Malaysian 'religious' frog dance

Once upon a time, in Laos, the people could go and speak directly with God, whom they call Thaen. "Hi there, Uncle Thaen", they would say (or words like so in Laotian).

According to a Star Online article, Getting God’s attention (by Liz Price), the legend of Thaen ….. is said to have existed for more than 4,000 years. Liz Price wrote:

In the beginning, Thaen sent his people to populate the empty Earth. They had to change their god bodies into the human form, with four minerals, five senses, and six touches (ears, eyes, nose, tongue, body and heart).

These humans followed the laws of nature in that they experienced birth, aging, sickness and death. After death, those who had done good deeds would go to heaven. But those who had done no good or had led bad lives would be reincarnated in the human world for as many cycles as it took them to do enough good deeds to enter heaven.

Now, this is the interesting part:

There used to be communication between Thaen and humans. When the king first sent his people to Earth, there were Kheua Kaukad wire trees linking the human world to the heavens.

When people faced troubles, such as floods, natural disasters, or shortage of food, they sent two persons to climb up to the sky to ask for their god’s help. They would ask him to chase away the badness or to send rain and an abundance of rice and fish.

In this way, the god of Thaen enabled the people to have enough rice to last till the new rice season.

The god was a sympathetic one. However, he later saw that some people were lazy and did not want to work. Instead, they grew accustomed to complaining to him that they had no rice and requesting rice from him. This made the god angry, and he sent them away.

In order to ban them from Thaen, he cut down the Kheua Kaukad trees.

… not unlike the gods of other religions, when came a time God stopped coming to the local kopitiam. Prior to severing direct communication, He would drop in ocassionally for a kopi-O-peng and casually say things like, "Moses matey, got an errant for you boy, pop over to Egypt, will you (and do this and that)?" which of course poor olde Moses didn’t dare refuse.

But as I mentioned, since eons ago, the Judean God too cut down the Kheua Kaukad trees.

I reckon that was a bad mistake by God because after that, charlatans came on the scene and everyone jack man of them claimed to be speaking on behalf of, or for God. Yes, you get blokes like Pat Robertson. Now here’s a snap shot of a man who claims to be a modern Prophet, or rather the ratings of his credibility, where Wikipedia tells us:

In January 1951, Robertson served four months in Japan, "doing rehabilitation training for Marines wounded in Korea".

In his words, "We did long, grueling marches to toughen the men, plus refresher training in firearms and bayonet combat." In the same year, he transferred to Korea, "I ended up at the headquarters command of the First Marine Division," says Robertson. "The Division was in combat in the hot and dusty, then bitterly cold portion of North Korea just above the 38th Parallel later identified as the 'Punchbowl' and 'Heartbreak Ridge.' For that service in the Korean War, the Marine Corps awarded me three battle stars for 'action against the enemy.'

However, former Republican Congressman Paul "Pete" McCloskey, Jr., who served with Robertson in Korea, claimed that Robertson was actually spared combat duty when his powerful father, a U.S. Senator, intervened on his behalf, claiming that instead Robertson spent most of his time in an office in Japan. According to McCloskey, his time in the service was not in combat but as the "liquor officer" responsible for keeping the officers' clubs supplied with liquor.

This was confirmed by others during his GOP presidential campaign against George Bush Senior. Other Marines in his battalion contradicted his claim of combat duty, stating that he had never spent a day in a combat environment.

Well, we can see how such a bloke could claim God spoke to him. There are others like him, in Israel, Iran, and even in Malaysia, who asserted personal contact with the Almighty.

Even low brow George Bush Junior recently made a tentative claim to this prophetic ability.

OK, so we are informed that since the chopping down of the Kheua Kaukad trees, thus denying direct communication between humans and Thaen, the only recourse left for people was indirect worshipping called Thaen worship. Yes, the Laotian (prior to the majority becoming Buddhists) performed this to ask for protection from bad things and natural disasters.

Liz Price wrote: To do this, people perform the frog dance ceremony to make the god of Thaen look down and see who the good people are. This ceremonial rite is performed once a year, usually at the end of the dry season, although it can be performed at any time, especially if there is no rain.

To pray means to dance. People paint their faces to look like frogs, and perform the frog dance and bang the Kong Bang frog drums to make a noise like frogs singing. The bronze drums are decorated with carvings of frogs.

In Malaysia, we do it once every 5 years (more or less – in the current case it has definitely been less), and usually after a general election. Yes, I was referring to some Malaysians performing the frog dance ceremony to make the god of Thaen look down and see who the good people are.

I get the feeling Thaen may not want to look, but I would implore Him tonight to do so, because if he doesn’t, we may get our local version of 'Pat Robertson', someone who would shamelessly claim he was "in a combat zone in Korea when he was actually the wines officer in the Officers Club in cozy Japan, a zillion miles safely away from the hostile front."

Oh, excuse me, I have seen in Malaysiakini this important news, that Anwar says it again: We have the numbers.

........ ribbet ribbet ribbet ribbet ribbet ........