Mbatik..
Rooney pakai batik
“No one knows how long artisans in Southeast Asia have been making batik, the brightly colored fabric that is printed using a wax-resist process. Although batik is also crafted in Japan, China, India, and some countries in West Africa and South America, there is no other region as inextricably linked with batik as Southeast Asia. Indonesians, and especially Javanese, have swaddled their infants in it, married in it, wrapped their dead in it; batik is an essential element of daily living”, quotes from National Geographic’s Traveller, October 2009 edition. The nation just celebrates as batik was officially added to the Unesco list of the world’s intangible cultural heritage. But as we continue reading the article which titled Malaysian Batik, the respected traveler magazine ended the section with strong reference to Malaysia, leave Indonesia at the background, at the month of Unesco announcement. They wrote:”If you’re serious about coming home with an authentic piece of batik, as well as enjoying an immersive cultural experience, arrange an excursion to Kelantan or Terengganu, rural states located on Malaysia’s quiet east coast”. Malaysia tourist in 2007 was around 21 million, while indonesia only 5.5 million tourists. Further comparison on the population, Indonesia 237 million, Malaysia 23 million people (2008), we could come up with productivity tourist per population are 90% Malaysia and 2.3% Indonesia. Back to batik, Indonesia cannot just celebrate it. People or tourists refer to traveler not Unesco, Malaysia truly Asia and AirAsia need to be intelligently countered. There was a good progress on defeating Malaysian terrorist, hope Mr Rooney will not fear and wearing more decent batik. By the way, this is bad publicity of batik, compare with the one in the magazine. At the end, Its all about image.
