Designblog

Burning paper money (also called Hell bank note or joss paper) to worship deities, honor ancestors or rest ghosts in peace is one of the most common rituals being practiced in Taiwan. The ritual is related to the belief that after the paper money is burned, it travels to the other worlds where deities, ancestors or ghosts reside.

There are different sorts of paper money, each varying from another in terms of size, pattern and purpose; however, in general it can still be divided roughly into two categories: gold and silver, which indicates the color of the square-shaped foil attached to the center of each paper money. The gold foil represents the higher rank of the deities while the silver one is therefore only used for ancestors or ghosts.

As a child, I had always been fascinated by the act of burning paper money because it somehow added more fun and interesting factors into the whole religious ceremony and summed up the whole ritual as a climax in the end.

*inspired by: Borststuk Souvenir, 2008, Robert Smit

Zeeuws-Vlaanderen seems to me an independent country, located between The Netherlands and Belgium. The fortified city Hulst, surrounded by star shaped ramparts, her mill, castle and basilica represents real folklore to me. The city attracts Belgium tourists, who consider it as a Dutch city, and the Dutch tourists, who consider it as a Flemish area.
The folkloric tales about the sly fox Reynaert, who even managed to deceive the king of the animal kingdom, king Noble, are still alive. The still vividly living fable functions as decoration of traditional café’s where the same family issues are being discussed for ages.
It seems as if the idealistic way of remembering cannot escape the area through the water of the North sea and the Westerschelde, surrounding the land. This water touching land doesn’t have public transport such as trains (it only has busses which makes rounds a few times a day). Maybe this is one of the reasons why I found it to be a forgotten piece of the Netherlands. Such a isolated piece of land with hidden treasures.
Because who of those raised in the big city, have ever visited Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, whom of them have ever taken part on mussel festivals. Where breaths the Zeeuwse shore (shore of Zeeland) so that you will always cycle with the wind in your face.

This picture was taken at my First Holy Communion in the Roman Catholic south of the Netherlands, where Catholicism has become more like tradition than religion (although one can ask whether religion is not always more like tradition than anything else).

The style of dress in this picture is quite representational of what I remember most about this ritual. Girls got dressed up in the most outrageous princess-like dresses and boys looked like forgotten side-kicks in their little monkey suits. Only later did I see that the girls were really dressed up as brides of God, and the boys, I don’t know what to make of. This cultus of female dress, as is also visible in the historic Dutch attire that is now on view at the Zuiderzee Museum exhibition “Gone with the Wind”, is a jumble of mixed messages of virginity and seductiveness, sobriety and decoration, even in children’s holy rituals.

The exhibition to the Zuiderzee-museum itself was preceded by a moment in which I really felt connected to my country, the Netherlands. Descending from the train, the wind and sky managed to awaken conflicting feelings regarding the Dutch folklore. A typical Dutch sky colored in dark purple gray pink, white beige and all colors in between carrying raindrops building up in the belly of the sky. Waiting to burst over the open waters of the Ijsselmeer. The smell of wooden boats and the whistling of the wind through the energetic sails with stature and strength. By pushing my sunglasses higher up and closer to the eyes, the lines separating the sky from sea became clearer. Pushed by the wind and the rain, the rhythm of the roofs covered with red tiles led to the smell of the Hema “rookworst” warming my mind. Seeing the beauty with a soberness and acceptance of circumstances, surviving in tougher times characterizes the Dutch people and at the same time bonds me to them. Looking at the way they deal for example with the weather by inventing an umbrella suitable for tougher times, I think it symbolizes the Dutch people. keyword: storm umbrella

Last week, while visiting the Zuiderzee museum in Enkhuizen, I was sent back to my childhood years through the works of artist Caroline Fuchs (NL 1964), who amongst 54 other artists, designers and photographers were asked to create works for the exhibition “Gejaagd door de Wind” which theme was “Folklore”

Fuchs created a room full of infant dummies wearing their folkloric Queen’s day customs. When entering the room, a Brazilian folkloric character, the Saci-Perere, jumped into my mind. Not that the dummies were black or one legged, neither did they smoke pipes or wore red hats and shorts, but the somewhat magical atmosphere in the room created by the unusual styling, use of vivid colors and choice of rather scary dummies just sent me to a different time and place.

The Saci-Perere is, without doubt, the most famous character in Brazilian folklore. Apparently he chooses to live  close to farms and will not cause major harm, but there is no little harm that he won’t do. He will hide children’s toys, set farm animals loose, tease dogs, and curse chicken eggs preventing them from hatching. In the kitchen, the Saci would spill  salt, sour the milk, burn the bean stew, and drop flies into the soup.  In short, anything that goes wrong — in the house, or outside it — may be confidently blamed on the Saci.

Besides disappearing or becoming invisible (often with only his red cap and the red glow of his pipe still showing), the Saci can transform himself into a Matitaperê or Matita Pereira, an elusive bird whose melancholic song seems to come from nowhere. One can escape a pursuing Saci by crossing a water stream: the Saci will not dare to cross, for then he will lose all his powers. Another way is to drop ropes full of knots; the Saci will then be compelled to stop and undo the knots. One can also try to appease him by leaving behind some cachaca, or some tobacco for his pipe