Day of the Deities

• Wendyworld's Profile
• About this blog
• Entry from Penang

Trip Start Jun 02, 2007 Previous
Entry Trip End Ongoing Next
Entry

  Penang, Malaysia
Wednesday, August 1, 2007

"All religions are true" -Bapu Ghandi

As we lift off the runway on the way to Penang, my stomach lurches, giddy with nerves and our quick ascent into the clouds. The Muslim woman next to me shuts her eyes tightly, wringing her hands and moving her lips silently in prayer.

Hm, not such a bad idea. I remember all the horror stories of plane crashes that Mike, a commercial airline pilot based in Medan, had told me. A couple of years ago, a plane took off from Polonia airport and crashed not too far from my neighbourhood, incinerating its passengers, including a governor, along with hundreds of kilos of durian. Apparently the plane was overloaded with it.

The disaster's only saving grace was that it killed the same governor who stole all the funds meant for the survivors of the Bukit Lawang flood

Mosque

. It would have been divine retribution, if innocents in the air and on the ground had not been killed. It is also just one example of why Sumatra has the worst record of airline disasters in the world.

I am keenly aware of this fact as I note the rickety vinyl seats sporting rips and wearholes. And the plane's wings...I swear they have rust on them. I offer up a silent prayer of my own:

Please God, let this plane land safely in one piece and not a thousand charred ones.

During the 25-minute flight, the woman, dressed in apple green with a white embroidered jilbab, continues to pray. Occasionally she opens her eyes to look nervously out the window. She opens them again when we receive our sealed cups of Aqua (Indonesia's national brand of purified water). She watches as I clumsily attempt to jab my straw through the top. Then she gently takes the straw and gives it a try, but the end is too blunt. Finally, I jab the top with a pen. Success! Maybe pens should be outlawed on planes, but I'm glad they're not. We smile at each other and sip our water. She closes her eyes again and continues to pray silently until we land.

The plane taxies down the runway

Dragon acrobatics

. Our gods have brought us to ground safely. The same god, actually, but known by different names.

                                                  *  *  *


I am now sitting by the ocean at an outdoor food market in Georgetown after spending the morning applying for my visa renewal at the Indonesian consulate. There's a warung here called the Medan Tomyam, serving up Indo food-nasi goreng (fried rice), ayam panggang (roast chicken) and cap cay (vegetables on rice). Odd how seeing the sign and the familiar food, once so strange and foreign, now makes me feel more at home in this new place. I've also discovered that I can read the Malay street signs and talk to most of the local people here in my rudimentary Indonesian because the Malay language is so similar. It's like Canadian English is to British-same language but different accents, with a few different words thrown in.

The ocean is another familiar sight. I haven't been this near to it since I left Vancouver. But this part of the ocean, the Strait of Malacca, is like rippled silk, a light jade green. And there's a tiny jumping spider to match, with the body of an emerald tear, tickling my hand as I sip juice from a freshly opened coconut. Surrounded by Muslim couples sharing food on bright plastic plates, I sip the warm, bittersweet juice, watching the teardrop emerald spider and listening to Arab music echoing over the water.


                                                    *  *  *


"Today is the birthday of Kuan Yin," the old man tells me

Malay theatre at Kuan Yin's temple

. "She is very powerful. Everyone love her."

Above our heads bits of charred paper fly like birds. The air is thick with the smoke of burning incense. People are buying large bundles of it at the stalls outside the temple to make their offerings.

The old man gestures to the side door of the Renovation of Tien Kon Than Temple, bidding me to enter. I have found this place on my walk from the beach, attracted by the scent of roses and the sight of dragons doing handstands on the roof. But I am unsure about going in. I'm the only white person among hundreds of Malay Chinese crowding the temple square, holding their smouldering bundles to the sky and planting them in the sand before lion statues crowned with flowers, or tossing them with scrolls of paper into two large ovens with mouths of leaping flames.

The old man nods. "Is okay," he says. So I buy a dish of chrysanthemum blossoms-pink, yellow, orange, red-and squeeze into the crowded temple. The smoke is so thick it burns my eyes as I approach the altar and lay my offering among heaps of flowers, massive red candle pillars and bottles of golden oil.

A woman in the full moon of her pregnancy places her flowers down before the serene smiling face of Kuan Yin. She presses her hands together and closes her eyes in prayer. I am in Kuan Yin's house, so I press my hands together, too, wishing her a happy birthday and offering my respects to this new land.

Women pour oil into a central bowl holding a single flame; others place their paper scrolls in the massive wooden pillar that connects to the roof

Hindu temple roof

. On their way out of the temple, people hold their incense over their heads and pray.

There is a great clashing of cymbals from a stage set up in the square. A boy in full makeup and sparkling emerald silk plays the Chinese mandolin, fingertips releasing spirals of music into the air. His chalk-white face and dramatic painted eyes make such an exotic mask I cannot take my eyes off him. He looks like a living China doll.

It is growing dark and the theatre is about to begin. The stage is draped with red silk curtains which catch when the stagehand tries to open them but then fly apart to reveal Malay pageantry reminiscent of the many Christmas pageants I took part in as a child, celebrating the birthday of the son of God in glittery angel's wings.

The story is mysterious, though I believe it is the story of Kuan Yin's childhood, of which I am familiar. Her story, in a nutshell:

Legend has it that Kuan Yin was born into a royal dynasty that lived on Fragrant Mountain. When she grew up, Kuan Yin wanted to become a nun, but this was against her father's wishes-he wanted her to marry royalty. Her father had her killed (a nice thing for a father to do, naturally). Cast from Fragrant Mountain, she entered the underworld, where she found the compassion to help other beings and turn hell into a paradise of flowers. She was eventually rescued by a supernatural tiger, and to this day she continues to heed the cries of the suffering, especially those of mothers, children and mariners at sea (that's another story)

Chinese lanterns in temple

. And that is why she is so loved throughout Asia. Kuan Yin is the goddess of compassion.

The actors reenact this ancient legend on the stage, dancing and singing in their sharp little sparrow's voices, incense sweeping before them like ghosts. The women are painted and dressed like adult china dolls, their hair shellacked and coifed into perfect domes of shiny black. The king, with his flowing beard and Fu Manchu moustache, looks like a Confusian sage, albeit an angry one.

I leave the temple and lose myself in the streets, invigorated by the ocean air of Penang, an island suspended like an emerald earring off mainland Malaysia. I realize how much I need the ocean to breath, to feel alive. I've been melting in the Medan heat.

Gods and goddesses are everywhere. Across the street from the temple, Chinatown ends and Little India begins. Ganesh, the elephant god of good luck, wisdom and learning, is enshrined on the corner, draped in flower garlands, awash in incense. Atop the nearby Hindu temple, the figures from the Bhagavad Gita and the Ramayana cavort on the roof. A permanent party, a dance that will never end. Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, smiles from the sign of a CD shop.

The night market on Chulia Street comes alive in the dark, red Chinese lanterns glowing down Love Lane like multiple red moons.  The ladyboys come out to stroll in their best finery to rival that of the Chinese theatre, goddesses in their own right. One of them, so gorgeous it's ridiculous, says hello. "Beautiful night, isn't it?"

Sure is. I walk and walk, my muscles coming alive again, charged with ocean air. I fill myself with fresh prawns, kangkung (water spinach), and cin toi, toasted sesame seed balls filled with crushed peanuts. When I return to my modest room in the Rainforest Inn, full, satisfied and safe, I find the scent of rose incense blossoming through my green window shutters, an offering after a day spent with the many gods and goddesses of this land.

Slideshow Print this entry Share

Previous Entry Next Entry