Analogue "Like"

At pagoda festivals that take place across Myanmar during the Dry season, there is often an exhibition match of caneball (or "chinlone"). As the players slowly circulate, artfully hitting the ball with their feet or legs (or nose, or forehead - just not one's hand/arms), the player in the middle (the prince, or "mintha") must remain ever alert to each motion of the caneball so as to perform elaborate tricks with it whenever the opportunity arises.

While approval of more traditional variety comes from the enthusiastic cheers and whoops of the crowd, another way of expressing one's appreciation of a player's skill is a "donation". In this, a spectator approaches the stage and makes known their desire to donate to a particular player - a realtime, money-where-your-mouth-is "Like" button, if you will. One of the announcer's assistants ensures that the money is properly attached to the player.

Here, the novelty of a female chinlone player more than holding her own among a group of males is reflected in the tidy sum attached to her back. 

New standards for audience participation.

Pants-Shoes, or Shoe-Pants?

What would shoes designed for contexts where they must be put on and taken off repeatedly look like? What would lower-body wear designed to accommodate the temporary storage/carry of shoes look like?

Walking through a temple during a major local festival, one will notice how crossing certain thresholds is often marked by the congesting bustle of people stooping over to either remove or put on their shoes. Temporarily storing them where one took them off, however, is not an option at this festival. Unlike most temple-visiting experiences in Myanmar, progress through this festival taking place on the temple grounds is linear, not circular. Thus, parking one's shoes at a central point is not an option, as shoe-wearing and shoe-forbidden zones are interspersed with one another, and one must cross one to arrive at the others. Feet and (not surprisingly, shoes) are considered very dirty in Myanmar culture, so wearing shoes in shoe-free parts of the temple is out of the question, as is walking with bare feet in areas where others are wearing shoes. 

With no guarantee that one's progress will be take them back through past-visited areas, revelers must hold their shoes in their hands, limiting their ability to interact with and appraise the wares that line the temple walkways during this festival.  This child seems to have come up with a clever solution, though whether it is culturally sanctioned remains to be seen, and not all footwear is as pants-compatible as these flip-flops (nor all pants as flip-flop compatible, for that matter).  Alternatively, how can vendors better display their goods to accommodate browsers who have their hands full? Some vendors are quick to offer a chair or stool they keep set aside for interested potential customers, as they know once they convince them to take a load off that they'll be much more compelled to stay seated for a while and momentarily step out of the human river they were riding up to that point. Revelers' need for rest, plus the culturally strong feelings of not wanting to be indebted to anyone for any favors and "feeling bad" for making others exert any effort or go through any trouble (such as providing a chair) could mean the difference for a vendor between a profitable day of good sales and a painfully long time spent watching people shuffle by, clutching their shoes.

PS: Guest post over at REculture blog

Let's see the goods

For what services is it necessary to demonstrate the product or the service provided, and to what extent? When is it appropriate/possible to graphically represent a good or service, instead of actually having a sample/demonstration? What drives that decision? Was use of the suitcase shrink-wrapping machine in the Sri Lankan airport lower than expected? How is the example item selected? Also, is that an "example suitcase" - or reckon some long-since un-suntanned vacationer is still lamenting the loss of his luggage?

What are different the costs of demonstration - between the fish, the suitcase, and the wristwatch - and where is the room for skepticism in each? Naturally the possibility exists of exhibiting a particularly sterling example of quality/workmanship - perhaps that suitcase was carefully handwrapped by human hands instead of the machine, or those several submerged watches are the only waterproof watches of the bunch. Perhaps the exposed fish innards happen to be the most attractive of all the fish on display, though being a natural product the corollary randomness must reassure skeptical consumers.