Global Impact on the Survival of Wayang Kulit ... - Siew Lian Lim

Cultures generally do not exist in total isolation, and probably never have. Cultural
groups share, borrow, and steal from one another through trade, invasions, intermarriage, and
natural migration. This became apparent during the researcher's two year study of shadow
puppetry in Southeast Asia, particularly when attempting to pinpoint the origins of using
shadows of leather puppets on a screen to tell a story. The process of cross cultural exchange is
natural, but it takes time. In recent decades, however, this tendency to exchange cultures has
accelerated rapidly driven by advancements in communication and technology under the label
"globalization."
Thomas Friedman defines globalization as "... the integration of everything with
everything else. A more complete definition is that globalization is the integration of markets,
finance, and technology in a way that shrinks the world from a size medium to a size small.
<strong>Global</strong>ization enables each of us, wherever we live, to reach around the world farther faster,
deeper, and cheaper than ever before and at the same time allows the world to reach into each of
us farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before." The term was originally applied to
economics and politics, but there is a growing application of it to culture, the rapid spread of
ideas, art, music, language, and food across cultures so that a world culture emerges. Some view
this trend optimistically, like David Rothkopf, who views cultural divisions as the source of
conflict in the world and sees the world merging into and adopting a common culture as a
peacemaking process. Others see threats and risks associated with the process.
Of primary concern is control of the mechanisms of cultural globalism - television,
cinema, popular music, and the internet - by the most powerful countries, mainly the United
States, the last remaining superpower after the end of Cold War (Lieber and Weisberg). The
result is an increasing Americanization of tastes, viewpoints, and values worldwide; McDonald's
and hip hop music are everywhere. The effect of this process on indigenous folk culture
particularly relates to my overall study of shadow puppetry, an indigenous folk art.
Shadow puppetry in Southeast Asia takes on a variety of forms based on the region where
it is performed - Wayang Kulit in Indonesia and Malaysia, Nang Talung and Nang Yai in
Thailand, and Sbaek Thom and Sbaek Touch in Cambodia (Chen). The key elements are
essentially the same. Puppets are carved from leather and painted containing one or more
moveable parts, and a light source behind the puppeteer casts a shadow on a cloth screen which
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