Kingdom of Knuffel

I know that my grandfather used to travel a lot, because he worked on a ship. So he used to collect money for all the places he’s been and stamps too. The money we have from his collections might be worth something lol.

yeahhhh lol. i remember taking some pictures of the photographs somewhere......

but i do remember my grandfather being quite strict with us. in traditional asians families, it was customary to punish children by beating them with thin rattan/bamboo sticks. they really take the whole "spare the rod, spoil the child" saying seriously. however, in our modern days, it would be considered child abuse. my family used to own a few of these said sticks and they didn't think it was wrong to use them to whip them at us, since my parents went through the same thing. rulers and chopsticks rapped on fingers by teachers and parents, and so on. it was natural for them.

i still remember the welts that i got from them........D: but then one day, one of my classmates/friends noticed these welts. shortly after, i was sent to the counselors office and an asian social worker came in, made a home visit and had a discussion with my parents. the sticks were never used again.

@Moi, that's a lovely picture.
I love how natural people are in old pictures.
I mean, you could only take a few ones (remember the old cameras?) so you would only take it if you thought it was a lovely shot. And it often was.

Most of my family is from nearby. In my region we are traditionally the emigrant kind, but people always return home.
My paternal grandparents lived in Germany, but returned when they retired.
My father worked on a ship, but he retired from that line of work when I was a kid.
My mother-in-law was born in Buenos Aires, because her parents had emigrated there, but when her father died her mother returned with the children.



Beating was a thing not long ago.
My parents used to beat me. They used to lock me in a dark cellar with no windows, and broken floor panel, and noises that gave the creeps (probably just little mouses).
Teachers would beat us. This rattan plant would grow near the school...

Oh, well, times have changed. And I'm just so glad they did!

Spoons? XD;;

yeahhhhh now if you beat a child, its child abuse. so i'm glad times have changed. i mean, there's probably still places that do this, and not everyone is going to change. but at least its gotten better.

i've heard of like..........snowglobes or something. like every place you go to would have souvenir snowglobes.......xD didn't think of spoons tho.

looool makes me think of old timey duels, throwing down gauntlets.......8U

Beating with slippers was a thing here too! Maybe it's a latin thing
Also brooms! They would hit you with a broom.
And if they were really really angry and wanted to hurt you hard, they would use the belt.

Yeah, raising kids is hard.
But I like to think that every generation learns from the mistakes of the previous ones, that I do it better than my parents and they did better than theirs. That my son will raise his kids even better!


Thowing down gauntlets sure was a fancy thing.
You need to be veeery cool to throw down a gauntlet and not look utterly silly!