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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 . . . ]

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.”

Anomalous Apes in the Panti Mountains

The Sage of Singapore, whose predictions appeared exclusively in this blog on New Year’s Day, has already had a remarkable year, with both his prognostications for January and February coming to pass (Kim Jong Il disappeared earlier than predicted and was back in North Korea for his birthday, I know – but that is a quibble). So it’s no surprise that his prophecy for March has already been fulfilled.

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.

The Laughing Skulls of Fort Margherita

Kuching, the capital of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, is one of the most fascinating small cities in south-east Asia, and like most of Borneo it is a place of ghosts, spirits and magic.

It was founded two hundred years ago by James Brooke, the British adventurer who established himself as Raja of Sarawak and ruler of the Chinese traders, Malay merchants and native Dayak tribesmen who gathered in Kuching from all over south-east Asia. On the north shore of the Sarawak River, Brooke built a palace, the Astana, and a miniature castle, Fort Margherita, which I visited a few days ago.

It is an appealing place, like a child's vision of a medieval castle, with white walls and square crenellations. To the south, it overlooks the old Chinese shop houses and modern hotels and shopping malls ok Kuching; beyond are the rivers and forests and mountains of Borneo. At the northernmost point of the walls is a small round turret with a shingle roof and a white skull painted on its black door. And inside is a mystery.

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.