During the Chinese Spirits of the 7^th Month (known by the misnomer “the Hungry Ghost) Festival, many Chinese communities in Malaysia & Singapore hold traditional Chinese opera using human actors, but only a few places still put on Chinese puppet shows. 

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. 

Last time I blogged about Mr. Weda, the world-renowned Balinese fan painter of Indonesia.  While visiting his cottage studio we had an extra treat!

As Mr. Weda was showing us his stunning traditionally painted fans, I noticed another beautiful subject emerging in the background.  His little daughter—getting ready to participate in a traditional Hindu Balinese dance.

First she emerges in her white dress accented by a yellow shawl.

 Ubud in central Bali is the art Mecca of the Hindu Balinese of Indonesia.  Painters, wood carvers, stone cutters all congregate around Ubud.  In the past you could find them making their masterpieces in cottages along the streets of Ubud.  But with the huge influx of tourists in recent decades, few of those places still exist with nearly all of them supplanted by shops selling mostly generic handcraft wares, but without the artists on site.

Javanese hand-drawn (batik tulis—pronounced BA-teek TOO-lis) has been around for hundreds of years, especially around Jogjakarta, Indonesia.  Reportedly in the 1920s someone found a way to streamline this labor-intensive process of wax masking cotton cloth with intricate designs & patterns.