Keris

In the cultural custom of the Malays, ‘keris’ (a short or medium length dagger of the Malays) is a principal paraphernalia of nobility which symbolizes majesty, valour & authority. Incorporating the ‘keris’ as the symbol of authority of the University is consistent with the national aspiration of fortifying national culture.

    Keris Ganja Seiras Melela is the name given to the keris of authority of this University. His Majesty Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong VI Has graciously consented to bestow this keris on Monday 28 November 1977. This keris was first used during the second convocation on 3 Dicember 1977 & is still in use currently.

    This keris of authority has 25 curves. The number of curves is in accordance with the number of favoured messengers of Allah totalling 25. The length of this keris is 104 centimeters & 6 kilograms in weight. The blade as well as the cross-piece before the hilt is made of yellow copper. The blade is smooth. The hilt of the keris is made of ivory resembling a horses hoof & carved with floral designs with curving pattern much like rolling clouds in the wind & coupled with interlacing motif of leaves. The metal ring at the base of the hilt is made of gold in the form of a pomegranate flower in bloom.

    The sheath of the keris on the other hand is made of silver embellished with carvings of patterns resembling rolling clouds in the wind. The front of the sheath is a delicate engraving in Arabic script of the name of the university, via-a-vis UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA. The cross-piece of the sheath is in the form a One-day Moon Crescent & also engraved with patterns resembling rolling clouds in the wind together with the flowers being embossed & polished. The front of the cross-piece of the sheath is carved with the Nasional Emblem while the back portion is found the emblem of the University. Both of these emblems are made of gold.

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Traditional Games

                                                  

Article written by: Norikhsan H A Majid

ASEAN-Korea blog correspondent, Brunei Darussalam

In the old days when there is no smartphones or tablets to past the time, the Malays had many ways to entertain themselves. One of them is “Gasing” or top spinning.

Gasing is a traditional game widely played by the Malay people in Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei Darussalam. It is usually teenagers and men who ventures into the sport. Gasing is made of Bebaru wood, Kemuning wood, Merbau wood, Rambai wood, Durian wood or Kundang wood. When the wood has been chosen, the wood will be shaped like a flat and triangular-ish shape. After that, it’s finished with coconut oil to smoothen the surface. To spin the Gasing, they used rope made of Bebaru wood and wrapped around the Gasing. When one end of the rope is pulled, the Gasing will start to spin.

There were some stories of how the gasing game was created.  One story is children used to spin “Buah Berembang” (Mangrove Fruit). The game was actually a way for Silat (Malay martial arts) to strengthen their hands and reflexes. However, the shape of fruit became the shape of the Gasing and the idea emerged into a game. Another story is a weapon was made to hunt animals. The weapon was flat and disc-like shaped and was thrown to preys and hunt them down. Rope was later added to make it spin faster and stronger. The idea then became the traditional game as we all know now.

One must require great skill, strength and speed to play Gasing. First is how to wrap the rope around the finger or hand properly. The end of the rope should be tied around the wrist or the pinky finger. This is to ensure that the rope doesn’t unravel. Next is how to wrap the rope around the Gasing. The rope are wrapped around the palm and then wrapped it around the Gasing.  Since Gasing have smooth surface, some roughens the top side of the Gasing to get more grip.  The rope is winded neatly and tightly for more precision, power and spin.

For the Gasing to stay spinning for a long time, one must launch it carefully and firmly. It ensures the Gasing to stay spinning, not being wobbly and does not topple early. Lastly is how to scoop up the Gasing. Player must know in what direction the Gasing spins, in what direction it is going and the timing of when it is supposed to be scooped up.

In competitions, there are two categories; Last Man Standing and Knockout. In Last Man Standing or “Gasing Uri”, the last person to spin the longest wins. The Gasing will be launched onto a platform and the Gasing will be scooped up to a plate and hopefully it will spin the longest. The other category is the Knockout or “Gasing Pangkah”. One must knock their Gasing against their opponents to disrupt their movement. Both sides will then scoop up their Gasings and see who will outlast the other.

 Nowadays, a game of Gasing might not be as common as it used to be. However it is still pretty much alive. In 2011, during the Borneo Games, the Gasing was made as a sporting event. Gasing may not be played as much but it is played on professional arenas. Brunei even nabbed three gold medals and one silver medal in the Gasing event.

In order for the traditional game of Gasing to stay alive, the Youth and Sport Department constructed a new Gasing venue at the Hassanal Bolkiah Sports Complex in Berakas. It is used to boost community ties and Gasing lovers. It is also a good place to train players for upcoming professional competition. However, not only them that we should give credit to. Once in a while, undergraduates from Universiti Brunei Darussalam organises an event dedicating to culture and heritage including tradional game, Gasing. It educates and reminds the public where we come from and from what it made us today. Ministry of Education also agreed to include Gasing in schools’ extra-curricular activities to foster the younger generation’s interest to towards the traditional sport.

Gasing is a traditional game that we are proud off. It is different, interesting and fun at the same time. Even though it is not as commonly played as the old days but it is pretty much alive and we appreciate the public are trying to preserve it. Heritage and culture defines who we are and who are we without them.

Ngaben, Cremation Ceremony

                        

Ngaben or the Cremation Ceremony is the ritual performed to send the dead through the transition to his next life. The village Kul Kul, hanging in the tower of the village temple, will sound a certain beat to announce the departure of the deceased. The body of the deceased will be placed at Bale Delod, as if he were sleeping, and the family will continue to treat him as if he were still alive yet sleeping. No tears are shed, for he is only gone temporarily and he will reincarnate into the family.

The Priest consults the Dewasa to determine the proper day for the ceremony. On the day of the ceremony, the body of the deceased is placed inside a coffin which is then placed inside a sarcophagus in the form of a buffalo (called Lembu) or a temple structure called Wadah made of paper and light wood. The Wadah will be carried to the village cremation site in a procession.

The climax of Ngaben is the burning of the Wadah, using fire originating from a holy source. The deceased is sent to his afterlife, to be reincarnated in the future.

Football history

Football started at the famous Rugby boy's school in England in 1823. At Princeton University students were playing a game called Ballown. In both games players used both their feet and fists to advance the ball. Organized football began in high schools in the early 1860's. Colleges also started in the late 1860's. They played with 25 players on each team. But these football games weren't like we know football today. Rutgers and Princeton played a game they called football but it was more like soccer. Students at Harvard, 1871, started to combine the soccer-like game with some rules from rugby. Different colleges played under different rules until 1876 when the Intercollegiate Football Association was formed. They made the rules the same for all colleges and even set up the field size of 140 by 70 yards.

Walter Camp was the coach at Yale university in 1879. Yale joined the Intercollegiate Football Association in that year and Camp convinced the league to make many changes. He wanted 11 man teams instead of 15 and he introduced the idea of "downs" - which really separated football from rugby. Walter Camp has often been called the "father of football" as we know it! At first, teams had 3 downs to go five yards. By the early 1900's, teams had 4 downs to go 10 yards. 

The first professional football league was started in 1895 in Pennsylvania.Back at college, other changes came along to make the game safer and more interesting. President Teddy Roosevelt played a big part in helping to organize football as we see it today. In 1905, he gathered together the leaders of three colleges and helped make many safety improvements. The forward pass was introduced and football really started to look more like what we see now!

The Pencak Silat Tradition

             
                                                           

The pencak sialt tradition is mostly oral, having been passe down almost entirely by word of mouth in the absence of written records, much of its history is known only through myth and archaeological evidence. The earliest fighting arts in Indonesia can be traced back to prehistoric triba the primary weapons of indonesia tribal peoples were the singlereli dedge sword, shield and javelin. The inhabitants of nias island had until the 20th century remained largely untouched by the outside word, however , they are culturally similar to the himalayan naga tribe. Neighbouring sumatrans are said to have left the nias people alone because they were fearless warriors.

The combative measures as artifavts or silat roots, evolved around the 7th century A.D.Basreliefs in srivijaya depict warriors wielding such weapons as the jian or chinese straight sword, which is still used in some styles today. Additionlly, javanese blades are of indian derivation. The earliest evidence of silat being taught in a structured manner comes from the sumatra based empire of srivijaya where foklore tells that it waw created by a woman named rama sukana who witnessed a fight between a tiger and alarge bird. By using the animals movements, she was able to fend off a group of drunken men that attacked her. She then taught the techniques to her husband rama isruna from whom they were formally passed down. There are several variations of this story depending on the region where it is told. On the island of boyan (bawean), Rama Sukana is believed to have watched monkeys fighting each other while the sundanese of west java believe that she created the cimande style after seeing a monkey battle a tiger. The accuracy of this legend cannot be substantiated but the fact that silat is attributed to a woman is thought to indicate its age, considering the prominence of women in traditional southeast asian society,

History of Music

Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elemnts are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture. The word derives from greek(mousike : art of the muses). The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of music vary according to culture and sicial context. Music ranges from strictly  organized compositions (and their recreation in performance), through improvisational music to aleatoric forms. Mucic can be divided into genres and subgenres, although the dividing lines and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and relationships between music genres are often subtle, sometimes open to individual interpretation, and occasionally controversial. Within the arts, music may be classified as a performing art, a fine art, and auditory art. It may also be divided among art music and folk music. There is also a strong connection between music and mathematics. Music may be played and heard live, may be part of a dramatic work or film, or may be recorded.

To many people in many cultures, music is an important part of their way of life. Ancient greek and indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as the harmony of the spheres and it is music to mya ears, point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th century compeser John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, there is no noise, only sound. Musicologist Jean Jacques Nattiez summarizes the relativist, post modern viewpoint : The border between music and noise is always culturally defined which implies that, even within a single society, this border does not always pass through the same place.

Painting

                                                         

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface (support base). the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and aribrushes, can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is also used outside of art as a comon trade among craftsmen and builders. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay, leaf, copper or concrete, and may incorporate multiple other materialas including sand, clay, paper gold as well as objects

The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre historic humans, and spans al cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted tradition from antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an on going river of creativity, that contnues into the 21st century. Until the early 20th century it relied primarily on representational, religuous and classical motifs, after which time more purely abstract and conceptual approaches gained favor

Car Culture

                     
                                

Over the couse of the 20th century, the automobile rapidly developed from an expensive toy for the rich into the de facto standard for passenger transport in most developed countries. In developing countries, the effects of the autombile have lagged, but are emulating the impacts of developed nations. The development of the automobile built upon the trasport revolution started by railways, and like the railways, introduced sweeping changes in employment patterns, social interactions, infrastructure and goods distribution.

The effects of the automobile on everyday life have been a subject of controversy. While the introduction of the mass produced automobile represented a revolution in mobility and convenience, the modern consequences of heavy automotive use contribute to the use of non renewable fuels, a dramatic increase in the rate of accidental death, social isolation, the disconnection of community, the rise in obesity, the generation of air & noise pollution, urban sprawl, and urban decay.

Worldwide, the automobile has allowed easier access to remote places. However, average jouney times to regularly visited places have increased in large cities, especially in latin america, as result of widespread automobile adoption. this is due to traffic congestion and the increased distances between home and work brought abaut by urban sprawl.

Examples of automobile acces issues in underdeveloped coutries are :

• Paving of mezican federal highway 1 through baja california, completing the connection of cabo san lucas to california, and convenient access to the outside world for villagers along the route.
• In madagascar, approximately 30 percent of the population does not have access to reliable all wather roads.
• In china, 184 towns and 54,000 villages have no motor road.
• The origin of hiv explosion has been hypothesized by CDC researchers to derive in part from more intensive soceal interactions afforded by new road networks in central africa allowing more frequent travel from villagers to cities and higher density development of many african cities in the period 1950 to 1980.

Bicycle Culture

                                

Bicycle culture can refer to a mainstream culture that supports the use of bicycles or to a subculture. Although "bike culture" is often used to refer to various forms of associate fashion, it is erroneous to call fashion in and of itself a cuture. Cycling culture in the first sense refers to cultural climates cities and countries which actively support a large percentage of utility cycling. Examples include denmark, netherlands, germany, sweden, china bangladesh and japan. In copenhagen and amsterdam, in particular, 37% and 40% respectively of all citizens ride their bike on adaily basis. A city with a strong bicycle culture usually has a well developed cycling infrastucture, including segregated bike lanes and extensive facilities catering to urban bicycles, such as bike racks. There are also towns in some countries where bicycle culture has been an integral part of the landscape for generations, even without much official support. That is the case of ilhavo, in portugal.

Gado - gado Traditional Food From Jakarta

                              

Gado gado (in Indsonesian or Betawi Language), also known as lotek (in Sundanese and Javanesse) is an betawi dish or Indonesian salad consisting of biled vegetables served with a peanet sauce dressing. It is defferent from lotek atah or karedok for its fresh and raw version of the vegetable covered with peanut sauce. Another similar but not the same dish is javanese pecel. It is thought to have originally been a sundanese dish. It is widely served from hawkers carts, stalls (warung) as well as in restaurant and hotels both in indonesia and worldwide.

Gado - gado is part of a wide renge of Indonesian dressing and salad combinations, along with lotek, pecel and karedok. Inmany places, to is made in individual batches per order, in front of the customers to suit customers personal preference on the degree of spiciness (the amount of chili pepper). However, sice the dish has gained popularity (because of the increase of asian themed restaurants). Gado - gado sauce is now mostly made ahead of time and cooked in bulk, although this is probably more common in western restaurants rather than in Indonesia. Compared to western and indonesian salads, gado - gado has much more sauce in it. Instead of being used as a light dressing, the vegetables should be well coated in the sauce. Gado - gado sauce is not to be confused with satay sauce.

Why Did Penguins Stop Flying ?

Penguins swimming prowess cost them their ability to fly, a new study says,


                                         

Brian Handwerk

for National Geographic

Penguins lost the ability fly eons ago, and scientists may have finally figured out way. A new study suggest that getting off the ground eventually just took too much effort for birds that were becoming expert swimmers.

Flight might make some aspects of penguins antartic life much easier. The grueling march of the emperor penguins, for example might take only few easy hour rather than deadly days. Escaping predators like leopard seals at the water edge would also be easier of penguins could take flight, so scientists have often wonderred why and how the birds lost that ability.

A popular theory of biomechanics suggests that the birds once flight adapted wings simply became more and more efficient for swimming and eventually lost their ability to get penguins off the ground.

More efficient diving, on the other hand, incresed the opportunities to forage for food at depth. A modern emperor penguin can hold its breth for more than 20 minutes and quickly dive to 1,500 feet (450 meters) to feast. The new study of energy costs in living birds that both fly and dive provides critical evidence to back up this theory. 

"Clearly, form constrains function in wild animals, and movement in one medium creates tradeoffs with movement in a second medium," study co-author Kyle Elliott, of the University of Manitoba, said in a statement.

Sit, Swim, and Fly

The thick-billed murre or brunnich's guillemot (Uria lomvia) uses its wings for diving much like penguins, but it also flies. scientists theorized that its physiology and energy use may closely resemble those of the last flying penguin ancestors.

Other swimming birds can be considered biomechanical models for the lifestyle energy reveals why today's penguins are grounded. guillemots dive more efficiently than any other flying bird and are bested in diving only by penguins themselves according to the study.

Flight, however, costs them more energy than any other known bird or vertebrate and has become difficult to maintain. The team examined thick-billed murres at acolony in Nunavut, Canada, and pelagic cormorants at Middleton island, Alaska. They injected the birds with stable isotopes of oxygen and hydrogen to serve as tracers to mark the physical cost of their activities. The team also fitted them with time-budget  devices that track those activities recording movements, speeds, and other data much like pedometers do.

"Basically the birds do only three things : sit, swim, and fly. So by measuringlots of birds and combining their time budgetbith the total costs of living from the isotope measures, it is possible to calculate how much each component of the budget costs,"explained stydy co-author John Speakman, who leads the Energetics Research Group at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland.

"The assumption is that (penguins) evolved from an auk-like ancestor," Speakman contnued.

"This would involve a progressive reduction in wing size, which makes diving more efficient and flying less so. Penguin bones also thickened over the ages, as lighter bones that make it easier for birds to fly gave way to more dense bones, which may have helped make them less buoyant for diving," But Speakman believes the wing changes were the primary adaption.

Komodo Dragon / Varanus Komodoensis

                                            

Komodo dragons have thrived in the harsh climate of Indonnesia's Lesser Sunda Islands for millions of years, although amazingly, their existence was unknown to humans until about 100 years ago. 

Reaching 10 feet (3 meters) in length and more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms), Komodo dragons are the heaviest lizards on Earth. They have long, flat headswith rounded snouts, scaly skin, bowed legs, and huge muscular tails.

As the dominant predators on the handful of islands they inhabit, they will eat almost anything including carrion, deer, pigs, smaller dragons, and even large water buffalo and humans. When hunting, Komoso dragons rely on camouflage and patience, lying in wait for passing prey. When a victim ambles by, the dragon springs, using its poweful legs, shrp claws and serrated, sharklike teeth to eviscerate its prey.

Animals that escape the jaws of a Komodo will only feel lucky briefly. Dragon slivateems with over 50 strains of vacteria, an within 24 hours, the stricken creature usually dies of blood poisoning. Dragons calmly follow an escapee for miles as the bacteria takes effect, using their keen sense of smell to none in on the corpse. A dragon can eat a whopping 80 percent of its body weight in a single feeding.

There is a stable population of about 3,000 to 5,000 Komodo dragons on the islands of Komodo, Gila Motang, Rinca, and Flores. However, a dearth of egg laying females, poaching, human encroachment, and natural disasters has driven the species to endangered status.

By National Geographic

Must- Do Trip : Climb Geyikbayiri, Turkey

                                            


Alex Honnold
Climber

There might be conspiracy among climbers to keep this scret : A lot of the world's best sport climbing crags happen to be in warm, gorgeous, vacation-worthy locales that might also appeal to the masses. Las year, Alez Honnold pilgrimaged through the mediterranean on a trainin trip and fell in love with Geyikbayiri, the Turkish climbing grouds on the sea.

"Turkey is a little more off the radar," says Honnold. "Geyikbayiri is off the hook. There's beaches for rest days, deep water soloing, a bunch of different climbing areas. it's pretty nice vacation spot," The main crag is amile long shelf of limestone with some 600 diverse routes, ranging from beginner routes with big holds to faces riddled with tiny crimpers and long sweeping roofs. In the evening, climbers hit the beach and congregate at the Climber's Garden, a guide service and collection of bungalows mere minutes from the crag, to trade beta over raki, the Turkish libation of choice.

Dream Trip: Hunt for Big Waves in the Mentawai Islands, Indonesia

                                          

Carrisa Moore
Surfer


For six years straight, surfing prodigy Carissa Moore has devoted a portion of her summer to the Mentawai Islands off the western coast of Sumatra in Indonesia. With more than 70 islands and islets and powerful waves that break on a shallow reef, the destination offers many challenges and according to Moore, adventure there never gets old.
"We charter a 65-foot boat with Pelagic, usually five or six surfers and arew photgraphers, and spend the days looking for the best waves, eating delicious food, enjoying the sun anda crystal clear water," Moore says, "its pretty much the greatest trip ever because you spend all day literally on the water, and surf from sunrise to dusk."

Indonesia is known as one of the planets lultimate sur spots, and the  Mentawai Islands are no exception pristine beaches, year round 86 degree temperatures, continuous swells, around 50 named breaks, and ahundred miles of world class surf. And thanks to the distance required to travel to the remote archipelago, Moore says you 'll have most waves to yourself.


# 20 best hikes in national park

Gudeg Traditional Food From Yogyakarta

                              

From Wikipedia

Gudeg is a traditional food from Yogyakarta and Central Java, Indonesia. Gudeg is made from young nangka (jack fruit, called gon) boiled for several hours with palm sugar, and coconut milk. Additional spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriender seed galagal, bay leaves, and teak leaves, the latter giving a reddish brown color to the dish. It is also called green jack fruit sweet stew.

Gudeg is served with shite rice, chicken, hard boiled egg, tofu and tempeh, and a stew made of crisp beef skins (sambel goreng krecek)

There are several types of gudeg, dry, wet, Yogyakarta style, Solo style and East Javanese style. Dry gudeg has only a bit of coconut milk and thus has little sauce. Wet gudeg includes more coconut milk. The most common gudeg comes from Yogyakarta, and is usually sweeter, drier and reddish in color vecuse of the addition of teak leaves. Solo gudeg from the city of Surakarta and is more watery and soupy with lots of coconut milk and whitish in color because teak leaves are generally not added. The East Javanese style of gudeg has  a spicier and hottoer taste compared to the Yogyakarta- style gudeg (which is sweeter)

Gudeg is traditional associated with Yogyakarta, and Yogyakarta is sometimes nicknamed "Kota Gudeg" (city of gudeg). The center of ogyakarta gudeg restaurants is in the wijilan area to the east side of the Yogyakarta Kraton (Sultan's palace).