A Place Like No Other (Part I)

Got these pics from my brother's folder. So, here's a little series of tour around Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak.

The granny is in the midst of making the Pua material or fondly known as Pua Kumbu locally. Sarawak version of Songket lah more a less. It plays many key roles in the Iban cultures and traditions. The material itself is prepared from dyed threads and the patterns are usually from gold or silver threads. As for the dyed threads, they would usually opt for red or dark blue. Set the contrast for either the gold or silver threads, kan? Now we also have the Textile Museum next to the Old Courthouse that you can visit to get to know the various materials each ethnic is famous for in Sarawak.

This is how the steps used to look like in the longhouses. It is merely the trunk of the tree being chopped a few inches deep and apart each other to form curvatures deep enough to set your feet firm as you descend up and down. However, most modern longhouses built a safer version of steps with plywood which is broader or longhouses are started to be built on ground like really long terrace houses. You can still try this version of stairs at the Sarawak Museum.

That guy is playing the Sape, a guitar like instrument. Sape is a pentatonic music instrument which means it only has five tones. Most of the traditional musical instruments are pentatonic scaled.

This makcik is separating the rice from its husks that's already off the rice. Traditional method of menampi beras. Used to enjoy doing this when was younger. Nowadays the beras are cleaner (?), so no need to tampi anymore. heheee...

Olden days Chinese used this grind stone to grind rice into flour to prepare various kuih muih. Used to see one in our ancestral home but since our uncle moved away, and the house was left to tumble down to the ground, I have no idea what happened to the grind stone.

This is the traditional bamboo dance yang sangat menguji minda, fizikal, ketangkasan, kecekapan dan ketereran tahap cipan anda. Not for the faint at heart.. heheheee...

More pics in the next entry.