Final CHAPTER: Our Personal Thoughts

All things come to and end, so here we are, listing down our thoughts and statements on the experience we have gained and what we think the kampung should be like in the future in relations to architecture and the built environment. 

Wei Wen:

Close to nature: lush greenery around the kampung

Three days of  kampung life (one day interviewing one of the villagers, one day preparing the Raya food and one day celebrating Hari Raya) has come to an end. We took our time to experience kampung life at the Hulu Langat kampung, and it is important to enjoy and learn about each thing from this event.

When I go to the kampung, the life there is close to nature and the villagers are kind and helpful. Together, we learn how to cook Malay food from the villagers and even though we are of different race, we can get along harmoniously. The kampung is much more tranquil compared to KL and it is good to be celebrating Hari Raya Aidiladha with our friends , lecturers and the villagers.

A short digression, my hometown is considered as a suburb or maybe a village and even though the environment and culture differs from the kampung's, it is also harmonious and tranquil, and I really like to stay in my hometown as compared to big cities that are flourishing and bustling.

In my opinion, the kampung can remain traditional since the Malay house is one of the significant and representative buildings in Malaysia because the houses are build from timber with the inherited techniques of their ancestors. If all the kampung house changes to skyscrapers, surely we will feel bored. "Development is important , but tradition deserves to be retained", don't you think so?

Leo (Tee Zi Yuen):

The kampung: experiencing culture and nature

Years ago, I have been looking forward to living a kampung life because of the cleanliness and simple life in kampung, living without Wi-Fi or internet connection, and of course, the burden that are caused in city life. After this trip to the kampung to experiencing culture, I found that I really love the kampung life. The relaxing ambiance and fresh air gets me out from the strain of modern life. During this trip, the responses from the villagers were warmer than what I expected.

During this trip, we were given 'missions' like analyzing Malaysian traditional houses, cooking Malay traditional cuisine and also celebrating Hari Raya with the villagers. We learnt to communicate with villagers, gain knowledge on Malay traditions as well as respecting each other and more.

In my opinion, the kampung Malay house is really important to Malaysian architecture as it is likely a starting point of Malaysia architecture. By using timber only as the material and having perfect ventilation, these houses are the uniqueness of Malaysia architecture. However the kampung in Malaysia are slowly turning into towns and also the impression of their original kampung life are rarely seen nowadays. To be honest, I actually prefer the kampung life more than the city life.

Ee Von:

The kampung through my eyes: the houses, the people and the food

Personally, I cannot imagine living in a kampung permanently as they have zero internet connection and being someone used to the city with easy communication, it was difficult to sit there and do nothing while waiting for the next agenda to happen. Even though that is the case, I wouldn't mind visiting the kampung now and again to experience some peace and quiet along with the very affectionate warmth of the people there. The Hari Raya celebration that we had was something familiar to me and oddly comforting, especially the preparation of the dishes where people gather to cook and chat.

Furthermore, I think the kampung is a gem and should be preserve as a traditional entity without all the stress and superficiality of a modern city. As the kampung is one of the earliest establishments in Malaysia, it does have a significant identity that ties it to Malaysian architecture. Timber houses in kampungs are easily identified even to a common person and that is what gives it the important role in Malaysian architecture, a culturally accepted symbol of the traditional house.

Emma  (Wong Choon Yien):

Kampung time: bonding with friends, lecturers and the villagers

For me, I kind of like kampung life because... Yay! NO ASSIGNMENTS!! Okay, it is actually because of the lifestyle there that is totally different from the city. City people live life in a fast-paced environment while the kampung is different and it is out of the town so the lifestyle there is more relaxing and there would not be so much burden bringing down one's physiological and psychological health. I like how the kampung life has a toned down living pace and that's how we human should enjoy life, right? We also experienced the Hari Raya Aidiladha celebration at the kampung and it was fun and interesting. I also like how friendly the kampung people are in welcoming us! We learned to cook the Malay traditional food that we rarely find or see in the city. One of the best thing is, we ate a lot while cooking and what happened after the dishes were all cooked? You can imagine it.

The kampung will of course need to remain traditional as it is one of the representatives of Malaysian architecture. It signifies the religious and cultural aspects of Malaysia. The materials used and
the way of the structure being built and even the kampung layouts are all based from Malaysia's own resources, techniques and idea respectively. Kampung is attached to us, Malaysian, Malaysia and it is something to be proud of!

All in all, it could be said that the four of us enjoyed our time spent at Dusun Tua and unanimously agreed that the kampung should remain traditional and not be modernized. We hope you have enjoyed keeping up with our posts. Goodbye until then. 

CHAPTER 4.3: Rituals of Hari Raya Aidiladha

Cooking is one of the main customs but there is one other ritual that is carried out during this celebration. It is commonly called the korban here, meaning sacrifice in the local language.

The meat cutting of a slaughtered goat 

A brief history:
Hari Raya Aidiladha (Feast of the Sacrifice) is an event for Muslims to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim and follow Allah's command to sacrifice (korban) his son Ishmael. Nowadays, the sacrifice is held as a symbol to reaffirm the Muslims' faith in Allah and give thanks to the blessings that they have receive. Four-legged livestock are sacrificed and the animals will be slaughtered at their neck. After the blood is drawn out from the neck, the meat will be cut and given out to the less fortunate Muslims. None of the body part of the animals can be sold for profit.

We did not actually attend the ceremony, but caught sight of some men cutting and cleaning up a slaughtered goat from the ritual. 

Moving on to a less gory scene, here are the food collective that we've made for the celebration.

Hari Raya Aidiladha food

These are the common dishes made for the celebration and from the picture above, we have (clockwise from top-left corner): lemang, rendang daging (beef), dodol, rendang ayam (chicken), kuah kacang and ketupat. Each dish is covered by different groups in our class (like how we did the kuah kacang) so go check them out (we'll update each dish with the link once we have their approval).

That will be all for this chapter. We'll see you in our last chapter, sharing our thoughts and opinions on the kampung. Bye!

P.S. Special thanks to Zaza (a classmate of ours) who gave us a picture of the korban aftermath as we did not have any of our own. Thanks!

CHAPTER 4.2: Recipes, Ingredients and Processes

We've mentioned making the kuah kacang (peanut sauce) previously and here are the details on how to make it. The portion we have here is for approximately 200 people, since dishes like this are commonly cooked for a large crowd of people and can be done in one go, so scale down the portion to suit your preferences.

Ingredients:

3 kg           roasted peanuts

1 kg           bawang merah (red onions)

15 sticks    serai (lemongrass)

1" piece     lengkuas (galangal)

1.5 kg        dried chilies

300 g         dried shrimp

1 pack       belacan (shrimp paste)

3 tbsp        salt

300 g         granulated sugar

1 piece      gula melaka (palm sugar)

                 cooking oil
                 water

Directions:
1. Place the dried chilies in a pot and add enough water to cover the chilies. Blanch the chilies until they soften, strain and put aside to cool. 

Chop and blend the onions, serai and lengkuas

2. Roughly chop the onions, serai and lengkuas and blend them together, adding a cup of water to the mix (or enough to ease the blending, don't worry about adding too much, the water helps soften and cook the peanuts later). Pour the mixture into a big bowl (we reused the basin) and leave aside.

Roast and blend the belacan with the dried shrimps

3. Roast the belacan either in a dry pan over medium heat or in an oven until the surface turns into a slightly darker brown. Break up the belacan into smaller bits and blend with the dried shrimp, adding water accordingly. Put the shrimp mixture aside.

4. Put a dry pot over medium heat or use an oven and roast the peanuts, as roasted as you like,  then remove and leave to cool.

Blend blanched chilies with oil and water

5. Now back to the blanched chilies. Blend the soften chilies with some water and oil (about half the amount of chilies) to break down the seed. Once done, add to the big basin of blended ingredients.

Crushed peanuts

6. Put the cooled roasted peanut into a blender and crush the peanuts. 

Heat oil and stir in blended chili and shrimp mixture

7. In a big pot, add approximately a cup of cooking oil and heat over medium heat, then add in all the blended ingredients except for the crushed peanuts. Stir and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the blended peanuts and mix well

8. Add in the crushed peanuts, mix well until it boils, add two basins of water (approx. 20 cups of water) to the mixture and leave it on medium low heat. Come back to stir the mixture every half and hour or so.

Chop and add the gula melaka, salt and sugar

9. While the peanut mixture is cooking, chop the gula melaka into smaller bits. Add the gula melaka, salt and sugar to the pot after an hour.

Et voila! Initial orange sauce slowly cooked into a brown delicious sauce

10. Leave it to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. The sauce should be done when all the water added earlier in the blending process has more or less evaporated, leaving you with a sauce of thicker consistency and a darker colour.  

You now have a pot of staple traditional dish. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4.1: Hello! Once again.

Hi all! We're finally back with some new stuff to show off and this time it's about Hari Raya Aidiladha, which was the Qurban celebration that we've mentioned back in Chapter 1. 

So here's a short intro video of what we did on the eve of the celebration and some of the people involved in helping us with the cooking of the usual celebration dishes. Enjoy.



Generally, each group is in charge of helping out in a kind of dish and we got a dish called the kuah kacang or peanut sauce, which is a staple dish easily paired with other dishes like lemang, ketupat or even plain rice.

While making the dish, we were, of course, lead by a few old hands who've done this a thousand times over. 

Ms. Noraishah guiding the preparation

We have Ms. Noraishah, who took us through the process of cutting, blending and cooking.

Ms. Rozita introducing the ingredients

And Ms. Rozita, who patiently explain the ingredients and how we should use it to get the best results.

There were others who helped in the cooking, but Ms. Noraishah and Ms. Rozita were the main guidance for our dish so we would like to extend our thanks again, not only to them but to all who had patiently took us under their wing. Thanks!

Cherating: Interior Architecture Workshop 2013

Aloha, readers! We're back from our 'workshop' in Cherating, Pahang and thought we'd shared something with you guys.

The sun, beach and fun!

We were in this beach for three days two nights, getting randomly tanned and bruised and cut but we wished to prolong the moment there, no assignments, just fun.

L-E-O

The many selca of our dear photographer, everywhere and everyday of the trip, there'd be at least one with different groups of people.

She saw Emma's 'future husband' fleeing 

Picture of the post: Leo's shocked expression. Also, note that Emma wished (really hard) to meet The ONE as soon as possible and get married, so be nice and introduce her to someone!

P.S. Our Raya celebration has been postponed to a later date, so updates will be limited to introductions only, sorry.

CHAPTER 3.3: Traditional Malay House Activities

Ciao, again. We're back with the activities inside the house, as promised, viewer discretion is advised, be warned.

The various activities throughout the house

As what we did for the kedai runcit, we did it for this house to show the activities more clearly.

1. Rumah ibu - although not common in traditional Malay houses, the rumah ibu here is converted to a living and sleeping area since there is only one occupant in the house.

2. Rumah dapur - typically a well ventilated kitchen area which incorporates the dining area to reduce fuss.

3. Bathroom - simple extension of the house to allow hygienic dispositions.

4. Water closet - presumably an outhouse in the past (now slightly modernized) to allow necessary bowel movements and such.

5. Rumah ibu (again, this is not a typo) - since she lives alone, she has a large space to herself in the rumah ibu, in which she uses also as a praying area.

To simply put it, the traditional Malay house was built for essentiality and comfort which is apparent to us when we visited the house as it was perfectly habitable without the excessive gadgets of modern day.

And this ends our third chapter. The commencement of the next chapter would probably be up soon enough so reread the blog until we come back with new materials. Goodbye!

CHAPTER 3.2: The Traditional Malay House and Its Relationships

Auntie and what makes her happy

After explaining the rituals and customs related to the traditional Malay house, we now arrive to the topic of an actual house we found in Dusun Tua. As mentioned in previous posts, the house we've visited and studied on belongs to an old lady we know as Ms. Latifah (she's not married), but we'll just call her auntie.

The traditional Malay house with its surrounding elements

Referring to the image above, the houses within the compound area are surrounded by various types of fruiting trees like bananas (I), coconuts (II), mangoes and jack fruits (III), durians (IV) as well as the pandans (VI) that are tended to daily by the auntie as mentioned back in Chapter One.

A view of the compound from across the main road

To walk you through, the first thing you'll see of the compound would be the trees and plants at point (1) that acts a privacy barrier, semi-concealing the buildings and activities in the compound. The plants and trees in the compound also serves to set a physical boundary between neighboring lands that are owned by different people. There is also a hardware factory (D) next to the compound.

Walking in

Stepping into the compound at point (2), you will see two brick houses (A) owned by the auntie's siblings and a glimpse of the timber house (B).

Outlook of the house

Going further into this private property at point (3), you will finally be able to see the full view of the traditional Malay house that is now slowly going into ruins due to the damage done by serious flooding issues and the rare maintenance of the building. 

The spaces found in the house

Zooming into the house itself, the spaces of a traditional house are generally arrange in a similar manner where the anjung (covered porch) will welcome visitors into the rumah ibu (main house) which is usually connected to the rumah dapur (kitchen) that is access by mostly the women of the house through the terrace from the back.

The house as view from the front

Visitors enter the house through the anjung which is raise above ground level to avoid mild flooding and to keep the house cool. According to the auntie, the house always had a zinc roof which was recently replaced with a newer ones, contrary to our belief that all traditional Malay houses have atap or thatched roof that are usually made from the nipah palm leaves.  

Longitudinal section of the house

As the house is pretty much lived in by only the auntie herself, the rumah ibu functions as her living room as well as bedroom as there are rarely anybody else around. The slits on the wall of the rumah dapur functions as a ventilation path as well as a protector from heavy rainfall.

The next part would be on the activities in the house so keep checking back if you're interested. Ciao!

CHAPTER 3.1: Construction of A Traditional Malay House

We hope you are curious as to how a traditional Malay house would be constructed after the rituals and ceremonies since under this part of the chapter, the customs of constructing one will be essentially mentioned. So read on!




Prefab house parts

Structural parts of the house like posts, beams, trusses and such are usually prefabricated either on site or off site where the raw resources are found.

Careful timber selection

The timber used for constructing the components of the house are given careful consideration in relation to the local climate and availability.



A tree trunk sectioned into different posts 

The tiang seri of the house is usually taken from a hardwood tree as the Malay people regarded it as having spirits of its own, referred to as semangat, which brings about the belief that the semangat rumah resides within the tiang seri. Once there is the tiang seri, the other posts of the house would be constructed from the same hardwood trunk and are positioned as posts exactly in the way it was extracted from the tree.



Colour cloths covering the top of the post

Each post is also topped with a white (purity), red (life and courage) and black (mysterious powers) cloth respectively before jointing with the tie beams of the roof base to ward off evil spirits.

Extension of the buiding

The sequence of construction starts definitely with the rumah ibu (main house) followed by the serambi (veranda), selang and rumah dapur (passageway and kitchen) and anjung (covered porch) depending on the availability of resources as well as the growing size of the family and their family prosperity.

Jointing systems

One of the prominent characteristic of the traditional Malay house would be its jointing system where the use of a combination of simple and complex timber joints establishes a strong connection to hold the house together. These joints are also use to ease the moving of a built house when the need arises by simply detaching one part of the structure from another enabling the house to be moved bit by bit. 

Regarding the customs of house construction, these would be the beliefs that was held onto in the past when one was building a house. However, our case study, a 40-something year old traditional Malay house did not follow exactly the steps of the rituals and customs as the original owner of the house, Auntie Latifah's mother, was not a keen believer of the matter.

Her house would be up for discussion very soon, so come back in a while to read it. Thanks!

CHAPTER 3.0: Traditional Malay House Building Rituals

Welcome back! Under this chapter, what we'll discuss most will be the about the traditional Malay house itself and its surrounding features. This first part will be on the rituals carried out by people of the past according to a Malaysian architecture encyclopedia since the house we actually visited was build under much less traditional beliefs.

A bomoh doing his thing

Before a house is built, a bomoh or shaman, is often asked to carry out a ceremony know as 'searching for the base of the house' with ember burning incense in a burner to bless the site chosen for the house.

The ibu rumah measuring sticks

After blessing the site, the ibu rumah or the mother of the house, measures a piece of rattan and a stick to the length of her outstretched arms which is known as one depa.

Bomoh tying rattan to stick

Once the stick and rattan are measured, the bomoh takes over and ties the rattan to the stick.

More incense burning

The bomoh then continues to burn more incense and recites prayers to carry along the ceremony.

The bomoh continuing the ceremony

Subsequently, the stick that was tied with the rattan piece is then planted on the site with a bucket of water that comes with a bottom dish placed beside it.

Both bomoh and ibu rumah at work

When the bucket of water is placed beside the stick with the rattan, both the bomoh and ibu rumah will start to recite the prayers together.

The ibu rumah checking on the pail of water and stick

Following the next morning before the sun rises, the ibu rumah will untie the rattan from the stick and measure both of it. If either the rattan or stick has lengthen overnight or the bucket of water has overflowed into the bottom dish, the center of the site is decided. If neither happens, the process would repeat until one of the requirement is met.

The tiang seri

When the center is decided, the tiang seri or main post of the house will be put up and the tiang seri is believed to house the semangat rumah or the spirit of the house.

Having gone through the ceremony and deciding on an auspicious site to house the semangat rumah, the construction of the house will shortly follow in which we will cover in the next part of this chapter. Stay tuned!

Publika: Creative Retail

Busy week for us, first we have to get Chapter Two up and about the blog, raise funds for our charity and now, we had a chance to unwind a little and go SHOPPING!

Sculptures, sculptures everywhere.

We visited Publika on Sunday, with intention to unwind and look around for things or places that might inspire us for one of our other subject. Lucky us there was a flea market happening, the Publika flea market happens every last Sunday of the month, so we considered ourselves lucky to be there to see it.

Monthly 'last' Sunday flea market 

And these are some of the things being sold at the flea market, some were surprisingly good valued and some, really 'surprisingly' high priced.

B.I.G. rice and spice area

Shhhh.... we're not supposed to take pictures but the display was really attractive not to, please don't sue us.

Mmmmm...FOOD.

And there comes a time where we get hungry, almost every time we step foot out of the house. Visit Publika and find out which eatery we've dine at, price was a bit high but the atmosphere was nice.

Also, special thanks to Leo's mum for fetching us there and back as well as treating us to lunch. Thanks auntie!

P.S. For our miscellaneous post, we're planning to do it in photo collage style to show as many nice pictures as we can without crowding the post, so leave a comment to tell us what you think about it.

CHAPTER 2.2: Kedai Runcit Activities

Back to business. And hopefully this will be shorter than its precedent part.

Activities in the kedai runcit

In the above diagram, what we did was pull out one of the main walls of the building along with the attached perpendicular partitions to show the function of the spaces more apparently.

1. Display area - items are laid out on shelves to be display and browsed by the customers.

2. Payment area - Items chosen are paid for.

3. Storage room - New stock are stored in the room and are replenished from time to time.

4. Rest area - Includes the small bedroom and TV area for the shop owner to relax and unwind when there are no customers.

Generally, the space is publicly for displaying and selling grocery with a small private area to lounge around when there are no customers around.

And that's it! Ahhh, a nice short post to complete Chapter Two of our blog, Chapter Three will be up soon enough so check back with us later. Cheerio! 

Dualism[A]

Back with more miscellaneous posts! Our Chapter Two was out late due to our 'wild' party night at University Malaya last Thursday. 

Getting there

So, we got lost. On the way to UM, had to call our lecturer to guide us there. How happy the bunch of us were when we saw the road sign bearing the words 'University Malaya'.

Installation helping out with our charity drive, thanks guys!

The installation was done by the architecture students for a competition in the event and we hung our key-chains to be display and given as a donation souvenir.

Our babies

The production of the key-chains were the most time consuming, but it was eye-opening, experiencing working in 'poor' conditions with only the moonlight shining on us late at night.

We also had an ulterior motive when we agreed to help out at the installation on Thursday, we wanted to see our school's performance. It was hands down the best! And we won first place!

Woo-hoo! Now forgive us for the late post and we'll see you in the next post, ta-ta.