Hoya - ole!

Hoya - an odd name, isn't it? But for some reason I find it a particularly attractive name for a species of flower. And at the Sabah Agriculture Park in Tenom there is a hoya garden which generally has a few varieties of hoya in flower. If you look carefully, you'll find them in the native orchid garden as well.

Imagine my delight, then, to actually see the flowers! They are simply wonderful. Tiny massed spreads of star-like beauties in lots of different colours! Sometimes you are fortunate enough to see the really big (this is a relative comment!) purple one which is stunningly strong but generally the flowers are very small, often in unusual mixes of colours.

And when I found out that another name for these flowers is 'waxflower', it made complete sense, as the flowers are just as Wikipedia describes them: Each flower is about 1 cm diameter, with five thick, waxy, triangular petals; colours range from white to pink or yellow. They are sweetly scented and produce abundant nectar. I haven't noticed the sweet scent before - but will be sniffing for it next time. (Usually I'm too busy trying to get a decent picture as they are not easy to capture.)

Intriguingly, there is a whole list of odd words that goes along with this rather special plant that includes: umbellate and peduncles and glabrous! These are words that are worth eating, aren't they?

So, in Wikipedia, I learnt that the grouping of flowers is called an 'axillary umbellate cluster'. And where do they grow? Well, at the end of the peduncle, of course! And then what happens. according to Wikipedia: The flowering peduncles get 2-3 mm longer with each flowering, and can eventually reach 7 cm or more long... Gosh, I'm keeping my eyes open for a 7 cm peduncle!

It's true that the flowers are shaped like 5-pointed stars and it's interesting to know that each group of flowers is called an umbel. Well, umbel - umbellate - umbrella? And an umbel can contain from 1 to 55 or more flowers!

But it's the description of the hoya flowers in Wikipedia that is a real hoot. Here it is: Hoya flowers vary in textures as well as size, some being glabrous and shiny and some being quite hairy... I had to check a dictionary for 'glabrous' and it means bald or hairless! I guess I have mostly seen glabrous hoya then. (You'll be able to talk like this when you're next looking at a hoya!)
And you can let people know that the hoya is native to southern Asia, Australia and Polynesia!

Helen Morgan, Brenda Morgan and Jude Day took these photos.
If you have any comments or questions, please write to us. We'd love to hear from you on: ron@astsabah.com or jude@astsabah.com.

Chinese New Year Lion Dances in KK

Chinese New Year in Kota Kinabalu! It seemed to be even noisier this year - wonderful fireworks and lots of trucks driving around town full of lion and dragon troupes.
Before the start of New Year itself - which is a two week event! - there is a Lion, Unicorn and Dragon festival in KK. It's a wonderful opportunity to see the skill of these young men as they prance and jump and rear up and seem to nearly fall off the poles they leap over. It's quite an amazing display of talent and strength. You can see the poles in some of the pictures in the collage above. They're quite high and are tested carefully by the lion dancers before they begin to make sure they are stable. Some groups even have members sitting around the bottom of the poles to keep the whole structure steady.

The heads of the lions are beautiful to see and the dancer inside can give a lot of character to his lion by the way he moves the ears and eyelids, as well as the tilt of the head and the position of the leg.

Amazing how the lions can be both cute and powerful - the dances are so gymnastic!

Truckloads of lions and sometimes dragons drive around KK during the two weeks of Chinese New Year, visiting temples, homes and business places. They bless the altars, produce scrolls from their mouths that contain best wishes for the year to come, and amaze and delight with their antics on the poles! You can really hear people ooh! and aah! as they watch the amazing techniques that the skilled pair of lion dancers has.

When a new lion's head has been made and is ready to be worn in a dance, someone with status is invited to draw in the centre of each eye - giving life to the head. Quite an inspiring idea. Perhaps one that would make you think twice if you were invited to do this!

These pictures were taken by Helen Morgan and Yap Cheen Boon at the Lion, Unicorn and Dragon Dance Exhibition in KK earlier in February. There are also a couple that I took at other places.

If you have any questions or comments, we would love to hear from you. Don't hesitate to get in touch with us at: ron@astsabah.com or jude@astsabah.com

KK - coming of age

Kota Kinabalu is a great place to live. There is a lot going on here, a lot of new developments, a lot of different events happening all the time. The trick is to be able to find out about them! So you have to get onto people's mailing lists or sms lists - or join societies - or talk to people a lot about what you are interested in so that they remember to tell you when something is coming up!

And there is a new generation now making its mark in KK, so we see the cybercafes and the smart coffee shops and ice cream parlours and the trendy small restaurants with their fusion cuisine. Oh to be wanted to be seen! But I'm long past that. And I prefer the traditional small 'kopi tiams' (coffee shops), anyway.

However, I was sent an invitation to the opening of an art gallery in KK and I went there yesterday. What a great place - the Mary James Art Gallery! And just being there reminded me about how the young people of KK are having their influence on the city, shaping the look and feel of public places and happenings. The works on display also brought home to me again how profoundly artists in Sabah are influenced by the traditional cultures and handicrafts, the landscape, flora and Mt Kinabalu - hence my choice of photos for this blog! It is this link that underlies the design of AST's Flora Tour, where we explore what nature here offers and how this is so often the inspiration for artists (See our tours on www.astsabah.com)

Three Sabahan artists are being featured at the gallery at the moment. They are Awang Fadilah Bin Ali Hussein, Muhammed Amin B Muhidin and Sia Yek Chung. Their work is very different from each other's and very distinctive. Awang Fadilah works in acrylic and his black and white pictures are so full of fine detail that you are constantly seeing new things in them. Muhammed Amin, on the other hand, creates fabulous batiks on silk. They are vibrant and multi-layered, so that, again, their message is not revealed all at once - you need to keep looking at them to see what else is there.

Or you need to hear some of the stories that Ellie Hwong, the Managing Director of the gallery, can tell you about the pictures and the artists. She is committed to both the works and the artists and it is very interesting talking to her.

The third artist whose work is featured in the Mary James Art Gallery is Sia Yek Ching. He works in watercolour and the paintings on display are of pitcher plants, koi (fish) and local handicrafts. His super-enlarged pitcher plants are quite lovely.

In all three artists, the influence of Sabah is obvious, as I said above. The colours, the motifs, the themes, the richness of the cultures here and the unique offerings of nature in Sabah are all there in their work! I am not an artist myself - but I love looking at it, appreciating it and, occasionally, buying it! And all the works on display are very interesting to just look at and enjoy.

The works are all on sale and cater to the high-end and corporate slice of the market. Ellie is committed to promoting the work of Sabahan artists, though, and we look forward to some more exhibitions and perhaps 'meet the artist' evenings at this lovely new art gallery in KK.


You can visit the Mary James Art Gallery blog to see some of the works currently on display: http://mjartgallery.blogspot.com/. You can also call (088) 270223 for a viewing at the gallery.
If you have any comments or questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with us at: ron@astsabah.com or jude@astsabah.com. We'd love to hear from you!

New Year's Day 2010

What better way to start a New Year than going out into the countryside with good friends, a delicious picnic and cameras to the ready!

Four of us set out in the morning – three of us with cameras set to go! We drove through a beautiful part of Sabah and were delighted when we came upon a spot where we could look down into a valley of terraced padi. It was an idyllic scene – the golden padi, the dark green hills and the sparkling water.

Padi has two stunning moments – first, when it is planted out and is a vibrant green, shimmering with its own potential, and then when is it ready to harvest and is a glowing gold, heavy with rich ripeness.

On New Year’s Day, the padi was golden and ready to harvest.

And there were people doing just that! They were harvesting by hand, using the traditional short, curved blade. These were small groups of people who saw us and waved and shouted greetings,holding their fistfuls of padi in the air for us to see. And then photographing us photographing them!

They were also threshing by hand and, somehow, we felt privileged to see them.

The air bubbled with fun!

As evening came, the scene was cast in a particularly beautiful light.

These photos were taken by my friends, Boon and Jessica, and me.

Our day-long trip took us from Kota Kinabalu to Ranau (on Mt Kinabalu) and then from Ranau to Tambunan, through the Crocker Range. We then crossed back over the Crocker Range from Tambunan to KK.

If you have any comments or questions, please get in touch with us.

We'd love to hear from you at jude@astsabah.com or ron@astsabah.com.