How do you pass the time, when your husband has brought you all the way to the other side of the world? To a strange land, with different customs? In a time, when women of a certain class were not supposed to work? And when […]
All posts filed under: Asia
You know nothing, Jon Snow: Siberian fur hat
Last Monday, I watched that week’s episode of Game of Thrones with Rane Willerslev, anthropologist, Director of the Danish National Museum, and Arctic explorer. As Jon Snow and his motley raiding party ventured beyond the wall to capture an undead wight, Rane became more and […]
Living ethnography: Thai house restoration
In 1975, a traditional Thai house was dismantled in northern Thailand and shipped to Denmark. It was assembled a few months later in surroundings quite different – but arguably just as beautiful – in close proximity to old Moesgaard Manor, where Moesgaard Museum is also […]
For valour and victory: The magnificence of swords
This last month, the view from Moesgaard Museum has looked somewhat different than usual. The sweeping vista of green fields and tall trees has been interrupted by a stage in the shape of a massive Viking ship lying on its side, and a stand seating […]
Green Tara: The Mother of Liberation
She is beautiful. She is the ‘mother of liberation’. She is Green Tara. Tara is a Buddhist tantric meditation deity, and she takes many forms. One of the most widely known forms is the Green Tara, who is known as the Buddha of enlightened activity. […]
Necessity is the mother of invention: Bamboo school book
Homework. A concept disliked by youths all over the world. Probably also in the north-eastern part of Thailand, where this ‘school book’ is from. It was collected by the now former missionary, Peder Jørgensen, who has spent more than 25 years in Thailand. On a […]
Ceremonial cannon
Can we just talk about how awesome this cannon is? It is not that big – about 67 centimetres in length – but that is actually one of the great things about it. Because cannons are usually these gigantic beasts, but this one you can […]
Following the call: The Indian missionary collection
Imagine taking your family and travelling halfway around the world, to a place, which is strange and wholly different from everything you know. Now imagine that it is 1874 and that place is Madras in India. What do you bring from home, to remind you […]
A Museum Tale: Samurai Garbs
The readers will have to excuse the author for being even more of a nerd than usual. But in museum ethnography and some part of anthropology, the explanatory powers of objects are being explored these years. I just read a book a couple of weeks […]
Off with their heads, The Red Queen screamed!
Beheading has long been one of the most common ways of execution. In Europe in the Middle Ages, beheading was considered an honourable form of death. With the introduction of the guillotine during the French Revolution, beheading became the norm for commoners and nobility alike. […]
Nuts about love?
You know the feeling. The feeling of being young and in love. Life is golden sunshine and you want to embrace the whole world and all living creatures in it. Beauty pervades everything. You cannot think clearly – and you don’t care! All you think […]
Pointy things: The knives of The Ethnographic Collections
Sometimes, it all just becomes very grown-up. You go to work, drive your car, pick up kids from kinder garden, school, or whatever party they went to on Friday night, you struggle to decide what to have for dinner. You pay your taxes, buy toilet […]
