travling photography

Photo � Reuters/Jorge Silva - Al Rights Reserved I was planning to attend the Poy Sang Long celebration in Chiang Mai in early April, but the opportunity of my Shanghai lecture and workshop intervened, and so I had to postpone traveling to northern Thailand till next year. However, I viewed the recent wonderful photo essay and reportage titled Beloved Princes Become Buddhist Novices by Jorge Silva of the annual event which was featured in Reuters' Wider Image blog, and it definitely reaffirmed my intention to attend the celebration in April 2019. The essay/reportage is quite thorough in explaining what Poy Sang Long is all about, but here's more information: The days of April 4-6 are usually the time for the three-day festival of Poy Sang Long when, in the city of Chiang Mai, pre-teen boys are inducted as Buddhist novices. On the first day of the 3-day festival, the youngsters are in the midst of family feasting and gift giving before they are escorted to the temple to have t...

Photo � Nick McGrath | All Rights Reserved As followers of this blog may know, I've been deeply interested in Chinese Opera for a while, and I'm in the midst of a long term work-in-progress project to publish a photo book on the Chinese Opera in the Diaspora. So it was with great pleasure and interest that I discovered the work of photographer Nick McGrath in his lovely gallery Chinese Opera Bangkok , and from which I chose the above image of a performer's compelling portrait to accompany this post. Bangkok�s Chinese opera has long been a vibrant staple of Bangkok's Chinatown life. The Teochew Chinese, who immigrated to Thailand a couple of centuries ago, brought it with them as part of their cultural traditions, and to this day, during the Chinese festivals, there are regular performances at venues along Yaowarat Road. In common with others regions that have received the influx of a Chinese diaspora, the art form is in decline. Partly caused by a younger generation who...

Photo �  Patrick Aventurier | All Rights Reserved Having attended the Nine Emperor Gods festival's celebrations in Kuala Lumpur last month, I was interested to discover a gallery of 50 portraits of The Ma Song by French photographer Patrick Aventurier (which were in all probability taken during the festival in Phuket, and known there as the Vegetarian festival.  My own experience at the Nine Emperor Gods festival in Ampang was very much milder than what these portraits depict....but let's start with what the festival is all about.  The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is a nine-day Taoist celebration beginning on the eve of 9th lunar month of the Chinese calendar, and celebrates this community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health, peace of mind, as well as spiritual cleansing. Its sacred rituals grant good fortune on those who observe this rite. In accordance with ...

Photo � Noah Shahar | All Rights Reserved Chinese opera has a long history in Thailand, which is home to the largest overseas Chinese community in the world. Bangkok's Chinatown roving performances have casts consisting of a mix of Chinese and Thai performers. The purpose of these roving troupes in Bangkok is to preserve Chinese culture and tradition in a country where Thai-Chinese are often third or fourth generation. The performances are also held to please the gods. As in New York City's Chinatown, where I frequently attend such performances, it is the middle-aged and elderly (with a handful of youngsters) of the neighborhood who go to these operas. Those held in Bangkok's Yaowarat Road, Chinatown's main thoroughfare, are probably not expensive in comparison to those in New York where the cheapest seat goes for $10 and the most expensive (depending if one of the stars is from Hong Kong or mainland China) can go for $100. I was pleased to find Noah Shahar's Chines...

Photo �  Giselle Natassia - All Rights Reserved This blog post will lead to a photo gallery that featured graphic and possibly disturbing images. The Nine Emperor Gods Festival is a nine-day Taoist celebration starting on the eve of the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar, and is observed in a number of Asian countires, including Thailand. In Thailand, this festival is called thetsakan kin che or the Vegetarian Festival. Celebrated throughout the entire country, it is at its height in Phuket, where more than a third of the population is Thai Chinese. The festival honors the nine Taoist emperor gods. During the Vegetarian Festival, Thai people practice jay , or veganism. Men (rarely women) participate in this self-mutilation ritual, and are called masongs . They are men possessed by gods or deities during the festival. Only pure, unmarried men without families of their own can become a masong.   The deities inside them   protects them from feeling any...

Photo � Yvan Cohen - All Rights Reserved I've been interested in Chinese opera for quite a while; way before watching Farewell My Concubine. As a photographer, I'm attracted by its visual aesthetics and by its colorful make up and costumery...but I am also interested in its history and its influence on other similar art form in Asia. For instance, I've photographed a performance of H�t Tu?ng in Hanoi a few years ago. Influenced by Chinese opera, it is one of the oldest art forms in Vietnam, and is said to have existed since the late 12th century. I wanted to spend much more time in photographing its performers, but was constrained to do so as I was leading a photo workshop, and couldn't set aside enough time for it. Together with Greece tragic-comedy and Indian Sanskrit Opera, it's one of the three oldest dramatic art forms in the world. I won't go into much background detail about the art, as it is widely -and more ably- described on scholarly websites, as wel...