Musing Over A Bowl Of Sekoteng
Musing Over A Bowl Of Sekoteng
He is perhaps one of the last wandering ‘sekoteng’ (gingerly drink) vendor with his wheel-cart, an oil lamp, sounding “ting-ting” along the road. In former times, villagers, common folk, enjoy a night, leisurely sitting together, squatting, sitting on a bench, on the side walk, near a village market, or alun-alun (plain), … drinking warm ‘sekoteng’, while someone is playing the ‘kecapi’ (Indonesian zither) in the still, cool night, the moon rising, a starry sky, fire-flies, with soft, peaceful ‘pelita’ light (oil-lamp), … There were no glaring city lights, no roaring cars and motor-cycles, no hard-rock music … The people sometimes give him some cents.
Just within a short life time of 60, 70, 80, … years, so much, a lot has changed and many things, plants, insects, birds, animals, delicious folk cookies, drinks, ices, … are gone, lost, I see no more …
The “kue putu” (rice cake) vendor with its whistle in the night, the kue rangi, folk niceties, cakes, …
Dragon-flies, damselflies visited, birds nest in our garden, there was dew on the grass. You could hear the gecko: “tekeh-tekeh, …”
There were frogs’ concert after rain, a ‘gabus’ mother fish with almost a thousand babies of her brood, the ‘betok’, rice, paddy fields with a lot of fish …
There were little snails like sailing boats or skiing on leaves and stalks, many kind of beetles in the Bogor Botanical Gardens …
The eagle, herons sailing, circling in the sky, hooting owl, the ‘musang’, fireflies, …
The sky in Jakarta was so clear the stars were visible.
What a loss, they almost are no more. And I’m not a scientist. It has become a fairy tale.
One day you could only see them in pictures, in a zoological-, botanical-museum. If fortunate, you could see them still “live” in You Tube or a video. See You Tube: Sound, Oil-lamp Of The Wandering Sekoteng Vendor – chewginhoa.
June 2011
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