Happy Lunar New Year - a photo on Flickriver

            Lunar New Year is the beginning of the new year based on the lunar calendar or lunisolar calendar. Lunar calendars follow the lunar phase while lunisolar calendars follow both the lunar phase and the time of the solar year. The event is celebrated by numerous cultures in various ways at diverse dates. It’s also called Chinese New Year, or Chunjie. Chinese New Year is one of the most important holidays in Chinese culture, and has strongly influenced the celebrations of its 56 ethnic groups, such as the Losar of Tibet, and of China's neighbours, including the Korean and Vietnamese, as well as in Okinawa. It is also celebrated worldwide in regions and countries that house significant Overseas Chinese or Sinophone populations, especially in Southeast Asia. These include Singapore, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. It is also prominent beyond Asia, especially in Australia, Canada, Mauritius, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as in many European countries.

This year is the year of the Dragon, so to honour it, I have photographed this antique ivory Chinese Puzzle Ball featuring a dragon which once sat in one of my Great Grandparent’s display cabinets.  Can you see the dragon’s head with his long moustache and bulging eyes?  When I used to visit my Great Grandparents as a child, I used to look at it through the glass and try and work out how many balls there were inside one another.  Many years later, when it sits in one of my own curio cabinets, I still cannot tell you for certain, although I know there are at least five and perhaps as many as seven!

This Chinese Puzzle Ball sat in a cabinet with other souvenirs from my Great Grandparents’ travels and diplomatic posts during their long and interesting lives.  They did take a voyage to Shanghai in the very early years of the Twentieth Century, before my Grandmother was born, so I suspect it was acquired then.  It is late Nineteenth Century I believe.  Its yellowing is a sign of the ivory’s advanced age, as well as many years of my Great Grandparents and my Grandmother’s smoking.  It comes on its own stand, also made of ivory, which is a pillar around which a dragon like the one who you can see on the Puzzle Ball, a possible mate, curls itself.  The stand is fifteen centimetres high, and comes apart in three pieces which can be carefully screwed together.  The Puzzle Ball looks precarious atop its stand, but it actually sits on it quite securely.

Also known as Eternity Balls or Infinity Balls, they are commonly known as the Chinese puzzle balls.  They are an incredible spherical enigma that has been incorporated into various forms of decorative art for centuries. Puzzle Balls are typically made of ivory and have three to seven layers of concentric, hollow spheres, carved from a single piece of ivory!  Don’t ask me how they did it, but they are beautiful works of the carvers’ art.

Taken on: February 10, 2024

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Camera: Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS, f/2.8, 1/50 sec, 6.2mm, ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon DIGITAL IXUS 80 IS
Aperture:	f/2.8
Exposure Time:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Focal Length:	6.2mm
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
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