BCM to feature talk on Chinese dragon in Borneo culture this Sunday
The Borneo Cultures Museum (BCM) will hold a talk on ‘The Chinese Dragon (Lung) In Sarawak’ at its auditorium at 2pm on March 10.
The talk on the Chinese dragon, also known as the ‘loong’ or ‘lung’ in Mandarin, will be conducted by British anthropologist Dr Monica Janowski who has more than 30 years of research experience in Sarawak.
Friends of Sarawak Museum (FOSM) in a press statement yesterday said the talk will enlighten the audience on Janowski’s recent research within the Chinese community on the significance of the Chinese dragon, and how its tales and beliefs relate to those among the Borneo people.
“In this talk, Janowski will discuss the significance of the Chinese dragon and its association with water, as well as at the nature of beliefs and the ways in which the local people engage with this,” it said.
Janowski, it added, is a social anthropologist who has been carrying out research in Sarawak since 1986 and her research focus has been the Kelabit people of Sarawak, focusing on their practical and cosmological relationship with the natural environment.
“She has been carrying out extensive researches on water dragons within the Kelabit and other communities in Sarawak, including the Kayan, Kenyah, Berawan, Penan, Bidayuh, Chinese and Malays.
“Her research on the water beings – called the ‘dragons’ among some of the ethnic groups in Sarawak – started since 2017 when she was a research fellow at the Sarawak Museum prior to the opening of the BCM.
“Janowski has also published articles on highland dragons and the Iban dragons in the Sarawak Museum Journal, as well as in other Sarawak-based news portals,” said FOSM.
Among her publications are ‘The Forest, Source of Life: The Kelabit of Sarawak’ and ‘Tuked Rini, Cosmic Traveller: Life and Legend in the Heart of Borneo’.