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'Haw Par Villa is a Chinese mythology theme park in Singapore with more than 1,000 statues and dioramas glorifying Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian folklore. Built in 1937 by brothers Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par – famous for selling the popular medicinal paste Tiger Balm – older locals look back fondly at a place where parents would bring children for an education in morality, complete with bloody visual aids.
'In 1988, the Singapore Tourism Board took charge of the Tiger Balm Gardens and renamed it "Haw Par Villa Dragon World". The Haw Par in the park's name is based on the Aw brothers' personal names—Haw and Par, which literally mean "tiger" and "leopard" respectively. The dioramas and statues were restored, while plays, acrobatic displays and puppet shows were organised and held there. The management imposed entrance fees but the high fees discouraged visitors, so the management incurred a loss of S$31.5 million over 10 years. The park management made a profit during its first year of operations after renovations in 1994, broke even in 1995, but started incurring losses over the next three years and was forced to provide free entry in 1998.
'Thousands used to throng the park, and it once stood shoulder-to-shoulder with attractions like Singapore Zoo and Jurong Bird Park. In its glory days, this avant guard theme park was an iconic symbol in Singapore, and considered a must see by locals and foreigners alike. "Every Singaporean over the age of 35 probably has a picture of themselves at Haw Par," said Desmond Sim, a local playwright. Those pictures would probably include the following statues, each made from plastered cement paste and wire mesh: a human head on the body of a crab, a frog in a baseball cap riding an ostrich, and a grandmother suckling at the breast of another woman.
'But the highlight of this bizarre park are the Ten Courts of Hell. This attraction used to be set inside a 60-metre long trail of a Chinese dragon but the dragon has been demolished, so the attraction is now covered by grey stone walls. A tableau of severe disciplines are shown in painstaking detail, along with a placard stating the sin that warranted it. Tax dodgers are pounded by a stone mallet, spikes driven into a skeletal chest cavity like a bloodthirsty pestle in mortar. Spot the tiny tongue as it is pulled out of a screaming man, watch the demon flinging a young girl into a hill of knives. Ungratefulness results in a blunt metal rod cutting a very large, fleshly heart out of a woman. Perhaps the most gruesome depiction is an executioner pulling tiny intestines out from a man tied to a pole. The colons were visible and brown. The crime? Cheating during exams.
'However, Haw Par Villa is facing an afterlife of its own. As the country of Singapore developed, and became almost futuristic in it’s modern appearance, the thousands of dated figurines that make up this park began to lose their luster along with much of their original appeal. Some of the areas of Haw Par Villa have been shut down due to lack of preservation Hardly anyone goes there anymore, and closed sections of the park point to an uncertain future. For some it's a refreshing antidote to the mall-culture, but it looks like mall culture is winning out over a day out in hell.'-- collaged
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Gallery
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Presentations
Haw Par Villa: The Renaissance
by Genevieve Kong
Copy of Haw Par Villa
by Jiamin Wu
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Tours
Haw Par Villa Singapore: The last blooming lotus
Silent visit
It will all be demolished one day. The land is worth billions.
A walkthrough of the Ten Courts of Hell attraction at Haw Par Villa
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Rebranding Haw Par Villa
Proposal #1
by Leonard Koh
This rebranding project aims to promote about Haw Par Villa through the creation of a new identity to create a new impression to people who have been there before and arouse the curiosity of those who have never heard or been there before. Other materials have been created to promote about the area and others have been created as keepsakes and a reason to return.
Logo
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Corporate Stationary
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Postcards (Sun Wu Kong)
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Postcard (10 Courts of Hell)
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Postcard (Laughing Buddha)
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Direct Mailer
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Calendar
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Park Map
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Proposal #2
by Chinwee
An extensive and different take on rebranding for Haw Par Villa. Targeting the youths for a change, this project aims to revive Haw Par Villa and also the traditional chinese values and cultures that comes with it.
Brand Identity
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Park Map
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Park Souvenirs
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Posters
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Brochure & Postcards
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Outdoor advertising
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Popup Brochure
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Website
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Direct Mailer
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*
p.s. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, Nice snow song. Love the diction. And your list is most intriguing. Cool. Everyone, Mr, Ehrenstein has made a most interesting, interestingly angled film list over at Fandor entitled 'Top Ten Conceptual Strategies of 2013', and I highly recommend that you go check it out. It's here. Terrific. I really need to see that Whedon/Shakespeare film. Thanks! ** Etc etc etc, Oh, yeah, I feel super lucky to have been able cast my eyes and ears on Gaddis the guy. The Lannan Foundation used to have this great reading/talk series in LA in the 80s/90s, very moneyed up, so they could coax greats who would never take to the bookstore/book promo circuit onstage, usually with the great Michael Silverblatt aka 'Bookworm' to the do the q&a part. The week before Gaddis, it was Gass, for instance. It was very lucky. Vollman live is always really something. I read with him once at a Dia Foundation reading event back when he brought a pistol loaded with blanks with him to the mic which he would fire occasionally and randomly during his reading. Machine Project, yeah, I have been there. Really nice venue and great programming for the very most part. I'll add my fingers to your crossed ones re: Paris, you bet. How's the writing/dissertation going as of now? ** Jeffrey Coleman, Hi, Jeff. Yeah, the sharp white on deep black was Hannumesque. Or that was my way into the association. I've read some Gary J. Shipley, yeah. Pretty interesting. I remember that I wasn't so into his writing itself initially, but then I started paying more attention to his ideas, and then I started to appreciate the consequent actions happening in the prose more thoroughly. I don't know if I've read a whole book by him. I haven't read 'Dreams of Amputation'. That Circle/Falcon thing is kind of exciting. I don't know them, but I'll def. go investigate them and that switch. Thanks a lot! You take care too. ** _Black_Acrylic, Hey. No sweat at all about dumping angst here. It didn't feel that way, and I would feel as impatient as you do. But, yeah, January is rushing at us, or it sure feels like it. ** Steevee, 'Kids' without the dirty old man quality is a twisty thing to try to wrap my head around. I'll use your review as a guide. Everyone, here's Steevee's review of of the Israeli film 'S#X ACTS', which you should think about reading, of course, and its first sentence is 'If Miley Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs and subsequent nude appearance in her “Wrecking Ball” video showed anything, it’s that our culture has no consensus on what constitutes healthy sexuality for teenage girls and young women', if you need more bait. Oh my, that self-telegraphing site. Dare I? ** Bill, Hi. Maybe San Francisco thought the post was an ice cube, and maybe it was. ** Mark Gluth, Hi, Mark. Oh, gosh, I'm truly excited. And, oh sure, re: the blurb. Give me a deadline when there is one. Without deadlines, I'm hopeless about such things. ** Torn porter, Hi there! Wow, was it the CD? That would be fast, or only fast given my past France to US experiences, but not always, I guess. My brain is fried too. High five or low five. It's cool about the comments recommendation thing. I just realized a while back that I have an emotional allergy to most comments sections, so I'm overly cautious now. I wish I was in Syracuse, at least for an hour or something. Everyone, Is there anyone out there in Syracuse or close to there or something? Listen up, if so. Torn porter, who is a mega-talent central in fields galore, has a piece on view in a gallery exhibition called 'Ego Libido, a show about narcissism' at Spark Contemporary Art Space, and you can get all the info you would need to see said show by clicking this. Do put the thing online for us deprived types please, yeah. I'm good. I hope the cold and you start getting along or that it vamooses. ** Kyler, Hi, K. Nice to see you! Oh, I did read about that porn/Disney/projectionist thing. Or about one such incident. Yeah, wack. I didn't know that there were still theaters where tells of film are still projected and where slip ups like that can happen. Very charming. You good? How's Xmas building up around you? ** Sypha, Nice EN reference thing. What a great album that was. Uh, yeah, I couldn't help but see many, many, many references to that Tom Daley thing on my Facebook wall, and there was barely a second of time before my mind made the leap from that news to how it be impacting you. So, does him being theoretically available make it better or worse? ** Keaton, Hi. You and your friends look like a lot of fun. Nice text trajectory too. The happy ending was a lovely twist. Everyone, master Keaton returns in a sense or kind of to the Emo stack form for which he is so justifiably revered, this time with alternately harrowing and LOL captions. Do you need to see it? Yes. How did the dead guy get inside your Xmas tree? Sort like how Santa will get inside your chimney? ** les mots dans le nom , Thanks, cool, I'm glad you liked it. I can only imagine how hard it is to cancel truffles. Maybe you should trust the hardness of the task and just spring for them and worry about the dent in your money allowances later? I think that's what I would do. I have the same thing going on with the Xmas buchjes and everything, you know. But I psyche myself into spending the money by deciding they're gifts for my fellow eaters, and that I'm just, I don't know, the person who has to be there to taste them first to make sure they aren't poisoned or something. You have a great week too! ** That's it. Today you get to sort of visit Haw Par Villa in/near Singapore. Enjoy the tour. See you tomorrow.