Ethnographic Arms & Armour - View Single Post

A. G. Maisey · 8th October 2012, 08:17 AM

I guess it just demonstrates how incredibly clever Javanese people are:- takes them almost no time at all to learn what makes a bule jump through the hoops.

But seriously, the entire concept of "mix and match" is one of the major elements of Javanese culture. The essential nature of both culture and society has been the willingness to select individual elements of anything and combine those elements to form something new. Another defining feature of the Javanese people is that they will almost invariably provide an outsider with what they believe he wants to see and hear.

Seluts have been around for a long time, and they are an easy and a popular way to provide a bit of bling but there is no way that we can consider the gift of the Mangkunegara in the same light as the rubbish that we can see in these other seluts. Personally, I don't find anything about this gift dagger strange at all:- it is something that was prepared specifically to please the boss.

8th October 2012, 08:17 AM	#7
A. G. Maisey Member Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 6,992	I guess it just demonstrates how incredibly clever Javanese people are:- takes them almost no time at all to learn what makes a bule jump through the hoops. But seriously, the entire concept of "mix and match" is one of the major elements of Javanese culture. The essential nature of both culture and society has been the willingness to select individual elements of anything and combine those elements to form something new. Another defining feature of the Javanese people is that they will almost invariably provide an outsider with what they believe he wants to see and hear. Seluts have been around for a long time, and they are an easy and a popular way to provide a bit of bling but there is no way that we can consider the gift of the Mangkunegara in the same light as the rubbish that we can see in these other seluts. Personally, I don't find anything about this gift dagger strange at all:- it is something that was prepared specifically to please the boss.