she must have left them out intentionally. It does freak me out even when writing this blog post. There are many more CFT ghost stories that could be looked up online. What may be scary to most, might be interesting and fascinating to some.


- Charissa Ong

CLICK ME 

Check it outtt.

My first ever website that I done for an assignment!

Topic title: Digital Heritage Website

Movie posters. 

For my PIS assignment. I took a book, read it and made 3 posters out of it with Photoshop. :)

Marshall McLuhan, Media Theorist.

Lecture conducted by: Daniel Chong

Topic of discussion: "The World according to Marshall"
Post no. 8

According to Marshall, his laws of media are:

An Extension/Enhancement: Every technology extends or amplifies some organ or faculty of the user.

What does the medium enhance or intensify?
Lets take a car for example. This medium extends the legs of an ordinary human, enabling them to go travel further without getting lethargic or tired easily in a short amount of time.
Telephones could also be an enhancing medium. It extends the hearing ability of a human, allowing them to have a conversation with someone kilometers away without having to raise their voice.

Closure/Obsolescence: Because there is equilibrium in sensibility, when one area of experience is heightened or intensified, another is diminished or numbed.

What is pushed aside or obsolesced by the new medium?
Lets take the car again for the example. Due to the existence of this new medium, horses and carriages begin to diminish in demand.
Telephones also diminish the effort of setting up fire signals to communicate with one another, or using messengers that would take a longer period of time to get the message across. Media is always improving, very quickly. Old media would be forgone, newer and more effective media would replace them.

Reversal: Every form, pushed to the limit of its potential, reverses its characteristics.

Alright, if the car is overused and abused, it would cause humans to be idle, lazy and fat. It prevents them from moving around or getting to nearby places by walking. That would be the reverse of the abuse of effective new media.
The telephone as well. People would overuse it, causing dangerous health problems from the radiation the device emits. People would also take for granted that communication would and could be easily made anytime of the day, therefore there would be laziness and communication would not be done at all.

Retrieval: The content of any medium is an older medium. (I'm personally not very sure how this applies)

The telephone retrieves the ability to meet up, talk and bond.
Cars on the other hand retrieves the ability to move around and meet people at designated places.

Overall, what Mc Luhan is trying to say is that every new or old medium has its pros and cons. It's up to us to define what thoses are to come up with a suitable design solution that would properly obsolete a media, or create a new one that would benifit mankind.

source

Just some sketches for my Flash animation project.

Another interesting talk with SER.

By: Professor Shaw Hong SER

Topic of discussion: "Survey of Southeast Asian Arts and Culture"
Post no. 7

Have been lagging this post for a couple of weeks already due to the heavy assignments. So, the information that I remember might be filtered down and not going be so fresh anymore. Well, it's a good thing there's notes.

Anywho, I was taken by surprise when the talk I attended was conducted by the same speaker prior to the previous talk I went which cost me 5 bucks at TGV a week earlier. I wouldn't complain though, the information he plated up for us were different and new.

The main focus he was trying to point out in the talk was that throughout many years, the culture of southeast Asia has its own influences from different countries and developed their own 'outlook' from it.

He gave some architectural examples from Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia. What I found interesting is that all these three countries used the concept that derived itself from Hinduism, for their buildings. The Hindu God lives in a sacred mountain, not heaven. That mountain is called the 'Kalasha', or Mountain Meru.
And on those buildings' walls', there were bas-relieves (gives a 3D effect) that tells stories about their kind and era. The picture below depicts their 'Aspara', a.k.a their Celestial Being; Angel. The three pointy things on her head represent the Mountain Meru. SER told us that all the ladies in that era walked around without bras and it was a norm then. Oh wow, couldn't have imagined if everyone was like that today.

The humans at that time were illiterate, therefore pictures are much more legible for them. However, this form of culture is interpreted into the Thai culture. They still do have that pointy thing as the hat but it would represent fire. It also works like how the Halo works for Jesus Christ and all the other saints in Christianity.

 

He told us 'Nang Yai' was their form of wayang kulit. The costumes were pretty creepy if you asked me. However, it still has a very rich culture to it which makes it interesting to watch. Then, he started to talk about Indonesia.

He talked about Borobudur, which looked like an ancient ruin-Buddhist-temple. Well, it kinda is. There are about 500 life sized Buddha statues there. And that's where he started on the ancient folklore which I found seriously interesting. He asked us why was Buddha's hair so curly. He then explained that they were actually snails that glided up Buddha's meditating head, to protect it from the scorching sun the devil has conjured. Hence, the picture below. I really see the resemblance of the snail's shell to the carving on the statue itself.

He also said that the same devil that cause the massive heat wave caused a flood. A dragon felt pity for Buddha and split it's head up into 7 heads to protect Buddha like an umbrella for the flood. Interesting? This are all folklore anyway.

One other interesting thing he mention about colour in Thailand was that the colour RED was to function as an invisibility cloak. Whatever that is painted red, should be imagined that it is not there. For example, the rowers in a Thai boat race would be wearing red uniforms to give the illusion that the Phoenix boat was gliding along the river by itself. Very interesting.

I do believe what he says due to the fact that he stayed and studied in Thailand for such a long time. Plus, he's a Professor. Seems legit enough.

Well, that's all I could remember! Till next time.

-Charissa Ong

The Culture In Design Talk

Lecturer: SER ; Cultures and Histories

Topic of Discussion: "Culture in Design"
Post no. 6

I attended a cultural talk led by Mr. SER at the TGV Cinemas on the 10th of July with a couple of my classmates Shireen, Carmen, Melissa, Gerry and Daniel (My Lecturer for MC&H). We didn't know we had to pay beforehand! Thought we woke up early for nothing. They let us in anyway, after hearing that we were degree students. Ha-ha. 

Anyway, I found the talk pretty enlightening as he introduced different cultures and their symbols and how they influence product design. ALSO, the way he presents his talk in an eccentric and enjoyable manner really helped me in the processing the information. I could tell it was pretty dull at first; from his nerves maybe, he did mention it but it turned out excitable in the end. Most of the examples he showed us were greatly influenced by the Chinese Tai ji symbol, the Yin Yang. (As shown above) Will elaborate more about this later.

But first, he started off the talk on the definition on culture. 

It said, culture was a way of life for an entire society. As long as person B follows a particular action of  person A, and as it spreads across the whole society, it would be known as culture.

He gave examples on how an ancient man would use a bamboo shoot to drink from a waterfall. If his other village mates follow him, it would be known as a piece of culture for that village.

He then stated that there were 3 Cultural Levels which were the PHYSICAL , SOCIAL , and SPIRITUAL levels. 

The three levels are divided as such:

Physical - Material Culture

             - Outer Level (Appearance)

             - Colors, textures and patterns of a product.

             - Tangible

Social - Behavioral Culture

          - Mid Level (Function)

          - Function and Usability of a product.

Spiritual - Ideal Culture

             - Inner Level (Self-Image)

             - Special content, stories and emotions of a product.

             - Intangible

Those statements made a lot of sense to me as they were breakdowns on how good designs are made. There is a lot of thought. 

Another thing he mentioned was the 4 steps into creating a design product.

1. Investigation (Research)

2. Interaction (I'm not really sure what this meant, I think I was spacing at the time)

3. Development (Sketches)

4. Implementation (Designing the product)

This way, good designs would be legal and comprehensible by your target market. 

 Below are a few products which are influenced by the Yin Yang symbol above.

A couch,

And a thermos set.

I found it pretty clever on how the designers implemented the designs into the products. There's also one more tea cup design which is absolutely amazing. I couldn't find the picture for it on the net. *sobs*

Basically its a traditional clay cup with a separation down the middle with its shape like a curve. You're supposed to place the tea leaves on one side of the cup and pour hot water into it. The separation has the words Tai Ji carved in it (in Mandarin). 

Therefore, the brewed tea would flow to the other side of the separation trough the carved words. So, you're kinda like brewing your tea right in the tea cup instead of using the teapot.

Oh! He did encourage us to visit the Thailand Creative & Design Center if we ever visited Thailand. 

It's address would be the Th Sukhumvit btwn Soi 22 & 24 6th fl, Emporium.

Read more: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/thailand/bangkok/sights/arts-crafts/thailand-creative-design#ixzz21LDz2CGG

-Charissa Ong