2015
Sunday in Ubud
25 October 2015
Not very different from any of the previous days in my week here really! I must be the most relaxed among all of those reading these jottings across the world! Here on the shady verandah with the rice growing before my very eyes. A big difference in just the week. Still I am really looking forward to the start of the festival next week and the arrival of various old festival mates.
There has been a big international and local outcry against the bans on the festival's 1965 commemorative events. A UK friend sent me this link to a BBC article:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34626612
The best thing I have read has been the response by author Laksmi Pamuntjak whose novel on the subject (now in four languages) was a big hit in Frankfurt and across a speaking tour of Europe. Her letter expressing enormous concern over the regression that Indonesia is currently undergoing, was signed by countless writers and major players at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Lots of Indonesians are writing in response to the Jakarta Post article below, and it is heartening to read their demands for freedom of expression. Scroll down after this article and read some of them. Of course the Post readers are Jakarta's educated English speakers.
www.thejakartapost.com/.../ubud-festival-banned-discussing-1965-massacre...
Yesterday's highlight was spending a couple of hours over es cendol (iced coconut milk, palm sugar and green jelly worms) at Kamasan cafe with young filmmaker siblings Shinta and Bobby. Shinta was at the table near us at Kamasan when I was there with Denny and Axel a few days ago and joined our conversation at some stage. She rang yesterday to invite me to come and meet her brother who is passing through. Had sent me the YouTube link to the short feature film she and Bobby made last year on the theme of the aftermath of 1965 - the silence and guilt affecting a family over 50 years. It is a beautiful film -"The Visit". In 17 minutes they capture the unresolved suffering - one of a million such stories. Do watch it and let me know what you think. It’s in Javanese with English subtitles. Won a prize at the Melbourne Short Film Festival. The glorious song at the end was composed by their musician father - they grew up with this song. Shinta works out of Ubud as a documentary filmmaker. She is off tomorrow to film the effects of deforestation - and fires - on the orangutan in Sumatra for National Geographic. She is a very bright young woman. Of course we know lots of people in common in Ubud and she knows my Sydney-based artist friend, Jumaadi whose amazing modern wayang puppet performance (using two overhead projectors) I saw in Sydney last weekend
Here’s the link to the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFrZsCtnaM
Later:
Been a lovely day. Sunday brunch at Tutmak's with Gove and Stacia, great mates of Josh's I have known all the years of coming to Ubud. Tutmak's cafe has been around for 20 years and is still one of the best in town. Ketut the owner learned his trade in a Paddington cafe all those years ago! Always good to get Gove's take on environmental and development issues in Bali. And American politics.
Then we dropped Jazz off at a craft centre where she made a Halloween costume while Josh and I went for our swim. Having paid the hotel's $5 fee for each of the first three days we were delighted to find the rest of the week we got free swims! Have done my laps six out of the seven days I've been here! Walking for exercise is not an option in this heat, though I guess I will be doing quite a lot of that between venues once the festival starts. There is no sign of the wet season coming. Fears that in this El Niño year it may not come. It is very hot, with clear blue skies, in this part of Indonesia - aren't we lucky! Not humid yet.
Water off again just as I had persuaded a very reluctant Jasmin to have a shower and wash her hair! Let's hope it's back on in the morning. We have had three more outages during the week but none as long as the three days last weekend. Jazz is more relaxed about her new haircut but still absolutely refuses to let me take any pictures of her. Aunty Jann back in Sydney is longing to see her, especially in some of the new clothes she has sent her.
Good night from Ubud! Mimpi manis - sweet dreams!
There has been a big international and local outcry against the bans on the festival's 1965 commemorative events. A UK friend sent me this link to a BBC article:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34626612
The best thing I have read has been the response by author Laksmi Pamuntjak whose novel on the subject (now in four languages) was a big hit in Frankfurt and across a speaking tour of Europe. Her letter expressing enormous concern over the regression that Indonesia is currently undergoing, was signed by countless writers and major players at the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival.
Lots of Indonesians are writing in response to the Jakarta Post article below, and it is heartening to read their demands for freedom of expression. Scroll down after this article and read some of them. Of course the Post readers are Jakarta's educated English speakers.
www.thejakartapost.com/.../ubud-festival-banned-discussing-1965-massacre...
Yesterday's highlight was spending a couple of hours over es cendol (iced coconut milk, palm sugar and green jelly worms) at Kamasan cafe with young filmmaker siblings Shinta and Bobby. Shinta was at the table near us at Kamasan when I was there with Denny and Axel a few days ago and joined our conversation at some stage. She rang yesterday to invite me to come and meet her brother who is passing through. Had sent me the YouTube link to the short feature film she and Bobby made last year on the theme of the aftermath of 1965 - the silence and guilt affecting a family over 50 years. It is a beautiful film -"The Visit". In 17 minutes they capture the unresolved suffering - one of a million such stories. Do watch it and let me know what you think. It’s in Javanese with English subtitles. Won a prize at the Melbourne Short Film Festival. The glorious song at the end was composed by their musician father - they grew up with this song. Shinta works out of Ubud as a documentary filmmaker. She is off tomorrow to film the effects of deforestation - and fires - on the orangutan in Sumatra for National Geographic. She is a very bright young woman. Of course we know lots of people in common in Ubud and she knows my Sydney-based artist friend, Jumaadi whose amazing modern wayang puppet performance (using two overhead projectors) I saw in Sydney last weekend
Here’s the link to the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZFrZsCtnaM
Later:
Been a lovely day. Sunday brunch at Tutmak's with Gove and Stacia, great mates of Josh's I have known all the years of coming to Ubud. Tutmak's cafe has been around for 20 years and is still one of the best in town. Ketut the owner learned his trade in a Paddington cafe all those years ago! Always good to get Gove's take on environmental and development issues in Bali. And American politics.
Then we dropped Jazz off at a craft centre where she made a Halloween costume while Josh and I went for our swim. Having paid the hotel's $5 fee for each of the first three days we were delighted to find the rest of the week we got free swims! Have done my laps six out of the seven days I've been here! Walking for exercise is not an option in this heat, though I guess I will be doing quite a lot of that between venues once the festival starts. There is no sign of the wet season coming. Fears that in this El Niño year it may not come. It is very hot, with clear blue skies, in this part of Indonesia - aren't we lucky! Not humid yet.
Water off again just as I had persuaded a very reluctant Jasmin to have a shower and wash her hair! Let's hope it's back on in the morning. We have had three more outages during the week but none as long as the three days last weekend. Jazz is more relaxed about her new haircut but still absolutely refuses to let me take any pictures of her. Aunty Jann back in Sydney is longing to see her, especially in some of the new clothes she has sent her.
Good night from Ubud! Mimpi manis - sweet dreams!