Asia Exile - Times Online - WBLG

Days of The Rat: Predictions for 2008

[Tokyo, late December, the blackest hour of the night. At the door of my apartment, a feeble, scratching knock. Outside stands a man so ancient that it is impossible even to guess his age. His dark skin is papery and wrinkled, his eyes are brown pools, and his earlobes hang loose from the weight of the polished rhinoceros horns which pierce them. He presses an object into my hand, picks up his blow pipe, and melts into the night.

It is a twist of parchment containing three or four lumps of a dried out, woody substance. My sniffs of gratification turn into cackles of triumph. My wishes have been granted. My dreams have come true. The future is mine!

Every year this blog solicits predictions for the year ahead from Asia’s most renowned prophets and soothsayers. The results have been lamentable. The Sage of Singapore, whom I consulted for 2006, was a bit of a disappointment. Madam Sosostris, last year’s featured soothsayer, was a disgrace! What was the fatuous old trout on about?

This year I decided to take matters into my own hands. Through contacts among the Dayak people of Borneo, I acquired certain . . . substances, harvested from the rain forest by the timanggong, or animist wizards. When inhaled, in combination with the correct incantations, they open invisible doors which allow glimpses of the future. Men of weak spirit would be driven mad by such visions, but this is a risk which I am prepared to take for you, my readers.

I drop the woody lumps, as instructed, into a cauldron of snake blood, and heat it slowly, breathing in the fumes and muttering the eldritch syllables inked on the parchment. Within moments, I am transported to the jungle. Faces painted with blood and clay flash before my eyes. My ears are filled with the sounds of insects and the screams of animals and humans. The Great Lord of the Forest taps me on the shoulder and whispers in my ear . . . Here is what I see in 2008, Heisei 20, the Year of the Rat . . . ]

Nakasone: Board Games, not Rape

[Here's a piece that got bumped from Saturday's piece, about Nakasone and his wartime relationship, or lack ofn one. with the "Comfort Women'. There's a lot more to say on this subject, and I hope I'll be able to add to this soon.]

Saturday 26th March 2007

Richard Lloyd Parry, Tokyo

Japan’s most respected elder statesmen was forced yesterday [Friday] to contradict an autobiographical account suggesting that as a young officer during the second world war he forced women to serve as military sex slaves.

Yasuhiro Nakasone, one of Japan’s most distinguished former prime ministers, is the latest politician to be drawn into a bitter controversy about the so-called “comfort women”, which boiled over this month after years of simmering resentment.

At a press conference in Tokyo yesterday [Friday], he admitted that Japanese forces did force women to serve on “comfort stations”, the euphemism for military brothels where many Koreans and Chinese claim to have been enslaved and raped. But he denied allegations, based on an account he himself wrote 29 years ago, that he organised brothels as a military logistics officer in the Imperial Navy in the island of Borneo.

“They were civilian engineers, not military people, and they just wanted a place for rest or entertainment,” he told a press conference in Tokyo. “They wanted entertainment such as [the board game] go or Japanese chess. We simply established facilities where such [diversions] could be offered.”

But this account of innocent games centres seems to contradict a written memoir by Mr Nakasone published in 1978, before the existence of the “comfort women” had become controversial.

Podded

In February, I spent a happy few days as a guest of 'Words and Ideas', the writers' and readers' segment of the Perth International Arts Festival, sponsored by Curtin University. One of my contributions, a conversation with the journalist, David Cohen, followed by questions and answers, can be downloaded as a Podcast here. (I hope that this link works - if not download it from this page.)

It last about an hour and consists mostly of a discussion of my book, In the Time of Madness: Indonesia on the Edge of Chaos (click on the image above for enlargement), although at one point, for no very good reason, I also start talking about my career as a teenage UFOlogist. A bit cringe-making in parts, but it could be worse. Interestingly, my voice becomes lower in pitch towards the end of the hour than it is in the beginning. Not smooth and cholcolatey exactly but less ... piping.

Ten minutes from the end, it goes completely silent for a while but that's because some damn fool member of the audience failed to speak into the microphone. The other effect of this is that the reaction of the audience is almost inaudible. You'll just have to take it from me that they were almost constantly applauding or issuing forth chortles of appreciation.

US Amazon link for the book is here, Japanese Amazon (for the English language edition) here. It's also been translated into Dutch as Indonesia: Tijden van waanzin.

Here's a smattering of reviews from The Times, TIME magazine, The Observer, San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian and a long and well informed one from the Columbia Journalism Review.

Your Christmas present problems, solved at a stroke! Buy, buy, buy . . .

Spamming for Borneo

Last week, with my London-based colleague Devika Bhat, I wrote a story about a remarkable letter sent to the British building supplies company Jewson. Its signatories were seventeen headmen of the Penan, a small and dwindling Dayak tribe, who live in the deep interior of Borneo and include among their number some of the last true nomads in the world. The letter - signed with thumb prints, because most of its signatories are illiterate - begged Jewson to stop buying plywood from a Malaysian company named Samling. Jewson sells the plywood to builders for hoardings and construction sites, but the hardwoods which go into its manufacture are ripped from the virgin rain forest where the remaining Penan scrape an increasingly difficult living. “Without our forest, we, the Penan, cannot survive,” the chiefs wrote to Peter Hindle, Jewson’s managing director.

We depend on the clean water from our rivers, the wild boar we hunt in the forest and the fruits and the jungle produce we collect from the old trees, the sago palms and the rattan vines . . . By purchasing Samling timber, you and your company are making yourselves part of the crimes committed against us . . . The Samling group is extracting timber from our forests against our declared will and without our consent . . . Despite our repeated protests, Samling does not respect our boundaries, continues to encroach on our traditional land and disregards our native customary rights.

Now it seems that the story has had curious consequences.

Out of the heart of Borneo

[Here's a fuller version of a story which was truncated in this morning's paper.]

Future treatments for diseases such as cancer, AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis are being jeopardised by the accelerating destruction of tropical forests in the huge island of Borneo, the international conservation group World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned in a new report yesterday.

Drugs for serious illnesses have already been developed from jungle plants by scientists known as “bio-prospectors”, who draw on the traditional knowledge of indigenous people. But plant species which have yet to be discovered or fully analysed are threatened by logging and plantation companies as they destroy the forests for short-term profit, according to the WWF.

“Borneo will continue to be an important source for new bio-discoveries for the next centuries,” says the report which was released yesterday. “If sustainably managed, the area could be a source for valuable plant species that can be cultivated and commercialised for new foods and medicines. But if we lose the Heart of Borneo, it will take its secrets to the grave.”

Camera in the jungle

For thousands of years, our of the plants, trees and animals of the forest, the Iban people of Borneo have created a beautiful and delicate art. Rattan vines from the jungle are woven into strong, supple baskets with geometric patterns. The bony casque of the hornbill bird is carved into tiny sculptures of men and creatures. Softwoods are shaped into the famous Iban war shields with their symmetrical designs of Iban heroes. But last week, on a visit to an Iban longhouse in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, I discovered a new accomplishment of these remarkable people: Iban photography.

Headhunter in the town on the river

Kapit is not exactly the end of the line in Borneo, but it is half way there. The Rajang River is the longest in Malaysia, 350 miles from its muddy mouth in the South China Sea to its source in mountains close to the border with Indonesia, and Kapit is as close to the mountains as the sea. There's a flight once a week in a little prop plane, but otherwise the only way in and out is by boat. So at least part of the reason for writing this is simply to demonstrate that at the fag end of the year 2005, half way to the end of the line in the rainforests of Borneo, I can still make a posting to my weblog.

We were in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, and the choice was whether to spend the days between Christmas and New Year going into the jungle or on the beach. But you don't come to Borneo for the beach.