Correction of Demak story

Correction of Demak story

Thank you for printing my story Demak: A Javanese town of
Islamic saints on the Post, Dec. 19. However, I'm moved to write
this letter after I read my edited story carefully as I found
some corrections from your copy editor are not correct in terms
of fact.

1. The seventh paragraph of the printed story run: "Founded by
Babad Demak in 1477, the main feature of the mosque is the 31-
meter-long by 31-meter-wide main room".

My sentence was: "The characteristic of the mosque, which
according to Babad Demak was founded in 1477, is in its 31 by 31
meters main room".

Babad Demak is not the name of a person, it is a name of a
book like Babad Tanah Jawi (The Chronicles of Java Land) or Serat
Centhini. The edited above sentence implies that the mosque was
founded by Babad Demak and this is not correct.

2. The eleventh paragraph of the printed story run: "This would
have been the work of Sunan Kalijaga, who was known as soko guru
tatal".

My sentence was: "This handiwork of Sunan Kalijaga is
popularly known as soko guru tatal, which he made by metaphysical
power".

The personal pronoun "who" also implies that Sunan Kalijaga
was known as soko guru tatal. It is totally wrong. In fact, soko
guru tatal is the name of one distinguished legendary pillar in
Great Mosque Demak that was made of tatal by Sunan Kalijaga.

As far as I concerned, native English copy editors may master
the grammar and writing style of English. However, supervision is
still required as they may not master all subjects about
Indonesia, including its history.

WAHYUNI KAMAH

Jakarta