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I think almost everybody has some small collection of personal things that have particular meaning to them. Maybe you have a collection of seashells from a trip to Florida as a kid, or maybe you have a personal affectation that you carry around like a relic, or a piece of art made by a family member that you keep over the mantle -- this is the thread to talk about those things, and to share them with each other. The idea is to show off things with some unique value to them. If it's just your massive collection of Funko Pops and you just want to show off how many you have, this isn't the thread for that. If it's your one particular Funko of Nikola Tesla or whoever that your friend gave you on the last night you saw them before leaving for college in another state, that's the kind of thing to post. It need not even necessarily be something that you own. You can post a particularly nice tree in your yard, if you want to. I'll start:  This is something I inherited from an uncle who passed away about 13 or 14 years ago. He was a practicing Buddhist and had acquired a lot of Buddhist objets d'art, with a large majority of his collection coming from (I'm told) an estate sale in which he bought an enormous and previously unopened shipping crate full of artifacts. Nobody in my family knew anything about them, so it took a lot of work for me to identify exactly what the hell this was or where it came from. I consulted a friend who was familiar with Asian art. As soon as he saw it, he pointed to the head dress and said "Chiang Mai," suggesting that it was probably Thai. Some further research showed that it is in fact a Thai piece, known as a Teppanom statue, a temple guardian usually made in a brother and sister pair and made to sit on either side of a door -- I have the male one, and my brother has the female one. (We had split them up before we knew they were meant to be a pair, unfortunately -- he won't sell me his, I've tried.) This one is particularly unique because they're often made of stone and meant to be kneeling. This pair is carved from what looks like driftwood (the back side is completely raw) and are made to hang. I have no idea how old it is or where exactly it came from, but it's definitely quite aged and is in pretty good shape in spite of it, with only a small knick on the tip of the headdress. Most of the gold leaf has flaked off over time, but it appears to be actual gold. I'd love to see it in its original state, but I don't dare attempt to restore it. I keep it hanging near my doorway and it holds my own malas. It's among the most precious things I have, not just because of its personal meaning as a piece from my uncle, but because of the clear artistry put into it and the serenity of its presence in my room.
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May 16, 2021 21:41
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 04:44 |
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 When I was a baby, I ripped off a piece of my grandmother's spider plant. Instead of getting upset, she just told my mom to take that piece home, put it in a pot and let it sprout. That was thirty-five years ago. It's still sitting in that pot, surrounded by its children and grandchildren
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May 16, 2021 21:56
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i actually have a huge collection of this kinda stuff cuz a lot of it ends up at salvation army when people kick the bucket
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May 16, 2021 22:02
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 This is my favorite tea bowl. I use it nearly every morning to brew green tea in. It's part of a morning ritual I do to get myself caffeinated and centered (in that order) before my day starts. It doesn't have a nice origin story except insofar as tea in general has been a meaningful part of my life for years. I have a couple of others that I use for specific different kinds of teas (matcha, powdered tea mostly) that I will post later.
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May 17, 2021 01:30
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 Just a small collection of English language books from local presses in various Asian countries (Mongolia, the Philippines, China, Thailand, & Myanmar) that I've picked up in the last few years. Whenever I move I usually give away any books that can either easily be replaced at any bookshop around the world or that I can find digital copies of so gradually my actual bookshelf has been filling up with books like this. I have several other books that have sentimental value to me, like a copy of Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom that was a gift from a South African friend, or a copy of Borges' Collected Fictions that I've had for at least 10 years, but the fact that I doubt I'd be able to replace these books without actually going back to Mongolia or Myanmar, etc. makes them kind of special in my eyes.
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May 23, 2021 09:59
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