Photos

This photo is taken by the road that goes from Mui Ne to white sand dunes. Already far away I spotted some white things scattered around the field and could not quite understand what they were. Getting close it became clear it was a cemetery.

In Western culture number 3 is generally viewed as a holy number (representing Holy Trinity, etc.). On this photo there are 3 graves and 3 swastikas – a symbol that remains holy in many parts of Asia but is a definite taboo in Western world.

In Dharmic religions swastika is an ancient sacred symbol. Taboo in Western countries the swastika remains ubiquitous as a symbol of wealth and good fortune and can be found practically anywhere in East-Asia. Wikipedia is very correct to note that “the complete lack of any far-right connotations of the swastika in Asia is best illustrated by its use as a generic electoral symbol even by parties of the far-left”.
Swastika - Wikipedia

So it made me think about many things – how just some 20 years of unfortunate history can change a meaning of something that is thousands of years old, how arbitrary are the symbols and how constructed the meanings. Yet another lesson in semiotics :)

Anyway, for me this photo represents very much Asia, as it reveals a very different cultural reality compared to where I’m coming from.

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The photo was a bit overexposed. So the postprocessing included adjustment of levels in PS to bring out more color of the sky and increase contrast. I rotated the image 0,8 degrees CW and cropped out little bit from the left and sky. Added frame.