Fieldwork

Before I took up Anthropology, I thought that fieldwork was fun. How can it not be? You gather a bunch of friends and go to some rural area in the country and interview the people there to study about their lifestyle and culture. It sounded like a roadtrip. And then when I told my friends that, they would shake their heads and say, "It's not as nice as you think it is. Wait til you try it."

Last Friday, I went to Perak with some of my Anthropology classmates for our fieldwork assignment. There were 9 of us in the group and we went in 2 cars. The leader (Han) brought his friends along and they came in their own car. While his friends were there to hang out and have fun, the rest of us were there to work. We had information to collect, pictures to take, places to go.

We arrived at Kampar in the evening. Our first stop was the police station. We had to inform the police of our arrival and we got to speak with the Head Inspector.
Our next stop was our place of stay. I think we were actually supposed to go to a real village aka kampung and spend the night as part of the assignment, but we parked in front of a decent-looking hotel in the town.

We spent the night there in total comfort. It was already 8pm when we headed out for dinner, so we decided to just go to the villages the next morning. Han took us to a nearby Chinese restaurant known for its tasty claypot rice.

Aaron, Me and Divya and our claypot rice :P

After that, we just went back to the hotel and hung out in the guys' room. There were 6 of them, so they got to stay in the family suite. Lol. We played card games. They were really into blackjack. After a few rounds, we played a different game called "Kurap".
Sandy, a guy from China, was hilarious. He left to watch TV on the other side of the room, and after a while, we called him over.
"Sandy, you want to join us?"
"No. It's okay. I'm watching Tv. Very nice!"
"What show?"
"Jackie Chan!! Very nice!!"

Then he did that thumbs-up sign and everything, and he happily ran back to the couch to watch the show. Haha.

The next morning, we visited an Orang Asli settlement. We stopped by a really pretty waterfall in the middle of the village.
After that, we wasted no time in getting our work done. Each of us had our individual topics to do about, and mine was on Religion & Beliefs. I was told from one of the villagers that the waterfall was quite popular. In fact, it appeared in the papers every year, and not because it was beautiful, but because people died there every year.

So the villagers believed that waterfall was haunted with the spirits of "the people who wait". They believed there were lonely spirits there, just waiting to drag the next victims in.
And I was also told that there was a "bomoh" (witch) living somewhere in the village. Apparently, people do seek him for help. Sounds creepy, huh? And he does preform black magic. I heard he lived somewhere high up on the hill.

No, that's not his house.

The village was very rural, which was a good thing for our assignment. I changed my mind about interviewing the witch after the thought of him performing voodoo on me. All he needs for that is a strand of my hair or a loose string from my blouse and I'm a goner. Lol. Okay I'll stop talking like that.

I interviewed the village chief and a Catholic priest. They were very helpful. We left the village in the evening and made it back to college at 7pm. I was so tired. And it was Valentine's Day! Haha.

Orang Aslis are extremely sweet and humble people. They're so kind and welcoming.
I miss them. =)