Everyone living near any traditional Chinese community knows that this is now the 7th Chinese month—that remarkable time of year known to many as the Hungry Ghost Festival. My closest local Chinese friend—a traditional religionist—insists that we stop calling it the Hungry Ghost Festival & more properly call it the “Festival of the Spirits of the 7th Month.”

I want to respect his wishes, but sounds like a mouthful! And in the meantime, everyone else seems to call it the Hungry Ghost Festival.

Most Indonesian wayang golek wooden puppets have a faint resemblance to real humans.  In my last blog I showed you one example in Putro Wayang Workshop of a Javanese woman puppet that moved toward realism.

Not far from the southern gateway through the fort walls of the Jogjakarta sultan’s palace one comes to Prawirotaman Street—long a famed hangout for backpacker tourists.  But these days there’s an increasing number of higher grade hotels, restaurants & even antique shops on Jalan Prawirotaman.

The Javanese of Indonesia are world renowned for their wayang kulit shadow puppets.  To their west are the Sundanese who prefer wayang golek wooden puppets—no screen, no shadow, just let us see the puppets.

In our last blog we showed you a Javanese wayang kulit shadow puppet craftsman’s studio in the heart of Jogjakarta's sultan’s palace.  When looking for shadow puppet craftsmen, everyone hears about a couple puppet studios within the palace walls, but we also started hearing about a renowned village shadow puppet studio out in the country.

The island of Java, in Indonesia has been documented to have the most fertile soil in the world. The volcanic soil here grows rice like crazy. Where there’s abundant food people have time to do more than just look for dinner & culture thrives.  

Many Javanese have long been freed up to delve deeply into the arts.  Batik, filigree silver making, ornate wood carving—some of the world’s best of these can be found in Java.  And then, there’s wayang kulit shadow puppet theatre!

Every year in the “Spring” Chinese traditional religionists flock to graveyards to honor their ancestors. 

Penang, Malaysia is famous not only for being the food capital of Asia & the UNESCO World Heritage-preserved-site of one of the world’s last 19th century Chinese port towns.  Penang is also getting talked about for the growing number of mass public sports events held here—round-island cycle rides, an annual marathon & the Penang Triathlon.

This year’s Triathlon started in the north coast fishing town of Teluk Bahang.

When the Dutch colonized Java in modern-day Indonesia they struggled with the equatorial heat.  They eventually figured out that the high volcanoes of Java provided cool temperatures—if you could get there.  So they built roads into the highlands & then developed hill stations where they could retreat.

In the last three blogs we’ve been showing you tiny Sapeken island, the market & fishing hub for the eastern part of the Kangean Archipelago, north of Bali, east of Madura, in Indonesia. 

Our entourage must get bored too easily.  We decided we did not want to go depart Sapeken the way we’d come—a route that would involve discomfort while not letting us see anything new. 

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