Project 365

This is a video titled “Jakarta in Jeopardy”. It was uploaded about 2 years ago but I’ve never watched this til now. It’s very interesting. I always heard about how Jakarta could be sinking in few years time and I didn’t know if this argument came from experts / scientists or from people speculating on those issues 😛

But in this video, my doubts were cleared. Jakarta is indeed sinking. The city is expected to be about 1 meter lower than the current position — thanks to the ground water extraction done by most households and business as well as industrial giants in Jakarta. When a city develops, it gets heavier. As much water from the ground gets extracted, the whole city gets pushed downwards. So this can also be the reason why Jakarta is flooded during the time when no rains fall. Because of the sinking Jakarta — it sinks below sea level, unfortunately.

The flood that frequently occurs in Jakarta is also caused by two main reasons: urban development and rubbish. Development can’t seem to stop, every 2 years I go back to Jakarta, I always see new huge buildings or malls built. It fascinates me how fast Jakarta grows. But unfortunately, the rate of Jakarta’s maintenance runs slower than its development. And our government doesn’t seem to care about this. Can we safe our Jakarta?

According to Wikipedia, The Netherlands is a geographically low-lying country, with about 20% of its area and 21% of its population located below sea level, with 50% of its land lying less than one metre above sea level. But somehow, the canals and rivers are clean, free of garbage, and most importantly have never caused any floods for the past 40-50 years! Amazing, isn’t it?

I myself think that Jakarta is not “livable” anymore. It’s waaaaay too crowded! Let’s just move to another city then 😛

I chatted with a friend of mine who had spent quite a number of years in the States, but finally came back to Indonesian for good about a year ago. It’s been sometimes since I last talked to her and it’s always a joy to share each other’s latest updates.

She told me how hard it’s to be in a society where men are expected to be served by their women all the time. Many people think that the relationship between she and her husband are quite strange — merely because they share responsibilities together. These responsibilities are not only about household chores, but it also extends to their daily life as a couple. There are no unwritten rules about who do what. They take turns — naturally. Though for example, the wife is used to make tea for the husband; when she’s tired, the husband sometimes makes tea too. When dinner is served, then no one is expected to put the meals on the plate for the husband. As long as he’s able to do it himself, why should anyone serve for him?

This is what makes me not completely “connected” to Indonesian guys. I’ve been raised in a different environment. My dad, though he’s a busy man, always has time to help my mom. Yes, he never cooks because he doesn’t like it (I don’t think I remember he ever cooked for us. If mom was ill or was tired, he would rather buy us foods). But doing laundry was his job in the house. Gardening too. Cleaning the backyard. Sometimes vacuuming. And many more. I think it’s hard to find the kind of husband (in Indonesia) who sees his wife as a life long partner rather than a server. Even if I can find such a guy, it’d be very hard to implement it because people in Indonesia expect different things. They expect the wife to serve her husband and they’ll try so hard to “enforce” it on other families. I’d say: mind your own business!

But yes, it’s hard to find  the kind of person I describe above. My mom even told me the same thing. If you can find him, that means he has either been abroad (meaning: live. not visit) or was raised in such environment. My dad was a student in Egypt and I figure: that’s how he gets that “behavior” and open minded thinking. People who have lived abroad have completely different mindset than those who have never seen the outside world. Besides being completely independent, they have the chance to see different culture and see how people in different countries conduct themselves. They are able to compare it to what they have been taught to believe in and realize that a few things need to be left out.

A friend told me that I need to find a guy who had lived abroad. Otherwise it’ll be hard for him to fit into me. Or vice versa. That’s true. If only I can peek on my future 😛

I was invited to a rare cultural event called Indonesia Night (which was quite rare in Eindhoven; as most cultural events happened in Den Haag, Rotterdam, Utrecht, or Amsterdam). The event was held for the purpose of introducing the Indonesian culture to some Dutch students (majoring in chemical engineering) who were gonna do a study tour to some parts of Indonesia.

The event was started with a very interesting presentation by Prof. Nas from Universiteit Leiden about the symbols of many places in Indonesia. He did an extensive research about this topic in many cities, particularly in Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Denpasar, Bukittinggi, and Banda Aceh.

Prof. Nas described Jakarta’s 4 tiered symbolism. The city was first built during the Dutch colonialism time and was centered in what was now Kota (or city center) which was filled with European architectures. During the Old Order (Soekarno’s era), many huge monuments were built, including Monas, West Irian Liberation Statue, and Dirgantara Monument. According to Prof. Nas, Soekarno, who was an architect himself, tried to “neutralized” the city by building these monuments. There were many Dutch or European buildings during that time and Soekarno wanted to display the Indonesian presence or nationalism symbols among these buildings. The New Order era (Soeharto’s) also saw the creation of monuments, one of them was the Sacred Pancasila Monument. In the 1990’s, Jakarta underwent a number of major construction projects; as a result, many high rise buildings started to rise up.

Moving on from Jakarta to Denpasar, the Professor also explained how the traditional Balinese house was constructed. The house was largely consists of a collection of individual separated structures, including the family temple, sleeping pavilion, kitchen, and many more. These structures were located inside a high-walled compound and were organized in such a way that complied to the Tri Angga concept which the Balinese believed. The concept described the three parts: the high (which referred to the sacred mountains or hills), the middle (land), and the low (sea). In terms of the Balinese house, the high referred to the temple, the middle referred to pavilions where they lived, and the sea referred to the kitchen and so on. Prof. Nas even mentioned that the Balinese slept with their head pointing to the direction of the sacred mountain 🙂 This was an interesting concept that I didn’t know about!

After the presentation from an expert, two students gave a presentation about Indonesia. One was a friend of mine, Qonita, who represented Indonesian students who lived in the Netherlands. And the other was a Dutch student who had the chance to live in Indonesia. Both of them gave very interesting and entertaining presentations which I enjoyed very much!

These are the summary of the presentations that they both presented:

• One thing that really stands out about Indonesian people is that we’re really FRIENDLY! Our door is literally opened to anyone. Guests can come unannounced and we’re always ready and happy to receive them to our house. We’re very generous and wants to show our warm hospitality to our guests. When the guests come or are invited to our house, we expect them to eat (and by that we mean HEAVY MEALS are awaited to be served). This is rather different with Dutch. Making appointments are necessary if you want to visit a Dutch friend in his or her house. Visiting Dutch people during dinner time is a big NO-NO. This is considered a family time for them and they are for certain have no foods left for you; because they cook only for the number of people present on the table 🙂 (whilst Indonesians tend to cook more foods, in case somebody else visits). When you visit a Dutch house, expect light foods, coffee or tea, and no more. Of course, nowadays Dutch people interact with many people from different cultures, so some of them behave differently 🙂
• Dutch people are very OPEN. They just don’t hesitate to say what’s inside their heads without considering the feeling of others. On the other hand, many Indonesians, especially the “true” Javanese, aren’t very open. They’re too polite so they try not to hurt other people’s feelings. As a result, they’re not able to say what they really have in mind. They say “yes”, although they’re quite hesitant about it (but they’re hesitant to say “no”).
• Dutch are surprisingly huge. They’re the tallest people in the world. Even the women are very tall! They are white too and as Qonita said: “have pink skin”. LOL. All the western people, including Dutch, love tanned skin, while the Asians, including the Indonesians, would prefer a fair skin (except me, I’m so glad to have this skin color!). The Dutch presenter was actually surprised to find that there was a whitening lotion in Indonesia! 😛 People were obsessed to get white and they would praise her white skin color. In contrast, whitening lotion is nowhere to be found in the Netherlands. There’s a lotion that makes your body tanned or glowing though. Haha!

I was so glad I came to this event! I didn’t expect that it was gonna be this interesting! Knowing other people’s perspectives about your own country was always fascinating. I learnt many things and I had so much fun! The poco-poco dance turned out to be really great and many people took part too 😉

Balinese dancer. I love this picture. So Indonesian. So vintage. So priceless.

Indonesian children 🙂

I never knew this movie existed!!! Titled “Merantau”, it’s the first Indonesian movie about Pencak Silat, our own martial arts. Although it’s directed by a Welsh, damn I’m still proud of it!!! It seems that the director is able to blend our culture and the martial arts together and promote it to the world! (Not like some boring fighting movie!) I wanna watch it one day! 🙂

Link: Wanna visit the Netherlands for free?

A great chance for you, all Indonesian bloggers, to take this great opportunity. Who knows you’ll be the winner? 😉

After having a 4-day road trip in 3 different countries, I came back home and arrived today at 2am. I went to bed at around 3.30am and woke up again at 8am. I had to go to Den Haag with my friends Ian, mbak Linda, and Sam. We had planned this gathering two weeks ago so that we could have a reunion with all the Indonesian people at the Boekenfestijn. And I was so glad I met all of them, except Maureen though 🙁 She had promised to come but I didn’t hear any words from her.

Anyway, we then went to the Pasar Malam organized by our Indonesian embassy in Den Haag. I spent quite a bit of money as I ate too many foods there! We also got the opportunity to watch some of the performances which were very entertaining! I had such a great time! 🙂

Ian and I then went to Amsterdam at around 6.30pm. I asked him to accompany me to meet my mom’s friend in Jeddah, tante Novi & family, who were here for vacation. I brought some stroopwaffels for my little brother 😀 . Tante Novi and oom Agung then invited us for dinner at an Indonesian restaurant called Kantjil (yet another Indonesian foods for today! hehehe). It wasn’t bad at all.

We took the last train to Eindhoven. I’m too tired but I’m impressed that I still managed to write this post! 😀

*the last 4 days of the posting will be written later 🙂

… continuation from the previous post.

During our coffee time, I asked mbak Linda few things about the conflict in Maluku which occurred in 1999 between the Christian and Muslim groups. She told me that Christians and Muslims in Maluku were very peaceful and never had any problems. There were some provocateurs, which were allegedly done by our former dictator Soeharto, who forced these two groups to fight against each other. When the conflict ended, it was discovered that these people were forced to fight — if not, then these provocateurs would do something nasty, for example raping female relatives. So the Maluku people had no other choice than to cause terror against each other. Mbak Linda also told me that Maluku people were originally Muslims, until the Dutch made some of them to convert to Christian. She even told me that her great-grand mother was a Muslim and some of her far relatives were Muslims. During the conflict, her hometown in Ambon was totally burned, apparently by the Indonesian army. Yet another strange thing about this conflict!

Gosh, I loved to know about these things straight from the locals. They were the ones who knew the situation really well. They were first-hand witnesses or at least had relatives who experienced it. It fascinated me how these kind of details made a difference to how we view and judge others. It made us understand the whole situation better than just by relying on media which was apparently good in exaggerating stuff (and not to mention the censorship done by the government!). If we could build this kind of understanding and tolerance towards others, the world will be in a much better state.

… continuation from the previous post.

Mbak Linda told me about the Republic of the South Moluccas (RMS) which was a self-proclaimed republic in the South Moluccas. After the Indonesian independence day, the Maluku people who were part of KNIL demanded their island to be an independent country which turned to be unsuccessful. So most of them went to the Netherlands (which supposed to be temporarily) and were promised by the Dutch government that they would solve this matter. They set up a government-in-exile. Yet, years went by and the Dutch government hadn’t fulfilled their promise yet. So these Maluku people went rebellious, attacking two Indonesian embassies and hijacking train (this hijacking story didn’t get into Indonesia by the way!) to get the attention of the Dutch government. They were quite fanatic — even to these days, according to mbak Linda, they still celebrated the 25th of April (the day when the RMS was formed), put up their own RMS flag, and regarded themselves as Moluccans rather than Indonesians.

Honestly I had no idea about this until she told me!!! Wow! 😀 It was very interesting indeed!!!

*There was a movie about this hijacking thing. You can see its trailer here.

I went to a small city called Weert today. It’s about 20 minutes from Eindhoven by train. Sam, mbak Linda, and I were invited to Ian’s house. These were the people I met during the Boekenfestijn and we became close ever since. Sam and mbak Linda were a married couple originally from Maluku (Moluccas). Sam was half Dutch Indonesian (we call it Indo or Indische), while mbak Linda was pure Indonesian. Ian also had an Indonesian background. His father was a Dutch and his mother was an Indo born in Surabaya.

Anyway… in the afternoon, Ian and Sam were busy making some music while mbak Linda and I were busy shopping in the centrum (city) 😀 After shopping, we sat for a coffee and had a very interesting conversation. This was the first time I talked to her and had a deep conversation. We talked about many things, including our life, future, and Maluku! (I’m going to put this into two different posts: here and here). I had a great time! After our coffee time, Ian and Sam joined us and we had few more drinks. I got to try on a Dutch food (fish) which I forgot its name now!! It wasn’t bad at all.

Then we went to Ian’s house to meet with his parents and had dinner together. They were very nice and their house was very cozy! Ian’s dad cooked so many Indonesian foods and they were very very delicious! They were rendang, tempe goreng, and chicken among other things. You know, it’s amazing how it’s not unusual for the guys here to cook. All the guys on the table (Ian, his dad, and Sam) loved to cook and it’s quite rare for the guys in Indonesia to be able to do that. Once they get married, the wives were expected to do everything in the house, including cooking and doing house chores. But for the Dutch and many other Western people (and MY OWN DAD!), they took turns to cook. They split the house chores with their wife. Isn’t it great?!?

We stayed in Ian’s house until 9pm! It was a looooong day and we were all very tired. But it was a great day and I had such a wonderful time! 🙂