i thought this article was cute.
Wayang Skotlandia: Bima Meets Cuchulain (from Gamelan Naga Mas)
Wayang Kulit, shadow puppet theatre, is an art form intimately associated with the Southeast Asian island of Java, Indonesia. Puppet theatre in Europe is thought of primarily as a children’s art form, but Wayang Kulit is enjoyed and appreciated by adults and children in Java. It is Java’s most important living repository for classical rhetoric, philosophy, traditional etiquette, music and theatre. The solo puppeteer, or dhalang, is a total artist who weaves tales, manipulates puppets, sings songs, provides percussive effects with a wooden knocker and metal plates, utters the occasional incantation, and entertains audiences of all ages with the rough humour of the clowns. Puppets, made from carved and painted buffalo hide, are back lit, casting their filigreed shadows on a white cotton screen. The performance can be watched from both sides of the screen—Wayang Kulit is thus both shadow theatre and puppet theatre simultaneously. Performances tend to be lively social events, with eating and drinking, socialising, gambling and cavorting, as well as spectating.
Musical accompaniment for Wayang Kulit is provided by a Gamelan, or gong-chime musical ensemble. Gamelan is both the name of a set of instruments and of a form of music. A Gamelan orchestra is composed of a variety of metallic xylophones, gongs, sound kettles, drums and other instruments. Gamelan music, figuratively compared to the sound of rippling water, is highly stratified and polyphonic, but not based on Western harmonies. There are two basic tunings—the pentatonic slendro scale and the heptatonic pelog tuning. This performance uses the pelog tuning, a scale usually associated with dance and theatre.
Wayang Kulit might be closely associated Java, with a classical reputation and ancient origin. But that does not make it the exclusive cultural possession of Indonesia nor does it mean that Wayang Kulit has not changed over the centuries. It is a living, vital art form that has made a significant contribution to world theatre, inspiring European and American theatre artists including Edward Gordon Craig and Julie Taymor, as well as generations of Asian playwrights and designers. This production is an attempt to synthesise Indonesian, British and American sensibilities about theatre and event. Wayang Skotlandia (Scottish Wayang), as we have imagined it, uses two puppeteers (traditional Wayang Kulit uses only one), and a variety of rod, shadow and other puppets from Indonesia as well as puppets newly designed by Joko Susilo for this production. It both builds on tradition and departs from it. The puppetry is strongly influenced in particular by techniques of Wayang Sandosa, an experimental shadow puppet form developed at the arts conservatory of Sekolah Tinggi Seni Indonesia Surakarta (Central Java). The social atmosphere is purposefully relaxed, with Indonesian food for purchase, casual seating, and a bar (for adults only!).
The story is an intersection of two imaginary worlds, the world of Celtic legend and the world of Javanese myth. The core of the Celtic part of the play is the story of the marriage of Cuchulain, the Celtic world’s great culture hero. (Our telling is based primarily upon Lady Gregory’s Cuchulain of Muirthemne and T.W. Rolleston’s Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race.)
The Javanese myth concerns Bima, the second-born of the five Pendhawa brothers, The Pendhawa are the central protagonists of the Mahabharata. The Mahabharata, which has been known in Java for 1500 years or more, is one of the two great pan-South and Southeast Asian epics. (The other is the Ramayana.) The Mahabharata’s core story concerns the conflict between the warring clans of the Kurawa and the Pendhawa, which ends eventually in the cataclysmic Bratayuda war. In preparation for this war, both sides seek out numerous weapons and boons. Puppeteers are free to weave their own, new stories about such preparations for war, and compose other incidental events that might befall the principal characters of the epic, remaining true to the contours of the characters and situations, but introducing new twists and variations on familiar themes. These newly created plays are known as lakon carangan, or branch plays. (Canonical tales are known as lakon pokok or trunk plays.) The Javanese tale dramatised in this play, Bima’s search for enlightenment and mastery of self, is one such lakon carangan, though closely based on the canonical play Dewa Ruci (The Subtle God).
Friday, May 13, 2005
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Suharto to leave hospital
Wednesday May 11, 09:17 PM Taken from Yahoo! News/AAP
Former Indonesian president Suharto, hospitalised last week for serious internal bleeding, will return home on Wednesday.
But a senior doctor says the 83-year-old still requires intensive medical treatment.
Suharto, forced out in 1998 after 32 years in power when chaos engulfed Indonesia, was taken to Jakarta's Pertamina hospital last Thursday.
Doctors say he suffered digestive bleeding that had affected his kidneys, lungs and heart.
Doctors say the internal bleeding that has been the main concern has stopped but doctors had wanted the former president to stay in hospital longer.
However, they say due to his request to go home, treatment will be followed up at his residence.
Former Indonesian president Suharto, hospitalised last week for serious internal bleeding, will return home on Wednesday.
But a senior doctor says the 83-year-old still requires intensive medical treatment.
Suharto, forced out in 1998 after 32 years in power when chaos engulfed Indonesia, was taken to Jakarta's Pertamina hospital last Thursday.
Doctors say he suffered digestive bleeding that had affected his kidneys, lungs and heart.
Doctors say the internal bleeding that has been the main concern has stopped but doctors had wanted the former president to stay in hospital longer.
However, they say due to his request to go home, treatment will be followed up at his residence.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Gado Gado
Ingredients (Serves 6-8)
3 large potatoes, boiled
250g (8oz) frsh bean sprouts
500g (1lb) green beans
3 carrots
1/2 small cabbage
1 green cucumber
small bunch watercress
3 hard boiled eggs
Peanut Sauce
Peel potatoes and cut into slices. Wash bean sprouts, pinching off any brown 'tails'. Pour boiling water over the bean sprouts, then rinse under a cold tap. Drain. String beans and cut in diagonal slices or bite-size lengths and cook in lightly salted boiling water until just tender. Beans should still be crisp to bite.
Scrub carrots and cut into thin strips, cook until tender, then drain. Slice cabbage, discarding tough centre stem. Blanch in boiling salted water for a minute or two until tender, but not limp. Drain and refesh under cold water. Score skin of cucumber with a fork and cut into very thin slices. Wash watercress and break into sprigs, discarding tough stalks. Chill until crisp.
Put watercress on a large platter and arrange the various vegetables in separate sections on top. Surround with slices of cucumber and put wedges of hard boiled egg in centre. Serve cold, accompanied by peanut sauce which is spooned over individual servings.
Taken from Betty's Kitchen
3 large potatoes, boiled
250g (8oz) frsh bean sprouts
500g (1lb) green beans
3 carrots
1/2 small cabbage
1 green cucumber
small bunch watercress
3 hard boiled eggs
Peanut Sauce
Peel potatoes and cut into slices. Wash bean sprouts, pinching off any brown 'tails'. Pour boiling water over the bean sprouts, then rinse under a cold tap. Drain. String beans and cut in diagonal slices or bite-size lengths and cook in lightly salted boiling water until just tender. Beans should still be crisp to bite.
Scrub carrots and cut into thin strips, cook until tender, then drain. Slice cabbage, discarding tough centre stem. Blanch in boiling salted water for a minute or two until tender, but not limp. Drain and refesh under cold water. Score skin of cucumber with a fork and cut into very thin slices. Wash watercress and break into sprigs, discarding tough stalks. Chill until crisp.
Put watercress on a large platter and arrange the various vegetables in separate sections on top. Surround with slices of cucumber and put wedges of hard boiled egg in centre. Serve cold, accompanied by peanut sauce which is spooned over individual servings.
Taken from Betty's Kitchen
Monday, May 09, 2005
Pisang Goreng (Banana Fritters)
Ingredients
1 ripe black-skinned plantain or 4 small finger banana (make sure that the banana is sweet)
1 egg
1 tsp. sugar
6 Tbs. flour
Water
A pinch of salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Instructions:
Place flour in a deep mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle of the flour, and add egg, sugar and salt. Add water little by little. Whisk vigorously until batter is evenly smooth for coating and not too thin. If it is too thin, add more flour.
Peel plantain or banana and cut in half lengthwise and then cut again with 4-inch width. Dip into batter to coat generously.
Heat oil in a wok or deep fryer until moderately hot. Place coated plantain or banana in the wok or deep fryer and fry slowly until golden brown and crispy. This usually take approximately 10-15 minutes. Remove bananas from oil, drain on paper napkins and dry well.
Serve while still warm
Makes 4 servings.
Taken from Kokkie Blanda's Indonesian Recipes
1 ripe black-skinned plantain or 4 small finger banana (make sure that the banana is sweet)
1 egg
1 tsp. sugar
6 Tbs. flour
Water
A pinch of salt
Vegetable oil for deep frying
Instructions:
Place flour in a deep mixing bowl. Make a well in the middle of the flour, and add egg, sugar and salt. Add water little by little. Whisk vigorously until batter is evenly smooth for coating and not too thin. If it is too thin, add more flour.
Peel plantain or banana and cut in half lengthwise and then cut again with 4-inch width. Dip into batter to coat generously.
Heat oil in a wok or deep fryer until moderately hot. Place coated plantain or banana in the wok or deep fryer and fry slowly until golden brown and crispy. This usually take approximately 10-15 minutes. Remove bananas from oil, drain on paper napkins and dry well.
Serve while still warm
Makes 4 servings.
Taken from Kokkie Blanda's Indonesian Recipes
Friday, May 06, 2005
Aussies flock to Bali despite drugs cases
By Jakarta, Indonesia. May 5, 2005 - 12:04PM. Taken from The Age.
Death sentences, drug mules, child abuse, chaotic court scenes - Bali has copped some dreadful media coverage in Australia, yet tourists are turning up in record numbers.
The piles of bulky surfboard bags and queues of travellers fronting customs at Bali's Ngurah Rai airport point to a seasonal visitor surge that is just getting under way as Indonesia's monsoon season retreats.
But in the wake of the Schapelle Corby drug smuggling trial and the arrest of the Bali nine for alleged heroin trafficking, nervous glances punctuate the long arrivals queues.
A new scanner is being installed beside old x-ray baggage machines.
"I just threw some drug traces through it and they picked it up just fine," an Australian technician installing the scanner tells a gaggle of excited Indonesian police and customs officials.
"We can try it again now with some other materials."
Drugs are on the minds of even the most innocent passengers at Ngurah Rai these days.
Since the arrest of accused marijuana trafficker Corby last year and the recent swoop on a gang of alleged Australian heroin smugglers, most know about Indonesia's death penalty for drugs.
"You have an Australian woman here in trouble, yes," says a Japanese surfer with spiked, punk hair as she waits to feed her board through the x-ray slot, just as Corby did moments before marijuana was allegedly found in her bag last October.
The Australian media blitz surrounding Corby and the Bali nine, as well as allegations of sexual assault on Australian children at a plush resort hotel, have worried some Balinese.
They fear another tourist exodus like the one that followed the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
Some locals ask about reports of death threats against Indonesian diplomats in Australia, as well as pro-Corby petitions and websites.
Most of all they are worried about a tourist boycott.
A Tasmanian travel agent recently threatened to stop selling Bali holiday packages if Corby is convicted by the Denpasar District Court.
But I Gede Witana, an adviser to the Bali government and professor of tourism at Udayana University, believes fears of a backlash are exaggerated.
"It seems Australians are immune to issues about Bali," he says.
"There's something special and unique in Bali, especially for Australian tourists.
"If you look at Corby's drug case, it hasn't affected tourism at all."
Tourist numbers are back to even higher levels than before the Bali bombing, and a large component of that figure continues to come from Australia, Witana says.
"Before the bombing we had 1.42 million tourists, but in 2004 we had 1.46 million, and Australian tourists are 27 per cent of those," he says.
But amid the deluge of negative press, Australians are taking extra precautions.
"Every aperture of our luggage has a padlock on it, which we wouldn't have done before," says Ken Postill, of Sydney, who brought his wife Joanne and two young children to Bali for a holiday.
The Postills, who arrived two days after the Bali nine were arrested, say they had received emails asking them to support Corby by signing a petition.
They were also urged to boycott Bali.
"Everyone said 'don't go, don't go'," Joanne says.
"But we wanted to bring the kids here as an eye-opener, to give them a bit of a culture shock."
Perth resident Quentin Burr, who brought his 15-year-old daughter on a 12-day holiday to Bali, believes Corby has been unfairly treated.
But he says he never considered boycotting the Indonesian island.
"I think Schapelle got a bum deal, police didn't even fingerprint the bag," he says while strolling along Kuta beach.
"But the Balinese need us, they're still suffering a bit after the bombing, so we just made sure we padlocked our luggage and took extra precautions."
Joanne Postill says her family decided against using hotel childcare in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations.
"I couldn't leave the kids to go out at night. I'm not prepared to take that risk," she says.
But hotel and tour operators say it is business as usual.
"Australian bookings are still strong," says Chrissie Lincoln of The Villas in trendy Seminyak.
"We haven't even had any inquiries about these issues."
- AAP
Death sentences, drug mules, child abuse, chaotic court scenes - Bali has copped some dreadful media coverage in Australia, yet tourists are turning up in record numbers.
The piles of bulky surfboard bags and queues of travellers fronting customs at Bali's Ngurah Rai airport point to a seasonal visitor surge that is just getting under way as Indonesia's monsoon season retreats.
But in the wake of the Schapelle Corby drug smuggling trial and the arrest of the Bali nine for alleged heroin trafficking, nervous glances punctuate the long arrivals queues.
A new scanner is being installed beside old x-ray baggage machines.
"I just threw some drug traces through it and they picked it up just fine," an Australian technician installing the scanner tells a gaggle of excited Indonesian police and customs officials.
"We can try it again now with some other materials."
Drugs are on the minds of even the most innocent passengers at Ngurah Rai these days.
Since the arrest of accused marijuana trafficker Corby last year and the recent swoop on a gang of alleged Australian heroin smugglers, most know about Indonesia's death penalty for drugs.
"You have an Australian woman here in trouble, yes," says a Japanese surfer with spiked, punk hair as she waits to feed her board through the x-ray slot, just as Corby did moments before marijuana was allegedly found in her bag last October.
The Australian media blitz surrounding Corby and the Bali nine, as well as allegations of sexual assault on Australian children at a plush resort hotel, have worried some Balinese.
They fear another tourist exodus like the one that followed the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people including 88 Australians.
Some locals ask about reports of death threats against Indonesian diplomats in Australia, as well as pro-Corby petitions and websites.
Most of all they are worried about a tourist boycott.
A Tasmanian travel agent recently threatened to stop selling Bali holiday packages if Corby is convicted by the Denpasar District Court.
But I Gede Witana, an adviser to the Bali government and professor of tourism at Udayana University, believes fears of a backlash are exaggerated.
"It seems Australians are immune to issues about Bali," he says.
"There's something special and unique in Bali, especially for Australian tourists.
"If you look at Corby's drug case, it hasn't affected tourism at all."
Tourist numbers are back to even higher levels than before the Bali bombing, and a large component of that figure continues to come from Australia, Witana says.
"Before the bombing we had 1.42 million tourists, but in 2004 we had 1.46 million, and Australian tourists are 27 per cent of those," he says.
But amid the deluge of negative press, Australians are taking extra precautions.
"Every aperture of our luggage has a padlock on it, which we wouldn't have done before," says Ken Postill, of Sydney, who brought his wife Joanne and two young children to Bali for a holiday.
The Postills, who arrived two days after the Bali nine were arrested, say they had received emails asking them to support Corby by signing a petition.
They were also urged to boycott Bali.
"Everyone said 'don't go, don't go'," Joanne says.
"But we wanted to bring the kids here as an eye-opener, to give them a bit of a culture shock."
Perth resident Quentin Burr, who brought his 15-year-old daughter on a 12-day holiday to Bali, believes Corby has been unfairly treated.
But he says he never considered boycotting the Indonesian island.
"I think Schapelle got a bum deal, police didn't even fingerprint the bag," he says while strolling along Kuta beach.
"But the Balinese need us, they're still suffering a bit after the bombing, so we just made sure we padlocked our luggage and took extra precautions."
Joanne Postill says her family decided against using hotel childcare in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations.
"I couldn't leave the kids to go out at night. I'm not prepared to take that risk," she says.
But hotel and tour operators say it is business as usual.
"Australian bookings are still strong," says Chrissie Lincoln of The Villas in trendy Seminyak.
"We haven't even had any inquiries about these issues."
- AAP
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Travelling to Indonesia
Interesting stuff on travelling in Indonesia from the Lonely Planet can be found at here.
Something I found interesting was that they have snow in the mountains in Irian Jaya! How awesome is that for such a humid place?
Something I found interesting was that they have snow in the mountains in Irian Jaya! How awesome is that for such a humid place?
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Polio in Indonesia; First Time in Decade
By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press Writer
5 minutes ago (Article from Yahoo! News and Associated Press)
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has detected its first case of polio in a decade, prompting the government to launch a massive vaccination campaign that is expected to inoculate more than 5 million children, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
A 20-month-old girl was diagnosed with polio on April 21. Authorities said they believe she came in contact with a migrant worker or tourist who had contracted the disease outside the country. The case — the first since 1995 — prompted government health workers to do house-to-house vaccinations in four neighboring villages. They hope to vaccinate 5.2 million children under age 5 by July.
"A case of polio has been detected in Indonesia," said Dr. Bardan Rana, a WHO medical officer investigating the case. "This is an imported case. Somebody must have brought it in, spread around and then the person came in contact with the child."
Indonesia is the latest polio-free country to find a new case. Since 2003, 15 other previously polio-free countries have reported new cases, after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria was blamed for causing an outbreak that spread the disease to other countries.
Rana said he expected to see a few more cases in Indonesia but said that the government was doing everything necessary to contain the disease found in the West Java village of Girijaya.
"The surveillance has been very good," Rana said. "The immediate response was very good. It was done in a very short time."
Hard-line Islamic clerics in northern Nigeria led the 2003 immunization boycott, claiming that the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July 2004 after local officials ended the 11-month boycott.
Polio then re-emerged in Sudan, where it had been eradicated in 2001, and the strain was traced to Nigeria. The disease has infected 149 people in Sudan.
The Nigerian polio strain then spread to Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, but vaccination campaigns averted major outbreaks in those countries.
The virus also spread to other African and Middle Eastern countries — Benin, Chad, Cameroon, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and Yemen.
Polio is still endemic in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt.
Last year, some 1,267 people were infected in the world — with 792 of those in Nigeria. The total new cases of April 29 stood at 110, according to WHO.
When WHO launched its anti-polio campaign in 1988, the worldwide case count was more than 350,000 annually.
Polio is a waterborne disease that usually infects young children, attacking the nervous system and causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
5 minutes ago (Article from Yahoo! News and Associated Press)
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia has detected its first case of polio in a decade, prompting the government to launch a massive vaccination campaign that is expected to inoculate more than 5 million children, the World Health Organization said Tuesday.
A 20-month-old girl was diagnosed with polio on April 21. Authorities said they believe she came in contact with a migrant worker or tourist who had contracted the disease outside the country. The case — the first since 1995 — prompted government health workers to do house-to-house vaccinations in four neighboring villages. They hope to vaccinate 5.2 million children under age 5 by July.
"A case of polio has been detected in Indonesia," said Dr. Bardan Rana, a WHO medical officer investigating the case. "This is an imported case. Somebody must have brought it in, spread around and then the person came in contact with the child."
Indonesia is the latest polio-free country to find a new case. Since 2003, 15 other previously polio-free countries have reported new cases, after a vaccine boycott in Nigeria was blamed for causing an outbreak that spread the disease to other countries.
Rana said he expected to see a few more cases in Indonesia but said that the government was doing everything necessary to contain the disease found in the West Java village of Girijaya.
"The surveillance has been very good," Rana said. "The immediate response was very good. It was done in a very short time."
Hard-line Islamic clerics in northern Nigeria led the 2003 immunization boycott, claiming that the polio vaccine was part of a U.S.-led plot to render Nigeria's Muslims infertile or infect them with AIDS. Vaccination programs restarted in Nigeria in July 2004 after local officials ended the 11-month boycott.
Polio then re-emerged in Sudan, where it had been eradicated in 2001, and the strain was traced to Nigeria. The disease has infected 149 people in Sudan.
The Nigerian polio strain then spread to Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia, but vaccination campaigns averted major outbreaks in those countries.
The virus also spread to other African and Middle Eastern countries — Benin, Chad, Cameroon, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Togo and Yemen.
Polio is still endemic in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt.
Last year, some 1,267 people were infected in the world — with 792 of those in Nigeria. The total new cases of April 29 stood at 110, according to WHO.
When WHO launched its anti-polio campaign in 1988, the worldwide case count was more than 350,000 annually.
Polio is a waterborne disease that usually infects young children, attacking the nervous system and causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
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