Rainforest World Music Festival- Alkisah Kamek

After a lapse of a few years, I decided to go to the much hyped annual rainforest World Music Festival over weekend.  What could I say about the festival, other than seeing a sea of people from as far as the Czech Republic in Europe, Argentina in South Africa and Hawaii in the United States converging here.  For me, this year’s event was fun because I brought two good friends from Singapore –Paul and Andrew.  Being first time visitor to the RWMF, they were obviously excited.  Nevertheless, having known them for a long time I had to brace myself for whatever comments - good or otherwise – they had about festival.  “well, we’re Singapore what! Its our obligation to be fussy and particular about everything,” Paul half-joked.

So we went to the festival – me without much expectation but I couldn’t say much about Paul and Andrew.  I thought they were observing everything, although they didn’t show much.  In fact, they seemed to enjoy atmosphere and it made me glad.   I love energy here.  Everybody seems to be moving all the time.  It does feel like a music festival, equivalent to Woodstock but at much at possible level.  Its really a musical celebration from around the world and I love seeing people of all creed and races get together and be like old friends to meet each other, even though they never meet before.  What I like is the fact that youngsters have come not just to participate but also as volunteers and food stall operators.  Its all so active...

And I must commend security.  They are really successful at making visitors feel secure and safe.  As a pure Sarawakian, I beamed with a pride hearing these comments.  I agreed that this year’s handling of the festival was professionally done.  Of course, also as a Sarawakian , I felt the festival could have been better but I believe that true observation would only come from fist time visitors like Paul and Andrew rather than from a been there done that person such as myself.  True enough not everything about the festival was rosy.

Apart from anticipating that RWMF would be a rave party of sort, Andrew expected the festival to be more focused on raising awareness of preserving and sustaining rainforests.  With the ‘rainforest’ in its name, I’m expecting more programmes for raising awareness of the rainforests.  But what I see is that RWMF appears to be solely a music festival, albeit a great one.  Also seeing that the festival is being held at Sarawak Cultural Village (SCV), I expect it to be ethnics.  Instead, it seems like the management of the space is renting out the place for RWMF and their cultural performers are taking backseat during the festival.

I believe the festival should also include more Sarawak’ own cultural showcase.  At least have your guided dressed in their traditional customs and show visitors around.  I mean the cultural village staff shouldn’t just be put on sidelines just because we have foreign performers.  Paul and Andrew mention they wished for more shows on Sarawak culture.

I saw tagline ‘Rhythm of Borneo’ written on signboard across Kuching but where is it? A music festival can be anywhere – Edinburgh in Scotland or even Kuala Lumpur.  But having the word ‘rainforest’ in the name is what makes RWMF different.  Yes I enjoyed the Malay house showcase of Batik painting, top spinning, embroidery making and others, but where the Ibans, Bidayuhs, Melanaus and Orang Ulus?  The only people wearing the traditional costumes were the ones manning booth right after entrance.

Beside that I must highlighted the logistic issue in which visitors who were driving to Damai had to leave their vehicles at one Hotel, which was good 5 km or more from the cultural village.  But it also cumbersome for my foreign colleagues’’ because they don’t want to trouble themselves bringing much money to commute between One Hotel and SCV.  Beside I have much souvenir shopping to do inside the village.  It might sot seem that big a deal at a glance, but it did drive some of the visitors to walk all the way just to avoid that kind of hassle.

It would be nicer if such fees are included all in one with the purchase of the tickets.  The purchasing agents should also give visitors the option to have their vehicles driven up to the venue by providing them with RWMF stickers.  

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Well, at least I’m enjoyed myself indulging at the festival.  Yeeepi..... (August)