Notes from Stephen, Wan, Kweilin, and Li

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Ubud, Tegalalang: Paddy ride; tingklik man; Wayan, wife, and daughters

My dad and I took a ride through the rice paddies near our bungalow this morning. I saw farmers transplanting tufts of rice. They were moving rice "grass" from highly concentrated paddies to more sparse ones to give the rice room to grow.

My mom cooked us lunch back at the bungalow. She bought some pork at the market (Bali is Hindu, not Muslim) and mixed it with green beans. We had tomatoes and eggs with rice, too.

I spent the afternoon talking and eating and playing music with the tingklik man.

The tingklik man was building a tingklik when I arrived. I think it's rare that he builds a tingklik these days, since most of his business is wood statues. He cut open a bamboo pipe and shaved it to the correct pitch. He didn't use an automatic tuner to tell him whether he had the right pitch. He just hit it with a mallet and compared its sound with the sound of the same pipe in the partner tingklik.

The tingklik man taught me a new song. I learned the polos (main melody) and part of the sangsih (harmony) of the tune "Made Koci" (ma-day ko-chee). He breaks the song into chapters and patiently plays each chapter until I get it.

Usually one person plays polos while a partner plays sangsih, but this afternoon the tingklik man played both by himself at the same time. He held two mallets in his right hand and varied their separation as he played. Seeing him play two melodies at once floored me.

The tingklik man learned everything about tingkliks from his father, who is now 105 years old. The father taught the son how to play and build tingkliks and he probably taught the son other stuff about carving too.

The 105-year-old grandfather was alive when Dutch colonized Indonesia. He doesn't like them. Wayan, the tingklik man's son, said "They took away everything."

The tingklik man introduced me to tahu (ta-hoo): fried tofu with bean sprouts. A street vendor came by selling it and the tingklik man offered me a bowl. It's delicious! Only 2000 rupiah (20 cents) a bowl.

85% of bakso (soup noodle) and tahu street vendors are from Java, says the tingklik man and his son. Balinese people apparently prefer not to sell bakso and tahu. I thought it was weird that the tingklik man spoke Indonesian to the vendor, so I asked him why he didn't use Balinese. "Because he's from Java," he replied.

Ranita, the tingklik man's granddaughter, loves bakso. She runs out to the road at 2 pm every day, when the bakso vendor arrives. She spent a long time savoring her bowl while I played tingklik.

Actually, Ranita enjoys eating in general. She came out three times from the house to buy stuff to eat while I was playing. She's seven or eight years old.

I'm happy I bought a pocket dictionary for Indonesian and English before I visited the tingklik man. It helped me communicate much better than I would have otherwise.

Wayan, the tingklik man's oldest son, brought his wife and children to visit our bungalow this evening. I showed them pictures from our trip and he showed me pictures of his family on his handheld PDA.

Wayan and his wife, Renas, are 28-30 years old. They have two daughters: Julia, age 2, and Ranita, age 7.

I'm surprised that Julia is a Balinese name as well as an English name. Her name is Julia because she's born in the month of "Juli" (joo-lee), Indonesian for "July".

Renas studied dance for four years, probably after high school. She hasn't danced since she married Wayan eight years ago. She still recognized the dances that I recorded at a local show.

Wayan's kids are extremely quiet and well-behaved. I'm sure Ranita and Julia were bored with the visit this evening but they never bothered their father.

It would be great for Ranita to learn to type. My mom thought of it when Wayan commented that he was impressed that I could type without looking at the keyboard. Ranita would probably enjoy learning to type with a typing program like Mavis Beacon.

I hope Ranita learns English too. She already speaks Bahasa Indonesia fluently after studying it in school for two years.

Balinese children learn Balinese at home first and only study Indonesian when they start school. Each Balinese speaks the local dialect to other locals. They only use Indonesian with Javanese folks or foreigners.

posted by Unknown at 3:13 AM