Recently, I been to Professor Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS exhibition in Singapore Expo. If you aren’t familiar with his name, Professor Gunther von Hagens [von means he's a German?] is the person who invented (and also coined the term) – plastination. It’s a method of preserving human bodies to its near-perfect form. And definitely, not very kiddie-friendly.
So the BODY WORLDS team brought many well.. bodies here, some of which are truly impressive. Most of these bodies have their skin removes, showing their muscles, skeletons and organs.
There are signs to constantly remind visitors to respect these exhibitions as they are all dead bodies after all. Let me tell you something -Singaporeans do NOT respect these bodies.
There are many teenagers there, should be aged 13-21. Some of these people went around pointing at the bodies’ penises, then laughing out loud when they first saw one with it. As they walk to more exhibits, they soon figure, “oh.. So all these full bodies have private parts”. [Why of course!]
It doesn’t just end here, people went to compare the sizes of the penises. His penis is larger than his. His testes is larger than his. The joy of criticism never ends.
It’s also interesting to know that there are only around 2 female bodies. There is a section containing fetus too, some are deformed.
So how do I feel? I have to admit this, I find it quite plain. It’s not boring, but it is plain. Perhaps it’s the interior decorations, the colors etc. Slowly, I walked around the entire exhibition. The last section is the comments corner, which so happens to be the highlight in my opinion. There’re so many strange negative comments.
Here’s some that I saw:
- This is so gross! [your body's gross]
- I want to eat French fries [what the hell is this person think?!]
- Show some sex positions [no comments]
- Good but too expensive [typical Singaporean]
- Too much men, show more women [that's quite true actually]
- <Strange, never-seen-before languages>
I spend more time looking at other’s comments than writing mine.
After 2 hours, we left the place. It’s indeed educational, but I am hoping to see more exhibits showing bodies that are different (e.g. deform) due to genetic disorders or illnesses. I keep seeing black lungs. Yes, smoking kills, smoking cause black lungs, but I’m sure there’re more interesting things to display other than black lungs.
Finally, I shall conclude, this is also what I wrote at the comments corner – Despite the many criticisms people made in the comments corner, I believe the bodies are artistically portrayed.
Possibly related:
re: Body Worlds
by a tech-centric blog from the left (Aug 31, 2004 at 5 AM)Thanks for commenting in my journal. I saw the Singapore exhibit in pictures and you guys do have a few things that are different from us. Strange that you also have only 2 women. And one of them is in its own section. Of all the things they showed, its very strange that they would put a disclaimer on one of the two women. Margaret Cho, a famous comedian in the US, wrote a cool review of the exhibit here in los angeles. She suggests the lack of women in the exhibit and the disclaimer for the women are because of sexism.
http://www.margaretcho.com/blog/bodyworlds.htm
by Chrissy (Aug 31, 2004 at 5 AM)