The Kuala Lumpur Bird Park was so big and so fun we had to go back again. This year we were less two aunties, but we picked up seven cousins, making for a party of two lone adults riding herd on 14 young people. We only made it to half the park the first time around, […]
Monthly Archives: December 2014
Gurindam 12 Fasal 6
by Raja Ali Haji (1808-1873)
English translation © Bin Gregory Productions
This is the gurindam of the sixth issue:
Seek you a companion
Who can be for you a medicine …
Parang: the Malay machete
“Take the parang beneath the stairs
Use the whetstone on an edge grown dull.
That faith be kept safe in prayer
Prostrate daily five times in full.”
Gardening in the tropics is a constant battle against the jungle. Being properly armed means carrying a machete. From Brazil to the Congo to the island of Borneo, farmers wield some form of long, sturdy knife for slashing and hacking back the relentless encroaching green. The Malaysian machete is the parang.