In Bali the honeymoon usually precedes the wedding; the average boy in love with a girl makes his marriage arrangements directly with her, and outside his father, perhaps, and a few friends from he needs help, he keeps his intention secret until the day, previously agreed upon between the boy and the girl, when he will steal her. Shy couples simply run away together to the house of a friend, as a rule in another village, where they spent honeymoon in hiding.

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However, the Balinese love spectacular kidnappings. The girl arranges for her clothes to be taken secretly to their future hide out, and on the appointed day she is captured by somewhere on the road, in the fields, or in the river by the kidnapping party, led by her suitor. She is expected to kick and bite her abductors in sham of self-defense, and although there may be witnesses, no one would dream of interfering, unless they are the relatives of the girl, in which case they are supposed to put up a great fight
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The tradition is performed on Ngembak Geni Day, the day following Nyepi, or the Hindu Day of Silence, which fell on Tuesday at Banjar Kaja, Sesetan.

March, the third month in Gregorian calendar, is Kesanga - the ninth month in Balinese Caka calendar - the month of evil, when the evil spirits sweep the mainland of Bali. Balinese believe that these evil spirits come from the island of Nusa Penida.

A great many mainland Balinese make the trip to Nusa Penida every 210 days for the odalan (temple anniversary) for Pura Peed (this year the temple anniversary falls on Wednesday, 3/28/2007). This temple is the spookiest (“angker”) place in all of Bali. The temple complex is the really angker part of the whole island, the home of the dreaded Ratu Gede Nusa, spreader of the disease, evil, and patron saint of the leyak (witches) of Bali. The celebration is on Buda Cemeng Kelawu. The temple is the home of I Macaling, also known as Ratu gede, Ratu gede Nusa, or ratu Gede Macaling. “Macaling” comes from caling, Balinese for “fang.” Fangs are characteristic of animals, evil spirits, and the mask of “coarse” or keras characters in any sort of Balinese drama are invariably fanged.

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International Conference on Soft Computing, Intelligent System and
Information Technology (ICSIIT) 2007 

The term Soft Computing was proposed in 1990, along with the idea to constitute ISC (Berkeley Initiative in Soft Computer) by Prof. L. A. Zadeh from University of California, Berkeley. Unlike conventional (hard) computing scheme, soft computing allows tolerance of imprecision, uncertainty, and partial truth for input, process and output. With these tolerances, soft computing is hoped to produce intelligent, robust, traceable and low solution cost systems.

Because of the importance of soft computing to solve problems in industry and business that required an intelligent analysis and information technologies, Informatics Department and Soft Computing & Intelligent System Research Group, Petra Christian University organize an International Conference on Soft Computing, Intelligent Systems and Information Technology.

The International Conference on Soft Computing, Intelligent Systems and Information Technology (ICSIIT) 2007 will take place in Bali, Indonesia on 26-27 July 2007

More at http://www.icsiit.org/

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We Are Out for Nyepi.

Warwick Ibah Luxury Villas & Spa takes great pleasure to announce that it will be hosting a month long exhibition entitled Sesari (Essence) featuring art, photography and music by members of the Bali Kangin Kauh artist group.

The idea to establish this group was conceived almost 20 years ago with the vision to generate awareness of Bali’s artistic legacy to a wider audience outside the island. Over the past two decades Bali Kangin Kauh has united creative and passionate individuals from all areas within the art community including writers, poets and cultural advocates.

This latest exhibition by the group will see key figures from Ubud’s respected royal family collaborate with a leading Balinese art connoisseur and a new generation of local artists. Esteemed owner of ARMA and dedicated collector of local fine art, Agung Rai, will publicly exhibit some of his own works for the very first time. He is joined by fellow artist, I Gusti Putu Suteja, grandson of fine art maestro I Gusti Nyoman Lempad, who has put together a display of energetic paintings that are a modern expression of his religious beliefs.

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