1 post tagged “folk art”
Today during lunch time, my mom and I was talking about our childhoods. Strangely enough, she remembers her childhood much clearly than I do... Gosh I'm bad at remembering stuff!
My mom said she was a naughty kid when she was in kindergarten. Back at that time, teachers asked kids to sit as straight and still as they could. One who did the best job got to play with toys first. My mom was always the first one got to play those toys. When other kids finally got to play, she's done playing. The only thing left to do was destroying other kids' toy bricks! (><'') As a result, teacher asked her to stand still in the back of the room. She would cry and cry, until her fingers were numb, then she would stop and kept standing still... There are many other stories like this. I wonder how she could remember them after 40 years or so?
As for me, I don't remember any story when I was in kindergarten. The only things that I remember are some Chinese folk arts and candy...
麦芽糖 (Maltose)
I remember there's an uncle sitting in front of my kindergarten's entrance with his wood bin and maltose. Everyday after school, I watched him making figures with maltose. He melted the maltose in a little pan. He scooped the melted maltose, and started "drawing" on this cool marble surface. He had a little swivel plate beside the marble surface. People paid him and spun the plate to decide which figure he was going to make for them. So you need a lot of luck to get a big figure like dragon. According to my mom, I always got dragon. Guess I had some luck. But the biggest price is a 3D basket! It's really hard to use maltose to make a simple 2D figure, but this master could make a huge basket for you to carry around, and even eat it if you want (who would tho?).
<--Here's a little maltose art.
Oh, did I mention? Back then, maltose art was relatively expensive, so we liked to buy maltose on two bamboo sticks. The more you stretch it, the whiter and softer it gets. It took us a lot of patient to make it pure white. Then we ate it as a trophy. -->
面人 (Dough Figurine)
It was really miraculous every time I saw a person making dough figurines on the street. They knead, roll, and twist those colorful dough in few minutes, and a lifelike dough figurine will appear right in front of your eyes. They made the figurines so fast that I never could figure out how they did it (@_@). You carry the figurine with a bamboo stick (yes, it's bamboo again :p). I think you can eat the figurine if you want, but who would do that??? I had few before. Too bad it got dry pretty quick, and they cracked in the end (p_q)...
<-- I had a bird like this before...
<-- That's a lot of them! :0
It used to me a street art from what I understand. I am happy that they have a store for it cuz you can't find it that often now...
冰糖葫芦 (Tang Hu Lu)
It looks delicious, and it tastes delicious too! I remember people carrying a lot of them on a big stick thing. Every time when I saw it, I was drooling. It's usually hawthorn inside with a thick red sugar coat. It tastes a little bit sour inside, but sweet outside. It's a perfect combination!
These are three things that I remember the most when I was little. I guess I remember more visual things than detail stories? sa~ Good old days :)
