Sang Pemimpi

Last night I saw a wonderful Indonesian film at the opening of a South East Asian film festival at the ARC theatre.  (phew! what a mouthful!).

The film Sang Pemimpi, is the second part of a trilogy based on the very popular books about growing up on an island off Sumatra, by the Indonesian writer Andrea Hirata.  While the books were set in the 70s and 80s there was much that reminded me of the Indonesian villages I saw in Sulawesi last year - the markets (pasar), the school (sekolah) and the mosque (masjid).

It was a delightful story about boys in high school and their dream to go to Paris to study.  Despite some distractions, the two main characters Ikal and Arai did eventually make it there.  The film's title translates as The Dreamer, and refers to Arai who was always encouraging his friends to dream and then working hard to deliver their dreams to them.  This was in the face of losing all of his family when only still a child.  Did I say it was a lovely film? one I think that reflects the humility and optimism of many Indonesians today.

The director Riri Riza, and the producer, Mira Lesmana, attended the screening, and took questions from the audience.  I was taken by a comment from Riri, that when they had screened the film in Europe, a common response was that the film was very nostalgic, and I had to agree.  It captured something of simpler times, when the small things people did had huge effect,.

In the opening scenes when we see Ikal's father riding a squeaky bike on a lonely road.  Later in the film we learn that this scene was repeated each year, when the father travelled from his village to the school to collect the school reports, handed out in order of achievement.  Ikal called him the no 1 father, who did this year after year, only to stop, congratulate his son briefly, then head back off on his bike.  It was even more poignant the year that Ikal's grades dropped, and he only did that once.

Aku senang sekali yang aku melihat bioskop ini.

A day in the sun

Yesterday the sky was sunny and blue.   It was good day to get things done.  In the morning I:

• read the Saturday papers
• went for a run
• started the washing
• looked at two houses for sale to see if they were for me (not yet)
• did the grocery shopping

then in the afternoon, I:

• finished the washing
• caught up with a friend, first at her spiritual centre, and then for ride around the lake
• did some drumming (or tried) at a Mother Nature festival
• forgot to take my camera so couldn't photograph the pagan ceremony that opened the festival
• stumbled home to sleep

It was a fun ride around the lake, with people out everywhere enjoying the aforementioned beautiful day.  Many like us were cycling or walking on the bike paths.  Hundreds went to the National Gallery to see the French Masterpieces exhibition - meaning our usual parking spot was a traffic jam.  Then we passed a wedding in one of the parks, a rowing regatta on the lake, and folk streaming into government house to sit on the lawns and enjoy the local symphony orchestra.  Whatever the weather the lake ride is always enjoyable, but yesterday it was lovely, and great to see Canberrans out celebrating the last days of summer.

The Mother Nature festival was something else.  I was there because I do drumming classes and our teacher is sometimes asked to put together a group to perform, and when he does he sends the invitation out far and wide.  I discovered last year when I said yes to one of these that it can be a lot of fun.  I'm not a serious drummer though, and had only been able to make it to one of two rehearsals, so was a bit rusty even on the rhythms we had practiced.  The core group really did a fabulous job though, and the sounds of the dun duns and jembes really caught the attention of the crowds.

Then we sat and watched the opening ceremony for the festival, which involved five maidens in flowing gowns, carrying sprigs of leaves, and a smoke filled bowl, and annointing the crowd with water.  Fifty or so people formed a circle around them, and the girls led a yoga like breathing session, ending with arm raising and a group hum.

This was (at least) my second spiritual event for the day (or third if you count drumming), as I had also been 'given light' by my friend at the centre.  This involves sitting and lying on the floor while my friend performs reiki like moves on my body.  I don't have any strong belief here, but I don't mind the opportunity to relax and to catch up with my friend, hopefully respectful of the good that is in her practices.

It was a day full of the kinds of experiences I enjoy - to observe the things that engage people, and to see how it gives their lives meaning.  I like to let my soul be in different places, to see what will seep under my skin, and hope that some will resound to others.  I will have to do more drumming practice though, if I have any intention of doing more public drumming!

Edges straight and true

The truth is that most edges are not straight.  Borders marked on maps wind and weave alongside rivers, around mountains, and along the shores of oceans.  Just like the sea ebbs and flows, so the borders change and drift over time.  Sometimes they are lines on maps that bear no similarity to the cultural flows and drifts that set down roots in centuries long past.

Last night, in the early evening, and after a productive day doing household things, I decided that dinner would best be served from a stall at Canberra's Multicultural Festival.  And seemingly thousands of other Canberrans had the same thought - as they crowded into what was a cross between street market and folk festival.  I moved through the crowds trying to decide if I wanted Vietnamese, or Thai, or Indonesian or Sudanese.  Part Octoberfest, part folk festival, it was a lovely way to sample cultures from around the world.  And it was delightful to see people in national dress, singing and dancing, on the stages, and in impromptu groups near each country's stall.  There was joy and pride among each of the groups getting to show something about the place they've come from, rather than what must be their everyday life adapting to the world they are in.

As a poignant prequel to this blend of Arabian night and South Pacific hangi, I met a lovely girl from Krygistan yesterday morning in the carpark of my local gym.  Also a local pool, she had been there taking her daughter to swimming lessons.  Driving forward from the carpark next to me, she had accidently driven over a concrete bolster.  We called the gym, who called security, who were very helpful and removed said bolster from under the car.  While I waited with her I learnt that she had only migrated to Australia 4 years ago.  It was interesting to talk to her and quite clear that for her the borders between the two worlds were merging well.

In the conversation she mentioned Mark Twain, and it made me think about the hooks that grab us when we learn new languages or visit a country.   In travel, sometimes, you can only catch a glimpse of what a country is really like, and when you are learning a language what you learn about the country is often guided by the interest of the teacher or text book author.  There are many cliches that we learn about, and see when we travel.  Sometimes we learn through the lense of past decades, because the materials or the people come from those times.  But if we really want to know a culture all we can do sometimes is butt up against it through these portholes until the vision widens.

And it is the blending of old and new, the memories of expats and the challenges of the day, and the truth that sits behind the songs and dances that helps us live within these worlds.  Before I left the festival, and as day became night, I watched a calypso band sing Kingston Town (a Western radio hit in the 60s) with the Carribean singer and drummer backed up by a grey haired muso who looked like he learnt the song in a garage band, way back then.  It wasn't pure, but like the kids in saris playing with their mobile phones, very true.

Replenish

Here it is, the first day of the second month of a year that is now no longer new.  I went back to to work in the first week of January, and it has been a good month, but the time is coming to firm up some plans for the year, and maybe some plans for a replenishing break - perhaps a few weeks over the end of Feb and early Mar.  Or one in Sep and Oct.  Or both.

My weekend was busy and fun.  Fri night saw a lovely impromptu dinner at a friend's house.  Then we saw Fred Smith and the Spooky Men's Chorale at the Canberra Playhouse, a theatre designed along the lines of Shakespeare's globe.  Buying our tickets on the day for this popular local performer (and accompanying and very funny men's choir) meant we sat up in the high stalls on the side.  There were just five of us in our box.  It was cosy, and quite fabulous to look down on the full theatre, and wave at friends, and watch the audience participate in the show - standing up and swaying on command when Fred asked.

Sat night joined friends for a picnic in the botanic gardens for jazz in the Eucalypt lawns.  It was a lovely atmosphere, quite cool (for a change) and lots of groups of friends, and families, and work mates.

The year ahead offers more shows at the theatre as a group of us subscribe.  Also films at the local university's film group, and I'm sure some folk music from time to time.  And there is a program of books for book group to fit in around the other books in the pile.  In other ways too the year is beginning to settle into its usual patterns.  Yoga classes start again tomorrow night, and I am looking forward to it after a month's break.   And I have opened the pages of the new music book - to hopefully let my fingers and my mind stretch into the new tunes I hope to learn.

With all of these rhythms taking hold, I think though, that I still need that longer break, to rest, refresh, reorganise some things in my life, and perhaps indulge in travel or other new adventures.

Soaking in its people

Today is Australia Day - as the name suggests a day to celebrate our national identity, and a public holiday as well!   On the radio the lives of ordinary Australians are being told - how they came here, how they adapted, what Australia is to them.   As the countries of the world grow closer and closer, the story of Australia is becoming a global one, and for me anyway, one where there is so much to learn and enjoy about other cultures.

Last year on Australia Day I was in the last week of a month long cycling tour of Sulawesi in Indonesia.  The Australians in the group sang Advance Australia Fair (our anthem) before we headed out for what was to be the hardest 14km of our 1200km trip - uphill and around bends, and uphill again, the sun beating down on us in the way that it does when you are inland away from the ocean and major waterways.

At the end of this ride, still early in the morning we arrived at a national park, and spent the day and night at thermal pools, underneath a canopy of lush green bushland.  There were several pools with water of varying temperatures, and as we sat and lay on the edge of the pool we were cooled by gentle rain falling through the trees.

Eventually as the day progressed, the pool and surrounding grounds filled with Indonesian family groups of all ages, middle aged couples with children and uncles and aunties, and groups of young Indonesian, out on picnics to celebrate what is one of their public holidays - Tahun Baru Imlek or Chinese New Year.  Needless to say we made many new friends who were very interested in what we were doing, and keen to practice their English and take photos, as Indonesians do.

That night after dinner we met with the workers from the national park who asked what could be done to make the park better - much of that conversation being about the need to find ways to remove the rubbish in the park.  Much had been piled up prominently along the 500m walk to where many of our group were sleeping in fairly basic huts.  The lucky among us enjoyed a night in the wooden cabins on stilts, among the trees, and near the stream that fed the pools.

It was an idylic day, and a nice mixing of different cultures.  Indonesia itself a country that has developed its identity through the many different cultures that have colonised and traded with it over time - the chinese, portugese and dutch influences layered over ancient hindu and islamic traditions.

The night before our Australia Day ride was also a cultural experience - we stayed in traditional Buginese long houses at Batu-Batu.  The houses were owned by an academic from Java, who had set them up as a living museum, and we slept in and among the four poster beds, did yoga around the chinese ceramics jars, and sat on the wooden floors to eat our dinner.  Needless to say we did this as respectfully as we could but not before the need for some bargaining with the doctor's second wife.

I don't have photos of the thermal pools, but here are some in and around the Buginese houses.

Reflections on the lotus 2

Lotus plants grow best when sown in shallow muddy waters.  Their roots spread under the water and then the plants rise up, metres above the surface, leaves and flowers and pods.  Because these all appear on the plant at the same time, the lotus represents the past, the present and the future.  Rich, beauty that fills the space more than might be thought possible, while preparing its seed pods for the plants of tomorrow.

Like the muddy pond beneath the flowers, the romantic poet Keats believed that man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without reaching after fact and reason*.  He was saying that acceptance of the unknown is needed before beauty can emerge tall and strong. It is this belief that led him to write poems of great beauty and passion.  And it is a way of looking at the future, at how to make beauty from the spaces around us.  To encourage richness and completeness from where it doesn't yet exist and to allow the space for it to be.

Long ago, before Vishnu and Laksmi were tiffing in the kitchens of Javanese puppet makers, the god Shiva emerged from the Absolute, the highest way of being, golden and pure, space.  Or so it is represented in some delightful paintings from Rajastan, currently on exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW (Gardens and Cosmos).

So, when times are quiet, remember the spaces are needed for new growth to emerge.  When things are murky, remember that the muddy waters are needed to enrich the roots.  And if you are a lotus, your inclination, without knowing, will always be to reach up, towards the sun and to regenerate for tomorrow.

*As described in a letter to his brother dated 21 Dec 1817, he called this theory 'negative capability'

Reflections on the lotus 1

The lotus flower, symbol of purity, fertility and growth.

Apparently in Indian mythology Laksmi grew from a lotus flower that sprang from the head of Vishnu.

Both were good guys, or so said the puppet maker in Jogjakarta who sold me two beautifully painted Wayang Kulit representing these two characters last year.   He explained that Vishnu represented protection, cleverness and true love, and that his partner Laksmi was a good mama, beautiful and wise.

Then he explained that he had these two puppets in his kitchen, and that his wife moves Laksmi's hands around to show how she is feeling.

It was raining, and I had been brought to the puppet makers workshop on the back of a motor bike, so he carefully wrapped the puppets in layers of paper, cardboard and plastic to protect them.

Kulit means skin and these puppets are carved from animal skins.  Then they are delicately painted on both sides in beautiful colours.  Their arms and legs are hinged to move.  When the puppets are used in a play the story is told through their shadows.

The puppets are used in set plays most commonly the Ramayana and the Mahabarata.  The complete plays go over several nights (or overnight) and involve many puppets each representing different characters.  They are accompanied by a traditional gamelan orchestra.  In Jogjakarta you can see the Ramayana every night, and my puppet maker who also plays in the orchestra threw in a free ticket.

In this story I let the puppet maker move my hands and legs in the role of compliant and innocent tourist.  And yet I was overawed by the reverence this man had for what he produces in his work, the tradition it continues and the way it beats music in his life today.

 I am still working out how to display these beautiful puppets in my home so they can also cast shadows.