(23 September 1998) A Malaysian Journal: Jackie / vol. 05 Batik Merlihat Malaysia (Observing Malaysia) [ (C) Copyright 1998, J. Snell, San Jose State University & Universiti ] [ Putra Malaysia ] [ This is a continuing series of notes about our experiences living and ] [ working in Malaysia, during Jackie's 10-month Fullbright Fellowship to ] [ the Universiti Putra Malaysia, just outside Kuala Lumpur. ] [ Copies may be freely distributed, but must retain this preamble. ] [ Anyone wishing to be added to the distribution list, or removed from ] [ it, should send me a note. /Jackie ] Dear Friends, Only a few of you share my interest in textiles - the rest of you sort yourselves out and feel free to skip reading this. My friend Stephannie, another Fulbrighter, says our taste will be radically and irretrievably changed after living here almost a year. I think it has already happened. The east coast is also batik and songket country, mainly in Kalantan, but also in Terangganu. Songket is an elaborate weaving style, and I'll save that for another story. I'm sure you have all heard of batik, but most likely you aren't familiar with Malaysian style batik. The batik process is to draw designs in wax on fabric and then dye the fabric. Where there is wax the dye won't be taken up. After the dye sets the wax is boiled out and leaves the design. There are many variations on this theme, both in how to apply the wax and how to apply the dye. Indonesians and Malaysians think the more colors the better, so the single color process I just described is mainly for the tourist trade. We Orang Puti (white people, just like Orang Utan means forest people) are so conservative. Javanese and Balinese batik, which I think is better known in the US is dipped in the die vat after waxing. The wax inevitably crackles, letting some dye into the pattern and which gives a distinctive look. When you dip the whole piece of cloth into the dye vat, then the only way to get lots of colors is to boil out the wax, reapply wax, and re-dip in another color, and keep repeating as often as you like. So with 2 dips you can get 4 colors, e.g.: blue, yellow, green, and the original white, if some parts have always been waxed. Three dips is a popular number. Some of the old fabrics are only a few colors, depending on which natural dyes the local people specialized in. For the most part in Indonesia they put the wax on by stamping with a tin or copper stamp (cap) dipped in wax. These are probably the designs you picture when I say batik. As you can imagine this multiple dipping method is very time consuming. The crackling also mutes the design somewhat. The Malaysians do not have a batik industry that dates back to olden days. Some people say they only started batik in the 70's, others say it was reintroduced. In any case, only a small group uses stencils and dipping, as the Indonesians do. Malaysians think they have a more efficient process. The characteristic style is to draw the design free-hand with a canting - a wooden handled instrument with a small brass bowl at the end, which holds the wax. A small pipe sticking out the end lets the wax out. The fabric is stretched over a frame parallel to the floor. Not using stamps means they often use very large designs in MY, and much less repetition than in Indonesia. For dyeing, the fabric stays on the frame while the areas between the wax are hand painted. So there is no crackling effect. After everything is dyed by hand, even large background areas, the wax is boiled out. Baju kabaya (fitted blouse, but long as a dress) and baju kurung (not fitted, loose) worn over a long skirt (sarong) are the only style of clothes worn by the ethnic Malay women. Though there is some variation in the cut of the two blouses and sarong, they seek variety mainly in the batik. Most Malay women always wear a head scarf covering all their hair, though this is a recent fashion. So batik is made in 3 lengths, plus a few scarf sizes: 4 meters for a baju and a sarong; 2 meters for just the sarong; 2 ½ (?) m for a man's shirt. The baju and the sarong usually have related but different patterns. The sarong almost always includes a "bamboo shoot" pattern, that is a line or double line of triangles. Traditionally this was the segment that ran down the back of the sarong, but lots of liberties are taken with this theme: a back section with no bamboo shoots, or bamboo shoots along the hem end. Sometimes the sarong and baju are the same pattern with no bamboo shoots anywhere - or even in subtle colors! Actually quite a few of the sarong I see day-to-day on campus are machine printed and don't follow any of the above. Fridays are Baju day at the office, when even many of the non-Malays wear baju & sarong. They also wear them on other days, though. I guess it's like America's Fri as casual dress day at the office - but a lot of offices every day is casual day. Men hardly ever wear batik to the office, but wear elaborate silk batik shirts for social occasions. I watched 2 hand-batik factories in operation, and within the basic process outlined above, they did things quite differently. One place was more of an artist's atelier than a real factory. There were only about 8 guys working there, and only about 4 batiks being worked on, though there were several layers of frames, still holding batik, raised up above head level, drying, before the wax was boiled out. Yusoff, the artist, was in KL giving a show, but he draws the design on the fabric in pencil, then his staff does the rest. They were working on scarves while I was there, with the junior guys relegated to drawing or painting the rope pattern around the edge, or dying the background after everything else was finished. The senior guys were doing the main patterns. Yusoff's crew used fairly dry brushes to dye with and got gradations of color by painting in slightly different shades of color, and painting them to overlap, like water coloring (I guess). Razali was the other batik factory I went to and much more of a factory. It had 3 floors with about 30 kabaya length batiks stretched out on each floor. The first floor was for the waxing, and the top 2 floors for dying. They drew much finer wax lines, and they didn't have any pencil lines drawn on the fabric! They were clearly only working on a couple of designs at a time, the ones being dyed upstairs were the same patterns being drawn downstairs, so I guess they just had drawn so many of them they didn't need to use a pattern anymore. The dyers at Razali use very wet brushes, putting drops of dye on the cloth and letting it spread out to fill a waxed area. They get gradations of color by letting colors spread into each other, for example they might put a drop of red at the base of a flower petal, and a drop of yellow at the top, and get gradations of red, orange, yellow across the petal. Or put two drops of red at the base, letting it spread out and weaken to be pink at the top of the petal. So far as I could tell, the dyers had complete freedom in colors, no two were even similar in colors. As I said, Malays think the more colors the better. Even when they keep the colors few, it will be, for example, green and orange and purple in about equal amounts. The vast majority of the patterns & color combinations I don't find pleasing to the eye, they are just too busy. Even so, I managed to buy 5 silk baju lengths, 4 cotton cap, and 7 woven-stripe polyester sarongs (well the choice was polyester or silk, there was nothing in between) in my one day shopping. Better to practice on polyester to find a seamstress and some styles I like before I commit any expensive silk. Getting a dress made is very cheap around here. The problem is most seamstresses only sew baju and sarong, and don't speak English. I think I may have gotten the name of someone that fits my needs, so will start experimenting soon. -------------------- Jackie Snell June 1998 - March 1999: jaq@admin.upm.edu.my University Business Centre O: +60(3)948-5649 4th Floor Admin. Bldg. F: +60(3)943-2513 Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 Serdang, Selangor H: +60(3)945-7239 Malaysia Dave's hand-phone: +60(19)329-9445 after April 1, 1999: snell_j@cob.sjsu.edu Marketing Dept., San Jose State University +1 408 924 3484 One Washington Square fax: +1 408 924 3445 San Jose, CA 95192-0069 USA www.cob.sjsu.edu/facstaff/snell_j =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Dave Crocker Tel: +1(408)246 8253 675 Spruce Drive Sunnyvale, CA 94086 USA Brandenburg Consulting Tel: +60(19)3299 445 Post Office Box 296, U.P.M. Fax: +1(408)246 8253 Serdang, Selangor 43400 MALAYSIA