thai silk

[171003] have been fascinated by Thai silk since I was a little girl. e 2003 calendar at http://www.royalthaisilk.net has wonderful pictures of it, especially my favourite yok cloth (pictured in April, July & December). spent my primary school holidays in Bangkok, helping out in a machine embroidery factory in Sukhumvit. it was full of migrant workers from Isaan (northeast Thailand) & e Thai-Burmese border regions, girls who seemed as young as 15 years & kept e factory running around e clock. it was housed in a few shophouses that were linked together & had wooden floors that creaked with each step. all of us lived on e second floor of e shophouses & ate, slept & lived with e constant drumming of e factory machines that made e floorboards vibrate.

also helped out in a shop along an alley in Yaowarat, Bangkok's Chinatown area, that sold machine embroidered iron-on patches produced by e factory. plus another shop near Saphaan Khwaay (Buffalo Bridge?) along Pahonyonthin Road that sold buttons, textiles, lace, wool, thread, pins, thimbles, needles & all sorts of other stuff needed by e seamstresses & tailors that came to us. they would bring along little square pieces of cloth samples & standing on e bales of cloth, we would search for a colour & texture that matched & cut out e desired length. this was where I learnt how to cut & tear cloth, sort buttons into bags of 144 plus 2 extra (to ensure that you never undercut your customers), custom-make cloth buttons & belt buckles, speak rudimentary Bangkok Thai to customers, & count & handle more money than I ever had seen in my life. was about 6+ years old when I first started helping out, & still remember e time when Jiim's mother held up a 1000 baht note & asked me if I'd ever seen a piece of paper worth that much before. at today's rates it is worth around SGD44, but to a 6-year-old, 4 digits was like e biggest number ever =)

[301003 update] another thing I loved as a kid (& still do):



phuang malai are garlands of fresh jasmine flower buds & roses, chrysanthemums & other flowers painstakingly threaded together & used as offerings in temples & spirit houses everywhere in Thailand.

[ filed under: thewonderingstraycat + 9_lives_2003 + art1 + thai1 ]

cat friends

[081003] two damn attitude cats on St John's Island:



[151003]

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated
~ Mahatma Gandhi
e cats that had names:

• Tommy was Andrea's good-natured & fat ginger & white tom cat that ate chocolate & lazed around e letterboxes of Aquamarine Tower in Bayshore Park before he passed away.
  
• Kopi-o, Milk Tea & San1 He2 Yi1 are e black, ginger & tricolour black+brown+white kittens that were born in e garden, named by my sis, but have since disappeared.
  
• Bumpy was e grey & white KE7 tabby cat that hung around B & C blocks of East Wing, came into my room at night & walked all over my notes on my desk, & was fed by Chiew Boon next door.
  
• Meow meow is e affectionate white tabby cat with a few black & brown patches & blue eyes that was named by my mum & sis, used to sleep on e rug outside e front door, & was adopted & taken away by Jasmine when she moved out of e neighbourhood.

e cats that had no names:

• e fragile ci2 dun4 ginger kitten that was born in e garden, appeared to be deaf & dumb & oblivious to e roar of car engines, runt of e litter that had to be fed milk, that died before dawn & had its tiny stiff body placed (before we rushed off for school) in a Teva shoebox for burial, but was thrown away by e time we got home from school.
  
• e black & white cat along Telok Kurau Road that followed my sis so closely after she patted it that she freaked out & I had to carry it away.
  
• e black & white cat along e alley linking Martia Road & Jalan Tamban, that freaked my sis out in e exact same way.
  
• e black kitten with yellow eyes that hid from e rain by sleeping under my dad's car or on e towel outside e front door.
  
• e too-cute-for-its-own-good white kitten with sapphire blue eyes that was born in e garden, attracted so much attention from everyone who walked past e house - was kidnapped & never seen again when a car suddenly stopped by e gate & a pair of hands reached out to pick it up before zooming off.
  
• e friendly brownish-grey mother cat that led me to her 4 kittens in e longkang along Martia Road.
  
• e grey & white 'bus stop' cat that always crossed East Coast Road using e overhead bridge.
  
• e grey & white kitten that followed my sis & I home on our way back from e Shell petrol station.
  
• e quiet Russian Blue cat with yellow eyes that invited herself into e Bayshore house one night as we were preparing dinner & toured e rooms & stopped to admire herself in e mirror.
  
• e friendly brown & white, black & white, tricolour black+brown+white & ginger kittens that lived along e alley linking Martia Road & Jalan Tamban & in e garden of e corner house & drank Cream of Campbell's oxtail soup.
  
• e kittens that used to play in e old tables of NUS Science canteen.
  countless other cats & kittens that have come up to me or were spotted from e bus on long bus journeys.
  

[ filed under: cats1 + thewonderingstraycat + 9_lives_2003 ]