Thursday, March 24, 2011

(B) Asian Civilisations Museum









Artifact 1:
These cutouts were used in Chinese theater as puppets to entertain people. Its modern day counterpart, movie theaters, are different as the puppets require people to operate them while movies in cinemas can just play by themselves. Another difference is that Chinese theater does not need much preparation besides rehearsals while modern day theaters need to have the movie filmed before playing it. Finally, modern day film has music and sound all compacted into one disk while Chinese theaters had to play the music separately.

Artifact 2:
These scales where used in ancient China to determine the amount of gold to paid for a certain mass of another item, for example, rice. Its modern day counterpart, the electronic scale, is different from it as it can measure the mass of an item more accurately than the ancient scale. The electronic scale also does not use marked weights to measure the mass of an object, unlike the ancient scale. Finally, ancient scales are heavy and cannot be moved easily while modern day electronic scales are much smaller and more portable.

Artifact 3:
These are brushes used to paint paintings or write letters in ancient China. Its modern day counterpart, the pen, is much better than the brush as it is more compact and lightweight than the brush, does not need to be dipped in ink before using and can write much smaller text as its tip is sharper than the brush, which only can write big, fat letters.