Indonesian Wayang

I got this neat magnet from Shinta the other day which figures a pretty Wayang Kulit character.

I simply adore Wayang Kulit culture, perhaps because Kelantanese also have our own Wayang Kulit. It’s definitely the earliest “opera show” ever existed in this region, which is in forms of traditional puppets shadow play which stories are told by a Dalang – the man behind the scene. A Dalang has this amazing abilty of making his voice to sound in many different tones belonging to each puppet in the story, so you won’t realize that all characters’ voice actually belong to only one person. Come to think about it, Kelantan is the only Malaysian state which has features similar to what Indonesia has, Wayang Kulit and Batik art for instance. It’s quite hard to understand if any relation exists between us, given that Kelantan is nowhere near to Indonesia geographically. We are up here near to Thailand!

I also received a Wayang postcard from Glo long time ago. Indonesian Wayang characters are somewhat different, and I can say prettier, than these  Kelantanese Wayang characters…

haha the right one sure looks scary :P He must be some evil man obviously. And the left two characters are usually princes or Kings. And sitting in the middle are the servants or armies of the King. In fact each character has certain name which remains legendary for decades even in different stories or by different Dalang. Pak Dogol, Sri Rama, Samad, Wok Yoh, just to name a few.. I can identify some which are familiar from the videos I see (oh yes, only videos, I never have actually seen live performance of Wayang Kulit, sigh), and I still mix up names for others.

LOL so I am now talking about Kelantanese Wayang Kulit instead of Indonesian simply I have no idea of what Indonesian Wayang is about. Alright, so Kelantanese Wayang stories are based on Hindu epic from earlier time – which some of the characters are known from. But it has been well blended with local culture ever since, and the Wayang kulit stories nowadays are mostly stand up comedy which is sooooooo original :) Watch some of Kelantanese Wayang Kulit  stories here on YouTube. Oh, and some have English subtitle too (though I am afraid the subtitle won’t be that useful for you to digest the comedy sense).