In This Chapter, I Review the Historic Perspective of the Bujang Valley. I
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CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.0 Introduction In this chapter, I review the historic perspective of the Bujang valley. I started with the historical perspective of Bujang valley and move onto Geographic Location, demographic profile and the statement of the research problem. This chapter also focuses on demography of the study area, research objectives, statement problem, and research questions, significant of the study, scope and limitation of the study respectively. 1 1.1 The historical perspective of Bujang Valley The history of the old Malay kingdom of the Bujang Valley came back to the sixth century A.D. It established and succeeded into a significant trade and commercial centre which survived up to the thirteenth century. Since of its physical location along the trade route between the Mediterranean and China, it is very important and way connection between the east countries to the west. During this period, the Valley had contact with people of different cultural, travellers and writers from India, Sri Vijaya and Khmer visited Bujang. Therefore some of their cultural features were bring together to Bujang and these have influenced its cultural change. For example Indian writers called the kingdom the State of Kataha which in Sanskrit is translated into Katahnagara, which is recalled in the Sanskrit drama Kaumudinahotsava, written in the seventh century A.D. The old Kedah State (Katah or Chieh-Cha) may have been one of the original states governed by a local political body. But some historians are of the view that during the seventh century it developed part of the Sri Vijayan Empire. Later, in 1025 A.D. Rajendra I the King of Chola is said to have attacked the Sri Vajayan Empire and the kingdom of the Bujang Valley as well. The base of the Sri Vijayan Empire was damaged by this attack but the Government of the Bujang Valley continued. Then in 1068 the Government of the Bujang Valley supported the Chola king Birarajendra and required his help to free it from the Sri Vijayan Empire - a request that was favorably met. Archaeological study take on in the Bujang Valley in the province of Pengkalan Bujang has shown that this was a countless trading port among the ninth and the thirteenth centuries A.D. Huge quantities of different bits of pottery and porcelain as well as other trade things has been collected from the region. It has also 2 been recognized that during this period Pengkalan Bujang was on the beach and there were brilliant anchorage and harbor facilities in the bay. After the thirteenth century however, Pengkalan Bujang declined as a port and another area just to the south, in the neighborhood of the Muda River developed the new port and the base of Government of the old Kedah kingdom. The Malay Peninsula made portion of the Empire of Sri Vijaya, a State that reached together wealth and power because it well-ordered the maritime trade through the Straits of Malacca among the late seventh and thirteenth century. Through its height Sri Vijaya was visited by sellers from as far afield as Egypt, Persia and China and it is stated in numerous primary Islamic and Chinese texts. The leaders of Sri Vijaya were significantly influenced by the faiths and culture of India and it looks that they encouraged the construction of Hindu and Buddhist Temples in the Kingdom. In its period of countless prosperity between the ninth and twelfth centuries A.D., the Kingdom of Sri Vijaya was in handy communication by such pronounced Indian Buddhist centres of learning as Nalanda in Bengal where a Sri Vijaya ruler caused a monastery to be built. The Pala Dynasty of north east India - a excessive sponsor of the famous Pala art - provided models for much of the art and architecture of Sri Vijaya, traces of which have been discovered in the Malaya Peninsula. The key centers of Sri Vijaya in the Peninsula of Malaya, as archaeology indicates, were placed in the States of Kedah, Perak and Perils. In Perak a amount of bronze statues have been discovered, most of which can be linked to like discoveries in Sumatra and south Thailand and which also display many traces of Pala influence. Kedah has exposed the remains of a number of Hindu and Buddhist temples, models and photographs of which are showed in the 3 Bujang Valley Museum. Numerous of these temples are obviously very alike to buildings from Sumatra and other regions of the Sri Vijaya Empire (Sanday, 1987) 1.2 Geographic Location According to Saidin et al, (2007) the Bujang valley is located in south Kedah and cover the coastal plain around Gunung (mount) Jerai (1,300 meters high). The valley is by the Sungai (river) Merbok and Sungai Muda and their tributaries, notably Sungai Bujang and Sungai Batu. Today the sea has regressed, the rivers have silted up and the land has been put to fairly intensive agrarian use, save where the mangrove swamps have taken a stranglehold. There are large rubber plantations, banana plantations, and paddies throughout the Valley. Nearer to the peak there is the spoil of open cast tin mines. The peak itself, however, is still covered with dense jungle. The Bujang Valley today is merely a reference to its historical past. Under the terms of a recommendation by the Federal Government of Malaysia to create a National Historical Park in the Bujang Valley, it is defined as an area of 400 square kilometers between the site of Bukit Choras in the North (which is about 20 kilometers south of Alor Setar) to Bukit Merjam in the south (which is on a level with Penang). The western boundary is the Straits of Malacca and the eastern boundary is the railway running from Alor Setar to Butterworth. There are said to be about 50 or 60 archaeological sites within this area, many of which have yet to be identified. 4 Fig.1.1 Location of study area in Peninsular Malaysia 5 Fig.1.2 Study area Bujang Valley 6 1.4 Demography of the Study Area Kedah has a relatively heterogeneous populace constituted by the three major ethnic groups; the Malays, Chinese and Indians, similar to most of the other Malaysian states. There are 1,336,352 Malays (who make up about 75.5% of the state's population), 252,987 Chinese (or 14.2%), 122,911 Indians (or 6.9%), 35,293 non-citizens (or 1.9%) and 27,532 people from other ethnic groups (or 1.5%) in the state. (Department of Statistics Malaysia 2010) 1.5 Research Objectives The objectives are: 1. What are the images of Bujang valley in stakeholders‘ points of view? 2. What are the organizational managements on the presenting Bujang Valley as heritage tourism product? 3. What are the obstacles of presenting Bujang valley? Is there any conflict among stakeholders in presenting Bujang Valley? 4. What are the appropriate suggestions to achieve a better collaboration in presenting Bujang valley? 7 1.6 Statement of Research Problems Tourism industry is characterized by large number of involved stakeholders and Bujang valley destination is not an exception. The point here is that if these too many stakeholders at different levels and with different nature of objectives and business domains go along each other for promoting the attraction, are they in one direction for positioning the destination. In other words are they coherent and consistent with each other or them some kinds of contradictions and conflicts. For the case of Bujang valley two main influential players are local and state governments. Given all points above, we have to find out if they are coherent in terms of their policies as well as their actions. If policies haven‘t been translated accordingly and action don‘t are not in line with national guidelines, then it would be a total waste of time and expenses. 1.7 Research Questions The research problems in this study are as follows:- I. What is the situational attitude of each stakeholder sector in its involvement in the project? II. Is there any religious sensivity involve when you design the presentation or interpretation? III. What are the main obstacles in their efforts to collaborate with each other? IV. How distinct can you work with other stakeholders together in promoting Bujang Valley? 8 The researcher is going to examine the consistency between different involved stakeholders. 1.8 Significance of the Study This study provides the historical steps from Bujang valley‘s conservation up to its becoming a new cultural heritage tourism destination in Malaysia. Additionally, conflict and cooperation among stakeholders such as heritage departments, tourism departments, museum departments and private sectors in managing this destination make this study all the more interesting and important. 1.9 Scope of the study This study focuses on the ―6‖ stakeholders of tourism destination management practices. Especially on stakeholders‘ involvement/ participation in university Sains Malaysia, National Heritage Department, National Museum KL and Lembah Bujang, Tourism Malaysia, Ministry of Tourism and Islamic Department in kedah. 9 1.10 Limitations of the study The limitations of one study can affect its outcomes and objectives. In this study, the researcher finds that the respondents might have some difficulties in answering the questionnaire because it is set by using English language. On the other hand, there are some risks in conducting the online survey where respondents may answer the questionnaire more than one time. This will affect the validity of this research. Some of the limitations include 1) The stakeholders were not able to speak English fluently and a Taxi driver did the translation from Malay to English. 2) Transportation and accommodation near the Bujang Valley was another important difficulty that the research faced with.