Palm oil is not only for shampoo, but is also an excellent diesel fuel. You can pretty much use it pure as diesel and with minor treating in a refinery it is great stuff, stable, etc. This gets into an ethical quagmire. Bio diesel is supposed to be renewable, not contributing to CO2, so good for the environment. But destroying the rainforests to plant it doesn’t sound particularly good for the environment does it. And now, palm oil,as well as other biofuels, are starting to link the prices of oil and food. It is hard to know if it is true, but the press was reporting in the last year or two, that rising food prices due to biofuels were leading to more starvation. Europe is pushing biofuels with subsidies. Good for the environment? Maybe. But cynics, including some smart and honest folks I know in the oil industry (yes, there are some of those there) believe that is looks and feels like the real goal is a farm subsidy for European farmers to grow rapeseed and other crops.

But I’ll appreciate palm oil for rescuing my daughter and Davey.

You ever stop to think? Maybe you two saved the guide’s life, too, with your choice to follow the river.

well, I couldnt help it, sorry, but you guys are cool got lost and survived. get well soon.

I don’t know if the age of hunters and gatherers in the West has produced such strong myths that survived until now. But don’t forget Sinterklaas/ Santa Claus, with it’s deep roots in Germanic mythology; and don’t forget the Christmas tree either!

Bert

Thank you for the interesting addition. You were right, the guide did not explain it in such detail. You will be happy to hear that in none of the rice fields we saw had loud machines doing the work. On the other hand, the women in the rice fields were talking very loudly while planting the rice. I would probably do the same, it seemed very gezellig! Too bad that Javanese are forgetting the origin of their myths, although I wouldn’t mind if the West would forget about the myth of the hunters and gatherers!

Sanne van Oosten

The sexual division of tasks for workers on the rice field in Java is indeed laden with myth, so much so, that your guide Benny – and with him probably many laborers on the fields – still refers to myth but obviously ( or is he just faking this?) doesn’t know anymore to what myth exactly. I was born in Indonesia but live in the West for many decades now, and still, when cooking rice, I cannot get rid of the influence of these old myths still lingering over the rice crop: I will never lift up the lid of the rice pan when the rice is still cooking.

According to the myth, the rice crop was given to mankind by the rice goddess, and also goddess of fertility Dewi Sri, perhaps the most important pre-islamic deity in Java. Out of respect to her and to avoid disturbing her when harvesting rice, this job must be done in silence. That is why women only are allowed to do this, softly with their delicate fingers and with a special knife, the ani-ani, with which they can cut the rice only stalk by stalk. And especially harvesting is the most sensitive part of the cultivation of rice, because then you are taking the crops away, as it were hurting the goddess, so men will never be allowed to execute this. On the other hand they do nowadays allow noisy machines to enter the rice field, quite the opposite of respect to Dewi Sri …. Myth is losing it’s impact anyway, also upon the ‘uneducated’ part of the javanese population, unfortunately….

Bert Steevensz

DARNAAST ZEG JE DAT AJACIEDEN HOMOS DICRRIMNEREN OMDAT ZE CVAN VOETBAL HOUDEN EN DAT ZE DAAROM NET MOSLIMS ZIJN. EIGENLIJK ZEG JE DUS DAT AJACIEDEN (JODEN) EIGENLIJK MOSLIMS ZIJN. GA DAT IN GAZA VERTELLEN, KIJKEN HOE ZE DAAR REAGEREN.