The Fate of Folktales
When I was a child, my mother, my grandmother or sometimes my father told me bedtime stories occasionally. The stories were Balinese traditional folktales with their cheeky monkey or greedy dog, arrogant king or funny attendant; which were ready to put me into sound sleep. The traditional Balinese folktales range from local tales to fables which are taken from Tantri story, transferred from older generation to the younger one every night before the young soundly asleep.
Unfortunately the process of transferring the folktales comes to a halt nowadays. Most of Balinese parents no longer tell the bedtime stories to their children, only few Balinese parents keep this practice. With the rapid spread of Television, VCD or DVD players, children get their new tales from these devices, whether they are cartoon or Hollywood movies. And the parents are quite busy with Telenovela, Chinese Kung Fu, Bollywood or Hollywood cinemas, not to mention multitude Indonesian Sinetrons broadcast from early in afternoon until late at night.
The reminiscence of traditional Balinese folktales can be found in the textbook of Balinese language lesson in elementary and junior high school. Some efforts have been done to translate Balinese folktale into English, but these efforts quite off the track to preserve and increase the knowledge of Balinese of their own traditional folktales. Government through Education and Culture Department holds folktale recitation competitions occasionally to increase the interest of the youth on folktale.
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March 17th, 2008 18:04
I totally agree with you, sir. We should support our own folk stories. I’m actually here to admire the beautiful paintings, though. I really like the style of classical Balinese painting.
March 17th, 2008 22:08
Glad to have you on my side.
Check out our photo gallery for more photos of Balinese traditional painting