Intending to ‘apprentice’, Mat Saleh did not expect to have been trapped in this ‘thing’ for 11 years
Sometimes, something planned for a while can pave the way to a much more meaningful experience.
Many start something with the intention of learning or experimenting, but end up discovering a new interest that never occurred to them.
In today’s increasingly connected world, opportunities to experience cultures and ways of life in other places are becoming easier.
Experiences like this not only open up new perspectives, but also help one appreciate things that local people might take for granted.
It’s not surprising that some people come with one goal, but return with a different story.
There are even those who still choose to continue their journey in fields or worlds they never imagined before.
Mat Saleh never thought he would be stuck making Malaysian Batik for 11 years
Recently, a post by TikTok user @ludo.batik stole attention because the man was from Belgium.
He said that initially he came to Malaysia in 2015 just to undergo industrial training.
However, who would have thought that an experience that was initially designed to be temporary would ultimately change the course of his life.
Now, he not only lives in Malaysia, but actively produces block batik at home and makes this heritage art his full career.
Interestingly, he revealed that he learned the skills to produce batik while in Terengganu, a state known as one of the centers for traditional batik production in Malaysia.
From there, his interest in heritage art began to grow, encouraging him to study each batik production process more seriously.
Netizens’ Reactions to Foreigners’ Interest in Malaysian Batik Art
In the comments column, the average netizen expressed a sense of pride and emotion when they saw the great interest of foreigners in local heritage art.
They described the man’s actions as a matter of pride, especially as the batik tradition continues to be appreciated and promoted by outsiders.
Many also hope that Malaysian batik art will continue to be recognized internationally through efforts like this.
“Surprised to see that outsiders understand our traditions better. As a local myself, I just realized how beautiful Malaysian batik is. Thank you for sharing this!” said a virtual citizen.
“It’s fun, even I, a local resident, have never had the chance to experience weaving or printing batik like this,” said another netizen.
“Very good, I hope the art of batik remains fresh and doesn’t get lost in the flow of modernity. Congratulations Ludo, we are proud of you,” wrote another netizen.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.
