Category Archives: Nusantara

Of Dukes and Datuks

Malaysia has a peerage system comparable in some respects to what is practiced in the UK, whereby Malaysians of common origins can be conferred a non-hereditary title of honor by the monarch.  Like in the UK, this is given out to exceptional artists, athletes, statesmen, men of learning, and to the exceptionally wealthy.  It gets […]

Glyphs of Warding, Icons of Doom

I got in a car accident a while ago.  Everybody’s fine, no injuries at all; quite a blessing considering I had the entire family in the van.  A trio of young roosters were taking their daddy’s Mercedes out on the town of a Saturday night and were blatantly at fault. Around here, unless the accident […]

Somatotypology, Craniometry and other detritus

KakNgah came home the other day asking about ectomorphic body types. Do you know about this? I’d never heard of such a thing. Apparently her teacher took some time out of class to tell the students about the Three Body Types of Man, ectomorphic (tall and thin), endomorphic (short and chubby), and mesomorphic (the ideal […]

Lemang Raya

Lemang is quintessential Malay holiday food, impossible to find throughout the year, impossible to avoid come Hari Raya.  Lemang is glutinous, or sticky, rice cooked in coconut milk inside a length of bamboo and roasted over an open fire.  The work involved in making it is considerable.  First, locate and chop down a giant piece […]

The Raid

I can’t recommend The Raid: Redemption.  It’s an Indonesian action movie that has won some acclaim internationally.  I watched it because I’d seen Merantau, by the same director (Gareth Evans) and starring the same actor (Iko Uwais).  Merantau wasn’t bad if you are a martial arts fan: the production quality was high and the pencak […]

Commercialization of Sacred Space

The masjid is a sacred place, a house of God, and among the ways that sacredness is respected is by refraining from idle talk while inside. Handphones have been a terrible scourge in this regard, with phones ringing, even being answered, in the middle of congregational prayer. No doubt this is why signs have proliferated […]

Convocation Day

November means the end of the school year, and once again I have a child successfully completing her academic career and ready to move on to the next stage of her life: Elementary School. Yes, getting through three years of preschool is a momentous achievement, and so a grand ceremony to commemorate the event took […]