"Mutual Revenge" in Ubud

If we would like to be treated well, we should also treat others well. "Always put away the envy and revenge on others in order we can be finely accepted by others," said Made Taro on completing his storytelling at the workshop entitled ‘Traditional Balinese Storytelling & Games’ in conjunction with the Ubud Writers & Readers Festival (UWRF) 2006 at the Pura Dalem Ubud, Sunday (1/10).
Made Taro is one of the major figures that intensely preserve and promote the Balinese traditional games and tales. In this third UWRF, he is one of the Balinese writers taking part amongst the 100 writers coming from other parts of this globe.
During that opportunity, Taro told tales by combining it with games. First of all, in front of some 70 children from the vicinity of Ubud area (including children of tourists), he taught them how to sing some songs accompanied by cungklik (traditional Balinese bamboo xylophone). These songs were chanted when he was telling the tales, while playing games. The tale presented was entitled ‘Mutual Revenge’.
Such tale recounted a fox that envies and inflicts revenge on the cleverness of the stork exceeding the capability of the former. The stork is good at dancing, jumping, flying and swinging and wriggling that amaze the invitees of the animal’s birthday. Having provoked by this evil behavior, the fox intends to be make the stork feel ashamed. It then invites the stork to come on its birthday party. On the party, the stork is provided with minced meat with broth served on a plate. What happens? With its long beak, no little meat could be eaten. "As a consequence, all other invitees laugh at the behavior of the stork. Ultimately, it goes home while feeling embarrassed and hungry," Taro said.
In the long run, the right time comes when to beat up the fox. Supported by its friends, the stork invites the fox to attend its birthday party. Especially for the fox, the stork serves small and large meatballs with mouth-watering instant noodles and soup within a bamboo jar.
The fox devours the entire food passionately. But, what happens next? The fox with its dull muzzle is unable to reach the food within such bamboo jar. "Simultaneously, all invitees also laugh at the fox. At the end, the fox goes home. It also feels ashamed and hungry. It’s the proper punishment for the fox having jealous and revengeful character," Taro told the children.
At the end of his workshop, Taro took the children to play the games. Inspired by such tale, he created a game with simple tools such as 2 sets of bamboo jars (each set consists of the small and large one), 4 bamboo pincers, 10 table tennis balls & 10 marbles (representation of large and small meatballs), 10 pieces of cut rubber bracelets (representation of instant noodle with soup) and 10 oval slices of used tires (representation of minced meat).
By means of two pincers, each child should be able to grip a table tennis ball and marble and then put them onto the plate. The large table tennis balls are put into the large bamboo jar and marble into the smaller one and goes on alternately. Meanwhile, for the higher grade of difficulty, the table tennis balls are replaced with cylindrical rubber and marble replaced with rubber bracelet. By these simple tools, the children are divided into two groups (each composed of ten children) to compete and go to the fastest. (BTN/tar)