Day Two: Heritage Beyond Words

Today we visited the Fulldome.pro headquarters. I was not entirely sure what to expect despite having done some reading up online, but I certainly hadn’t been expecting the warm hospitality and scenic, peaceful work environment of the area. The office was perched atop a small picturesque hill, the sides of which were littered with many trees. They had us remove our shoes before entering the building, something which, for me, added to the general feel of homeliness and familial comfort in the whole compound. The staff there were all Eurasian, yet I got a sense of the quiet gentleness and calm peacefulness I had begun to notice in the local Thais present in their speech and body language as well. It felt like some Thai culture had rubbed off on them.

All the aforementioned factors set an interesting backdrop for us to learn about the dome itself. I was immediately reminded of the Singapore Science Centre’s IMAX theatre when I saw the dome for the first time. The professor from ADM who came along with us today, Prof. Ben Shedd, was very passionate and eager to share what he knew about the dome and the technology behind it. It’s actually a collapsible, transportable dome-shaped “screen” which completely surrounds you with the video being played and engulfs you in a truly moving cinematic experience. I would summarise it as simply a giant contact lens – a very immersive experience.

Prof Shedd and our own professor, Prof. Michael Walsh, shared many interesting thoughts and ideas with us about this dome and how it is linked to our topic of heritage preservation. First and foremost, the nature of the dome and its rich cinematic experience meant that it would serve as a wonderful platform to not just share cultural stories but to really immerse the audience in them. The dome doesn’t just play a video – it pulls you into an experience, and you feel like you’re part of an adventure in a whole new world. With such great technology, making people feel deeply for their stories and their heritage would be an easier goal to accomplish.

However, heritage preservation aside, the professors also said something else that spoke to me: yes, this technology is a fantastic way to present stories and culture, but more than that, it is art. It’s not just a cute gimmick for trivial entertainment. Each IMAX film played on it, be it as long as the Gopal one we saw today lasting almost half and hour or as short as the Fendini one lasting only about two minutes, is an art piece. Each is as much a form of artistic expression as a traditional painting or sketch. Art is dynamic after all, and these films created with technology are legitimate works of art which deserve equal appreciation and respect as any other. I thought this was interesting because it challenged the way we traditionally think about art. It can be difficult to wrap one’s mind around an idea when the idea twists and maybe even overturns certain concepts we have always assumed and taken for granted. Much like the olden day Chiang Mai’s concept of modesty brought to our attention yesterday, this Fulldome experience made me rethink my long held beliefs and ways of thinking.

Lunch was at a beautiful alfresco restaurant. Though the food took a while to come I am actually rather pleased because to pass the time we talked to our CMU student, Son, and his two friends who were with us just for today, Built and Prim. We spent a good length of time getting to know everyone else better.

I found my knowledge in Linguistics and Multilingual Studies (my major) really came into play. I’ve always loved linguistics, and now that I was surrounded by these Thai locals I was excited to talk to them and learn about their language. What was especially unusual was having Prof. Walsh at our table too. Hailing from Ireland, he was able to share his own two-cents worth about Gaelic and how it’s no longer used very widely in Ireland. I was reminded of and drew a comparison to the state of the Chinese vernaculars in Singapore. It made me feel rather sad to hear about these heritage languages disappearing, but this also made the strong pervasiveness of the Thai language even more interesting to me in comparison to the states of Gaelic in Ireland or Hokkien, Teochew, Cantonese etc in Singapore. Could their language naturally be a much bigger part of their culture? Or have Singapore and Ireland lost a lot of theirs? The former country is especially hard to judge because of the multilingual and multiracial nature of our population.

In any case, we then decided to play a game and asked the non-Singaporeans to guess the meaning of some Singlish phrases. Son, Built and Prim in turn taught us some Thai words, while Prof Walsh shared interesting Irish slang which seemed to have no connection between the word and the meaning associated with it – even Prof Walsh had no idea where they came from. I thought some sounded a bit onomatopoeic though, a possible origin.

We visited two very different museums in the afternoon. The first was a more traditional museum with the usual glass panels and rooms common in museums in general. The second, however, interested me vastly more. It’s called the Wat Gate Khar Rnam Museum. I thought it was a temple at first. The building itself has areas for worship and its architecture is like that of a temple. It was built in 1898, according to Mr Som Vang Rittidaja, the 71 year old gentleman who owns and is running the museum. The place was filled with many artefacts, 80% of which were donated by locals who want to preserve their culture and thought the accumulation of pieces of their culture in a common pool in the museum the best method to do so. The inside of the museum was almost cluttered with artefacts such as hand woven cloths, pottery and ceramics, and it felt almost messy. Many of the labels were yellowing and had spelling or grammar mistakes, and in fact some were handwritten – a far cry from the professional, polished look of the first museum we had visited. Yet I felt that the almost haphazard and makeshift feel of the Wat Gate Khar Rnam Museum enriched the experience. I felt that this, and the fact that the building itself felt like an artefact, came together to build a wonderfully rich ambience in a place with so much culture in its very air that I was deeply and powerfully moved.

At one point, Mr Som Vang Rittidaja ushered me closer to a print of a white elephant on a traditional red flag. He didn’t speak English, but could manage, “in the flag”. My first thought was, in? Not on the flag? But what I thought was a grammar mistake was actually a far more meaningful statement of fact he was trying to make. He took my hand and gently placed my index finger on the elephant’s forward stepping leg on the flag. He then motioned for me to take a few steps to the other side of the small red flag to have a look, and I saw immediately what he was trying to tell me. The same leg my index finger was pointing at was still the leg the elephant had in front. In other words, the image of the elephant was identical on both sides and the ink used to create it seeped through entirely. The elephant was not a mere one-sided print embossed on the flag, but a cultural emblem embedded into it. In that moment of cultural understanding I felt a profoundly deep connection to this elderly gentleman and his heritage, despite having had virtually no words spoken between us. It is an unforgettable experience I will always treasure!