Colorful costumes and cheerful music flowed from a museum in downtown Taipei yesterday at a festival honoring the art of batik, a traditional wax-resist dyeing technique from Indonesia.
The Batik & Ikat Festival, organized by the Indonesia Diaspora Network in Taiwan and held at National Taiwan Museum’s Namen Park branch, featured a series of Indonesian cultural activities, including traditional dancing and choirs, as well as batik art.
Taiwan-based Indonesians from all walks of life attended the event, which featured a fashion show with runway models in ikat shawls and long skirts made from beautifully dyed batik cloth.
Ikat refers to a patterning technique where yarns are bound to resist dye before weaving, and to the textiles made using this tied-yarn dye-resist technique.
Inggrid Chandra, the festival’s project manager, said that batik and ikat culture runs through the Indonesian bloodline.
She added that every year the network organizes a batik-themed festival to raise awareness of the tradition on National Batik Day, which is Oct. 2.
The day marks the anniversary of when batik culture was added to UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009.
“Starting from a deep love for Indonesian culture and country, we always do our best to appreciate and preserve the batik and ikat culture. In addition to raising awareness to our fellow Indonesian brothers and sisters who are abroad, we also want to share the culture with our international friends,” Chandra told the Central News Agency.
Sakshi Saraswat, 24, an Indian doctoral student in Taiwan who participated in the festival as one of the runway models, said she believed that batik in her country originally came from Indonesia and that she wanted to learn more about the culture.
Saraswat walked the runway twice, first wearing a batik long skirt with peacock motifs, and then wearing an ikat shawl, with its characteristic blurred design on full display.
“I feel so good. I have never done a runway before and it boosted my confidence a lot. Also, I feel more Indonesian now,” Saraswat said.
During a speech at the festival, Indonesian Economic and Trade Office (IETO) to Taipei Head Budi Santoso to Taipei said that his country would like to share the beauty of batik with people of all races.
He also encouraged people around the world to wear batik clothing, saying that it can be found everywhere.
“Batik Day reminds us that we have a colorful civilization. Batik is a historical record of beauty,” Budi said.
Indonesian news agency Antara quoted Indonesian Minister for Foreign Affairs Retno Marsudi as saying that her ministry would continue to present batik on the international stage as a part of Indonesia’s identity “every chance it gets.”
A BOLSTERED IDENTITY
“Mainstreaming batik to be a part of the education curriculum and training diplomats should be done to improve the effort of promoting Indonesian batik abroad,” Antara reported.
Fajar Nuradi, director of the IETO’s Indonesian Citizens Protection and Social Cultural Department, reiterated the call to buoy the role of batik as a pillar of cultural identity for overseas Indonesians.
“The main objective of this batik festival is to strengthen the pride of wearing batik among Indonesian citizens abroad and, at the same time, to promote the beauty of our batik to the world,” Fajar said.
The network has held batik-themed festivals annually since 2017, with hundreds of participants in attendance each year.
However, due to restrictions implemented because of COVID-19, the museum could only allow 50 people indoors and 80 outdoors at any given time for the festival yesterday.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and