Innholdsfortegnelse for 2/2018 i ASIAN Geographic

I enjoy photographing the city at night. With Sony’s newest full-frame high-resolution mirrorless camera, the б7R III , I can capture moments with better dynamic range and greater responsiveness. The б7R III has few changes to its overall design, but the real difference is in Sony’s attention to detail. With a bigger rear navigation wheel, added joystick, and the ergonomic positioning of its buttons, the б7R III is an overwhelmingly pleasant camera to use. At its heart, is the 42.4MP4 full-frame Exmor R™ CMOS sensor provides a high dynamic range, leading to better details from shadows and highlights in post processing. With an electronic viewfinder, LCD panel, ISO 32,000 and an upgraded autofocus, I’m able to shoot in challenging, low-light conditions with the camera operating the same speed and accuracy…

People PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Wildlife PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Street PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Black + White PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Architecture/Landscape PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Youth PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR Deadline: November 1, 2018 Submission at www.asiangeo.com/events/ioa All ASIAN Geographic subscribers can enter for FREE. • Entries are limited to three photos per subscriber • To enter more photos, normal fees apply…

1 Israel Red string bracelets are worn for protection against evil and to ward off bad luck. They’re also secured on baby cots to keep infants safe 2 China Before a wedding, a bride’s hair is brushed and tied with a red string to symbolise how the couple have been destined to meet and marry 3 Tibet A red thread represents bravery, and is offered in a religious ceremony amid chanting of scriptures by monks. It’s later tied on the wrist to unite body and soul 4 Cambodia Family and friends tie red string on the wrists of newly married couples. The longer the strings stay on, the greater the blessings they receive Kalava-making is a family effort, and in many cases the only source of income for villagers. Everything…

Red Junglefowl (Gallus gallus) Order: Galliformes Family: Phasianidae Genus: Gallus Reproduction: Mating and egg-laying Life Span: 30 years in captivity Location: India, China, Southeast Asia Behaviour: Using sharp leg spurs, males battle to the death over territory Near Tulamben village in Bali, a battle is taking place in the shadow of Mount Agung. With crops destroyed and tourists fled, the area has become as sluggish as the lava from the volcano, whose recent eruption brought thousands of villagers’ livelihoods to a screeching halt. But the atmosphere betrays nothing of the grim situation. Instead, the air is thick with cheering; bets are thrust from hand to hand in the gathered crowd. The people are keen to forget, however briefly, the fatigue of their newest hardship amid the excitement of a good…

Tonight, Nagi’s locals are unusually riled up. It’s as hot as Hades in the typically sleepy village, and a massive bonfire of coconut husks and dried palm leaves crackles and hisses, its orange glow illuminating a tiny but crowded community square. Men are gathered around the blaze, clad in nothing but checkered sarongs, whooping and screaming with their hands in the air. Fists pound bare chests glistening with sweat. It’s almost Nyepi. It’s time for the fire war. Perang api is one tradition few Balinese celebrate, and fewer outsiders know about. While the practices associated with the Hindu New Year’s Eve are well documented – a day of enforced silence, fasting and meditation – this little-known ritual takes place at 6pm in a handful of neighborhoods in central Bali on…

SINGAPORE 800 Young Writers Groomed at All In! Festival 2018 The writing and publishing industry in Singapore received a boost this March with the 10th All In! Young Writers Festival, an annual event that seeks to groom aspiring writers aged 13 to 25 aiming for careers in publishing, broadcasting, creative writing, and journalism. Almost 800 youth from various schools were taught and mentored by a wide array of writing mentors and industry players – including filmmaker Saleem Hadi, novelist Samantha De Silva, and playwright T. Neshma – through seminars, training sessions and workshops to better understand the writing industry in Asia. Besides facilitating contact between young writers and industry professionals, the festival also provides a platform for young writers to showcase their work locally and regionally through a series of…

As the month of May ushers in abundance and prosperity of nature's gifts, different regions in the Philippines delight in dazzling spectacles of magnanimous proportions. Flamboyant parades, religious rituals, and gratifying performances illuminate towns and cities, and locals open their doors to the world in celebration of the good fortune of the harvest season. In Lucban, Quezon, homes are adorned with colorful rice wafers known as kiping to welcome the annual Pahiyas Festival. The occasion, which has taken the historic town to new heights as a cultural heritage site, begins every 15th of May and continues in the next few days with a series of activities including a horse racing event, a grand parade featuring performers, oats, and marching bands, and a procession that honors San…

An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. So goes the ancient adage about retaliatory justice – also known by the Latin term lex talionis – that governed the cradle of civilisation, formed the foundation of constitutions, and occasionally peppers angry conversations today. It is in Mesopotamia that standardised law was conceived, and most likely out of necessity for governing disputes between people who, for the first time in history, were organised into closely quartered cities and ruled by a sovereign king. The legislation of the time is widely regarded as decidedly advanced: Many kings, such as ancient Sumerian king Lipit-Ishtar, had legal codes to determine the rights of ordinary citizens, including concepts like minimum wage and presumption of innocence, dating all the way back to 2100…

Hidden among the paddy fields of a remote Thai province lies the home of a wizard. In a bungalow on the outskirts of a small farming village in Uttaradit in Northern Thailand lives Ketmunee, one of the country’s few remaining ruesi. The translation of ruesi falls somewhere between “forest sage”, “monk” and “wizard”. A spiritual descendant of the rishi of India – who are known for writing the Vedas, the first scriptures that formed the foundation of Hinduism, and living lives dedicated to searching for enlightenment – Thai ruesi have practices tied to Hinduism and animism, though they are considered lay members of the Buddhist community. Portrayed in ancient statues and paintings, ruesi were once sought out to heal the sick, protect people against evil, and foretell the future. But…

God said to set the screaming monkey free – at least, that’s what the Raute hunters believe. Though the men have gone to great lengths to capture the day’s hard-won dinner, it is customary (and arguably rather forward-thinking) to release a male-female pair to ensure the langur population’s sustainability. After all, it is to Dade Masto, the Raute’s pagan god, that they owe the success of their hunt, and to whom they sacrifice a chick to pacify him for their primate hunting lest he let the sky fall down upon the Earth. “If we don’t keep God happy, he will say that monkeys are like our own children, and we can’t kill and eat them,” says Raute leader Mahin Bahadur Shahi. “That would be a disaster. If we can’t hunt langurs,…

Silverware-Making Wualai’s beautiful silverware originates from the time King Mangrai established Chiang Mai in the 13th century as the capital of the Lanna Kingdom. After negotiating with the city of Bagan to bring Burmese craftsmen to Chiang Mai to teach local townspeople the artistry of silver-crafting, the city’s local silverware industry was created and the skills have since been carried down through the generations. Almost every house had a small factory, and people bought silver from Chinese merchants in Chiang Mai’s downtown to forge silverware for daily use and for sale: bowls, paddle trays, and the like. Men moulded and forged the silver, while women carved and sold the finished pieces. As trade with different areas progressed, the raw material for silverware pieces grew varied – from Burmese rupees to…

I am Teochew, and every year since my father was a teenager, grandma would go to the wet market before the Dragon Boat Festival and jostle with other grandmas to buy salted eggs, chestnuts, bamboo leaves and red beans. Then she’d lug her haul back into our tiny kitchen and spend the following days wrapping and steaming the world’s meatiest, most substantial sticky rice dumplings, each the size of a fat grapefruit. Wars were had between siblings, neighbours and in-laws over these pyramids of deliciousness. I was 13 when grandma died, and her recipes with her. None of us had learnt them; We always assumed she’d be there, doling out dumplings every June, the same way you never expect a car accident to claim your cat on a muggy Tuesday…

A heaving storm lashes at the bent backs of 200 hopefuls as they scrabble at the earth. Crawling on all fours under pouring skies – some mothers with blanketed babies strapped to their backs – their nimble fingers unearth caterpillar-like brown roots in shades of yellow, white, and black. The yellow ones are worth the most. But a Layap will settle for any one, spending weeks on the steep mountainside to excavate them, clean them with toothbrushes, and tote them off to auctions in Gasa, where buyers await. Traditionally, Bhutan’s semi-nomadic people were yak rearers, spending their days tending herds some 4,000 metres above sea level. But a decade ago, a new practice was born: For a month in June, entire families ascend even higher up the Himalayas to harvest…

The 15 little girls are waiting for the priest to bless everything, including their new, symbolic husband: a fruit. They run and play in the courtyard, clothed in matrimonial colours of red and gold. Over the next two days, they will be showered with attention and gifts, and there’s little reason not to rejoice, for they’re married! Unlike other cultures, Newari girls all undergo conjugal rites that start in early childhood and feature three rounds of nuptials, with the final one culminating in union with a man. For these little brides, Ihi is the first step. Sitting in their father’s lap, they cradle the consecrated bael fruit, or wood apple (a representation of the Hindu god Vishnu, chosen for its resistance to rot), and become permanent wives of the immortal…

Risvan Patale cries for his mummified mummy. But the preservation is intentional. Esther Paseru is considered a toma kula, a deceased person who hasn’t yet been buried, according to the practices of the indigenous people of Indonesia’s mountainous Tana Toraja Regency. From a young age, the members of this community learn to live alongside their dead in a practice known as Aluk To Dolo, or “Way of the Ancestors”, placing food, water and cigarettes near the bodies of late relatives, whom they treat as merely ill. For Patale’s mother – who died but three days ago from a heart attack – the family makes the Torajan specialty: pork and rice cooked in bamboo, proffered with fresh flowers daily near her withered feet. It may be several months – or even…

What’s the best way to trick a langur into becoming lunch? The tribe has an age-old method: 1. Hunters select a part of the forest well-populated with monkeys 2. Using ashes, a shaman demarcates a certain area for hunting while chanting mantras. It is believed that monkeys within this boundary will fall into the nets 3. Traps are laid strategically, propped up by trigger sticks 4. The hunters divide into “screamers” and “herders”. Screamers hide in the bushes and make strange calls that cause the monkeys to rush down from the trees. Herders run through the forest, driving the monkeys toward the nets by flapping their arms and trilling menacingly 5. The panicked monkeys stampede into the nets. Any other captured animal is set free…

Howling winds constantly tear across the Gobi. Its winters are among Earth’s coldest, and the massive summer dust storms offer scant respite. Nothing much grows on these barren plains – but, like other desert communities, the nomads that regularly migrate through this area and across the steppe of the north have discovered the best way to cope with the lack of food and constantly shifting sands: the two-humped Bactrian camel, a hallmark of Mongolian life. With their naturally wide soles and legendary endurance for low water, food and temperature levels, every camel is as precious as family to nomads. Apart from transport, they provide milk rich in protein and calcium, which features in steaming cups of suutei tsai, a salty local milk tea. Milk can also be made into butter…

Pulau Sipadan Lying just off the northeast coast of Borneo is Sipadan, Malaysia’s only oceanic island. This magical isle was made famous by renowned French oceanographer, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, in his documentary Borneo: The Ghost of the Sea Turtle. But healthy numbers of green turtles are by no means the only creatures you’ll find here: Sipadan offers prolific marine life of all shapes and sizes. Those with the Cavern Diver certification can explore the same mysteries that Cousteau and his crew did almost 30 years ago at Turtle Cavern. Inside lies a macabre chamber of skeletons belonging to turtles and dolphins that got lost in the labyrinth of tunnels, became disorientated and drowned. Elsewhere, rare and peculiar fish species call Sipadan’s corals home, including porcupine pufferfish, clown triggerfish, unicornfish and Moorish…