2011-02-23

Posted by Julie Wiens Posted on 1:27 PM | No comments

Salem - Take 2

Kyle and I went back to Salem this past weekend. We went there with the sole purpose of seeing the Peabody Essex Museum. We only spent a few hours in the museum before it closed for the day.

There were two parts of the museum that I really enjoyed and where we spent most of our time.

The first was an exhibit: Eye Spy, Playing with Perception. The exhibit used art to demonstrate perception. Sadly I only took one photo, but you can see that the large backdrop is made of thread barrels and the glass sphere rotated the image. The museum's website has more photos of the exhibit if you are interested. Click on it to see the larger image.


The other part of the museum was the Yin Yu Tang house. This house was in use in China by one family for 200 years and was brought over to the US in 1982. You can see the main courtyard of the house here or take a virtual tour here. I wasn't able to take any photos, but the house was very interesting and you can read more about it on that link.

There were two things that I really enjoyed about the house:

One was the courtyard. Th house is like a large rectangle with the center cut out. The roof opens up to this interior courtyard. You can see the roof on the website listed above. The bottom of the courtyard had two smaller pools to collect rain water and to hold fish for special events.

The second item was the Childminder. Below is a photo from Flicker by fuggles:

Childminder

Apparently this was used by parents to keep their kids in one place while they worked. Perhaps the first playpen. The bottom had a place to keep warm coals or rocks so that the child would stay warm. Picture a kid standing in it with his arms sticking out over the side.

There were lots of furnished rooms that you could walk through to get a feel of the family life.

Another aspect that got our attention was the name of the house. Yin Yu Tang is the name of the house, not the owners name. Apparently it was custom to name homes. This name gives the general idea that the house will shelter generations of the family. So, what would you name your home?
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