Publication: Small Wonders

A relatively new online literary journal focused on South-east Asia, Eastlit, has recently published a short piece taken from this blog.

 "Small Wonders" was written during the second Ramadan in the Malay quarter of Singapore, 2012. (Posted on the blog late July 2012).

Here is the link:

http://www.eastlit.com/eastlit-november-2014/

Prambanan (Heritage)

A third World Heritage site in the region could be ignored no longer. (Borobudur and Georgetown, Penang were the other two. Singapore was still trying to join the club through its botanical gardens, and a one or two other possibilities.) 

The introduction of the bell here in Java was suggested by the repetition of the motif up and down all the towers. 

Across the green jungle for miles round and high up into the heavens the peal of the various tones—the kampungfolk must never have heard the like. 

The stir of the moment in time might have been better imagined without the buffeting road-trip on the No. 1A Transjogja, and the commercial strip that had replaced the earlier rice-fields.

Hundreds of bells rising up in the stone, before one final large crown capped each of the structures.

Later the museum attached showed what a state of collapse had been found at the re-discovery of the complex in the early 1800’s.

School-kids from across the archipelago were out in numbers, the requests for photographs with the bule almost as many as the bells.

Mister. Mister white guy. Photograph please? Smiling, beaming young boys and girls, fathers and mothers. One extended family from Sumatra seized their chance early and was later found beneath one of the stunted trees seeking the shade.

In a short conversation of a few shared words the group was keen to impress the touristic claim of their own region. Toba. Beautiful. The famous lake was another must-see in the region.

The plea ventured here recalled mother's own for her birthplace; and all the years she had not been believed. 

As at Borobudur, the depth of the treads on these Hindu stairs were not scaled to European feet. The lurching required for the risers must have stretched Javanese and Indians both.

Within the dark of the crypts a minute or two was needed to adjust the eyes. The lines of chiseled stone rising up included recent mortar in a number of places. Many decades the reconstruction here had been continuing.

Candle flames, basilisks and birds with human heads and wings half-stretched for flight were everywhere repeated. The latter struck especially, suggesting as they did the difficulty of capture as much as flight.

Surrounding the candle flames the shimmer of air was included by the old artists and recalled the emblem of the Sikhs.

Without all the high-end Western curatorial trappings, the simplicity of the organisation seemed fitting. 

A wandering chook was sighted pecking in a corner of the grounds. It may have been Prambanan that advertised wild deer moving through the precinct, and then dance performance under torchlight for value-added tourist packages.

En route in the bus, the same as from the airport, another EXIST NET was passed on the roadway near the Sentul Market. 

The past still figured in the everyday culture for the emerging generation in Indonesia. Despite the lure of modernity.

 

 

                                                                                                                Yogyakarta, Indonesia

Splatter Flicks in the Tropics

The flaked-out sleeping visible on all the streets through the tropics still startles a relative newcomer even after almost three and one half years. Lunchtimes in Singapore the foreign workers under trees and over the concrete of the Void Decks of the housing towers strike for an instant like massacre scenes from a real-life movie. Tonight going out for supper the woman who provided the buzz-cut an hour earlier was found slumped in the chair before the mirror with head on hands across the narrow shelf. 25,000 rupiah was the charge — $2.50 the woman's boss converted when she saw some hesitation at the price. Over a coffee later with Paijo the becak driver the standard price of a cut was revealed to be 6 - 7,000. In bule kampung, Whitey Village on Sosrowijayan, understandably a different scale operated. Marching up the street the Western tourists at the Massage place, the Pedicure, the sightseeing offices and the bars drinking beer need to be passed. Many of the young bule here would be inclined for some other type of experience were it not for the industry steered by the Tourist Guides. Buying a round of straight kopi tonight for Paijo and his friend, a fellow becak driver, and teas for three young early teen boys, the bill came in below the cut. The people on the other side of the rail-way line were more friendly, Paijo suggested. Sometimes the backpacker kids can be seen along that stretch too beyond Malioboro.