It's a real pity that not many young Indonesians know about Pak Raden and the puppet show he once created called "Si Unyil".... As I was driving to the exhibition last Sunday portraying 60 years of dedication to art by Pak Raden (or Drs. Suyadi), I realized that my son knows only cartoons and sophisticated animations! It felt nice to introduce to him another type of "cartoon".
Pak Raden is a character created by an artist called Suyadi, who I just recently found out, spent 3 years studying animation in Paris! I knew him as the creator of a televised puppet show in the 1980s that was watched by almost all children in Indonesia. What I didn't know was that he was also a visual artist and animator... The exhibition I saw last Sunday was a real joy, especially for someone having lived in Paris, because he stereotypes french people and indonesians seeing France for the first time :)
Pak Raden teaching a song to the children who came to hear him tell a story.
Everyone wanted to be in the picture with Pak Raden.
An old lady's opinion of the wayang: "The anatomy is all wrong, and the proportions too.. my God!"
Better to make a woman blush, than to make her laugh. I myself prefer laughing but at jokes, not at the man :)
In any foreign country, it's easy to pretend to be someone we're not. Here the lady tells journalists she's the daughter of the future king of Java :)
If you want to know more about Pak Raden, you can see videos of him entitled "Terima kasih Pak Raden" on Youtube, visit his website, like his facebook page or read my friend Kyra's visit to see Pak Raden on her blog.
