2013
All over for another year
16 October 2013
Last day's highlights:
The last session I attended on the main program was a nostalgic one - a panel with audience participation going back over the last ten years of festivals with anecdotes, humour and even a look ahead to the 21st festival. Don't think I'll make it to that one! I shared my memory from the first festival of the totally insensitive behaviour of George Negus, one of Australia's leading TV journalists who was the "big name" that first year, who had written a book The World from Islam and made no mention of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation! And he was constantly telling the Indonesians how to handle Islamist terrorism when they had just done a great job of tracking down and arresting the Bali Bombers. And he made sexy jokes at all his sessions which were quite inappropriate - and incomprehensible - to Indonesian members of the audience and had us Aussies cringing. Nothing like this at any festival since, thank god
Popped into a shop across the road with Pam and who should be there trying on linen shirts - none other than Sebastian Faulks. What a hunk! Funny and intellectual too. He apologised for whipping shirts on and off in front of us and of course we simpered, "We don't mind"!! His wife was there too. Easy to chat with them both.
5-star lunch event, "Romance of Rice", at Kamandalu Resort. A meal designed by Indonesia's leading culinary expert William Wongso, with dishes from across the archipelago. He spoke, as did Indonesia's "Top Chef " TV host, Farah Quinn, a glamorous young woman who is apparently very famous. Also among the array of speakers who entertained us over the lunch was Stephen Lansing the American anthropologist who was behind the UNESCO heritage status of the rice growing valley we visited. And Ian Burnet again, who told swashbuckling tales of piracy at the height of the spice trade in the 17th C. It was all wonderful. Superb service and setting - we got to congratulate the kitchen staff and waiters. The hotel's main building, being massive and of concrete, is ugly from outside but looks over rice terraces and smaller bungalows that are very attractive. Did you know that some 5-star hotels have rice terraces instead of gardens and employ farmers to add local colour to the tourist experience?!! Harvest time is a stage show for the guests!! You know how I love the fields here at Josh's place, but they're not planted purely for my benefit. I learned something from Lansing. When a rice field is sold at a high price to build a villa on it, it brings up the price of land all around it. And the taxes on that land go up too, making it less and less profitable for the farmer to go on farming. I sat near Lonely Planet's Tony Wheeler at the lunch.
Last event of the Festival was the launch of the festival's bilingual book of the works of the young Indonesian emerging writers (16 selected out of 260 submissions). This year I translated six of the short stories. I got to meet the writers, all lovely young people from all over the archipelago, with hopefully great writing careers ahead. They all signed my book and me theirs. There were readings in Indonesian from some of their works. (A segment of one of my translations had been read out at a public session I had attended that morning- sounded good!) Pam spoke on behalf of the translators at the launch this year. I had on a few occasions in the past. Very few non-Indonesian attended so the whole event was conducted in Indonesian.
The last session I attended on the main program was a nostalgic one - a panel with audience participation going back over the last ten years of festivals with anecdotes, humour and even a look ahead to the 21st festival. Don't think I'll make it to that one! I shared my memory from the first festival of the totally insensitive behaviour of George Negus, one of Australia's leading TV journalists who was the "big name" that first year, who had written a book The World from Islam and made no mention of Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation! And he was constantly telling the Indonesians how to handle Islamist terrorism when they had just done a great job of tracking down and arresting the Bali Bombers. And he made sexy jokes at all his sessions which were quite inappropriate - and incomprehensible - to Indonesian members of the audience and had us Aussies cringing. Nothing like this at any festival since, thank god
Popped into a shop across the road with Pam and who should be there trying on linen shirts - none other than Sebastian Faulks. What a hunk! Funny and intellectual too. He apologised for whipping shirts on and off in front of us and of course we simpered, "We don't mind"!! His wife was there too. Easy to chat with them both.
5-star lunch event, "Romance of Rice", at Kamandalu Resort. A meal designed by Indonesia's leading culinary expert William Wongso, with dishes from across the archipelago. He spoke, as did Indonesia's "Top Chef " TV host, Farah Quinn, a glamorous young woman who is apparently very famous. Also among the array of speakers who entertained us over the lunch was Stephen Lansing the American anthropologist who was behind the UNESCO heritage status of the rice growing valley we visited. And Ian Burnet again, who told swashbuckling tales of piracy at the height of the spice trade in the 17th C. It was all wonderful. Superb service and setting - we got to congratulate the kitchen staff and waiters. The hotel's main building, being massive and of concrete, is ugly from outside but looks over rice terraces and smaller bungalows that are very attractive. Did you know that some 5-star hotels have rice terraces instead of gardens and employ farmers to add local colour to the tourist experience?!! Harvest time is a stage show for the guests!! You know how I love the fields here at Josh's place, but they're not planted purely for my benefit. I learned something from Lansing. When a rice field is sold at a high price to build a villa on it, it brings up the price of land all around it. And the taxes on that land go up too, making it less and less profitable for the farmer to go on farming. I sat near Lonely Planet's Tony Wheeler at the lunch.
Last event of the Festival was the launch of the festival's bilingual book of the works of the young Indonesian emerging writers (16 selected out of 260 submissions). This year I translated six of the short stories. I got to meet the writers, all lovely young people from all over the archipelago, with hopefully great writing careers ahead. They all signed my book and me theirs. There were readings in Indonesian from some of their works. (A segment of one of my translations had been read out at a public session I had attended that morning- sounded good!) Pam spoke on behalf of the translators at the launch this year. I had on a few occasions in the past. Very few non-Indonesian attended so the whole event was conducted in Indonesian.
So that's it folks. I'll be back next year! Just realised I probably won’t be back here before then, as Josh and Jasmin will be in Australia for six months from 22 Dec.
Today I move down to Alex's for the last couple of days. This means I leave this house and its beautiful fields forever. When Josh comes back next July he will consider finding a place south of Ubud nearer Jasmin's new school if she does in fact move to a school down at the coast. I feel very weird indeed, as I prepare to walk out the door for the last time.
PS. The Bahasa Breakfast was well attended - new bunch of enthusiastic students. I helped with some of the individual drilling of what the teacher had taught. So this time it was worth the early start!