Alterity | Jakarta and Bali

Bali Ha'i will whisper In the wind of the sea: "Here am I, your special island! Come to me, come to me!"   Looking at the news, I was interested to see that the recently revived 1949 musical South Pacific has just opened at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco .  The musical is considered one of the greatest in history and several of its songs have become worldwide standards.  One of them, of course, is Bali Ha’i, a song which is written about a fictional island with two volcanoes where a certain Lt. Joseph Cable meets Bloody Mary's daughter.  When naming the fictional island I find it hard to believe that the real Bali island in Indonesia didn’t play a part in influencing their decision - even though they claim that the Bali Ha’i island in the film is modeled on the volcanic island of Aoba in the South Pacific!  Sort of makes you wonder then why they didn’t call the song Aoba Ha’i instead (and at least it would have prevented many Americans from incorrectl...

40 Years of Silence: an Indonesian Tragedy - feature length film on how Indonesia dealt with the red peril and the repercussions of the “events” that took place. The film follows the testimony of four people and their families from Central Java and Bali, two regions heavily affected by the madness.  Bruno - would be great if it was shown in Indonesia – and can you just imagine the reaction it would provoke from the fanatics? As it is, you’ll probably have to make do with the DVD, which, I can report, is already available in “ori” (high quality) format. Enjoy! The Blossoming of Maximo Oliveros – another gayfest by the Pilipino director Aureaus Solito, this film profiles the life of a gay boy struggling to survive in the slums of Manila. As his family are a bunch of cell phone thieves, the boy has to face a huge conflict when – believe it or not - he falls in love with a policeman!

I was watching the Metro TV program “ Kick Andy ” and on it he had this impoverished women who had kept changing her name when she was younger because she was always suffering from ill health. But after changing her name for the umpteenth time, guess what? She stopped getting sick! Luckily for her she had found the “right” name. But what about the nation’s politicians? Are they blessed with the “right” names or not? (don’t think I’m stepping beyond the realms of credulity here; this is Java, after all!) No, we don’t need to worry about what the politicians actually believe or what policies they intend to implement. What counts are their names! But how to interpret them? Well actually that’s not so difficult. Because we can use anagrammaticography , a highly regarded tool which is noted for its uncanny ability to accurately draw meaningful conclusions about the political figures and their views on a host of issues. Used since the middle ages, anagrammaticography really came to the fore ...

"Jakarta, Indonesia, September 15, 2014"   "Some six million residents of the capital city Jakarta have been convicted en masse by the nation’s highest religious court (previously known as the Supreme Court) for various crimes including adultery, sex out of marriage and homosexuality (including lesbianism), crimes punishable by death under Indonesia’s strict Sharia law. The public stonings will take place at venues across the city including the Senayan Sports stadium and at the Ancol fanatics Theme Park before the next full moon."   More info over at Aljazeera.    But all is not what it seems it appears!

There’s a hilarious story from Thailand in which a young Iranian couple have been arrested: -- Police arrested and fined an Iranian couple for having sex on the Jomtien beach early Friday. Hashom Abdli, 28, and his girlfriend, Margam Ziyace, 25, were charged with indecency and were fined Bt500 each and were released. Police Captain Chamrasthong Jinda, deputy inspector of the Pattaya police station, was riding his motorcycle to perform routine checking on the beach at 4:30 am when he spotted a crowd watching something on the beach and some of the tourists were shooting video clips with their mobile phones . Chamrasthong found the couple in the act and stopped them and took them to the police station. The Iranian man told police that he did not know that it was illegal to have sex in public place . Hahaha! And this coming from a guy who comes from a country where this sort of thing could get him into very real trouble indeed i.e sentenced to death. And maybe there’s even more: just check...

When I was a kid I had a mate whose old man owned a Chinese takeaway and who had a very attractive sister. It was a decent enough joint and I spent quite a lot of time over there - but not really getting any sort of positive reaction from my mate’s sister whose tight black leggings and wonderfully long, jet-black hair kept me in a sort of adolescent trance. But I got to eat spring rolls. Lots of ‘em. Anyway, on one particular occasion, I’ve stayed over a lot longer than usual (the clock says 11.20pm) and a bunch of yobs are milling around outside. Yep, the pubs have just chucked out and it’s Friday night. They then come in, all six of them: raucous and obnoxious; making all sorts of nasty racial insults. But they are pissed and they are slow. And, unlike my mate’s father, they don’t have a baseball bat (his one is handily kept behind the counter but out of sight of the yobs). One of the yobs pays, takes his change, and then decides he’s been overcharged (even though the most ...

After adding batik , the keris, and wayang to its cultural heritage list, UNECSO has now declared the famous Glodok shopping district in West Jakarta as a world heritage site (before it is also claimed by Malaysia). The reasons given for the site’s inclusion in the UNECSO list are as follows: 1) Through the sale of affordable film and music titles – mostly American – Glodok has done a fantastic job in fostering cross cultural relations between the US and Indonesia. 2) By bringing American culture to the Indonesian populace at large, it is also hoped that the popular misconceptions that Indonesians have of Uncle Sam can be corrected, thereby minimizing the terrorist threat. 3) The provision of educational adult DVD titles (by Vivid Video etc) – also at very competitive prices – is hoped to increase HIV awareness and encourage people to take appropriate precautions to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (AIDS in particular). 4) The stupendous growth of Glodok in recent ye...

The good bule husband · Agrees to transfer his entire salary into your bank account. Cos that’s what Indonesian husbands do. · Is willing to discuss current affairs, i.e. the latest Indonesian celeb gossib, and is prepared to let you watch your favorite American soap even though there is a vital premiership football match he wants to watch on another channel. · Is fashion literate and understands why it is absolutely necessary to buy you original Levis jeans for Rp880,000 a pair rather than imitations which are exactly the same but cost only a mere Rp150,000. · Doesn’t flirt with the two new maids from Indramayu. Double trouble: be careful of the maids you employ or you might regret it · Doesn’t freak out when your mother and a bunch of other “close” relatives including some third-removed cousin all turn up uninvited at the same time and then agrees that they can all stay “as long as they want” (with some of them even setting up camp in your bedroom). · Is spiritually minded and agre...

Today is the ninth day of the ninth month of 2009 - or 9-9-9. Only once a century does this number appear on a calendar. So take note. The number 999 has no real significance to me as a date but that does not mean it is not an important number. In fact, in the field of consumer psychology, the number 999 is probably the most studied and important of numbers there is. And the reason? Well, because a product priced at US$9.99 is seen to be much more affordable than if it were priced at exactly US$10.00. Don’t believe me? Well, go to a department store and see for yourself…

Google’s search doodles (Xmas, Halloween, the lunar landing etc) are pretty easy to understand but its latest one of a UFO beaming up one of the o’s in Google had a lot of people scratching their heads. So what does it all mean? That Google are closet UFO apologists?!! Well, if they are, then we are in real trouble, because as I pointed out previously, anyone who believes that green men like to trouble us humans just for the hell of it (and without even so much as making the briefest of formal introductions) is probably very delusional indeed. But after searching the net for a while I find the answer: Google was paying homage to the 20th anniversary of 1980s Japanese video game, Zero Wing. Yep, this is real old school stuff and just seeing the screen shot brings tears to my eyes: The game play is the standard dodge-and-miss and blast-everything-in-your-way affair that characterized the side-scrolling shoot ‘em ups of that era. But even though it was just another average arcade game, it...

There’s a hell of a brouhaha going on in Germany at the moment because the German courts have ruled in favor of a German citizen of Egyptian descent who wants to name his son “Jihad”.  A court in Berlin said that the man (Reda Seyam) could name the child Djehad because it was an "accepted Arabic first name term" (and not necessarily a term to promote violence).   As a result, Jihad won’t join the list of banned names in Germany which includes, among others, Sputnik, McDonald (wtf?!), Woodstock, Satan (hahaha!), Grandma, Tom-Tom and Peppermint (and Hitler as well, one assumes).  But just who exactly is this chap who’s named his son “Jihad”?  Well, none other than one of the alleged foreign financiers of the first Bali bombings back in 2002! Nope I could hardly believe it either but that’s who he appears to be:  IN FACT, SEYAM was already being held prisoner by Indonesian authorities at the time of the bombings. He had been arrested four weeks earlier, in mid-S...

It was the Greek philosopher Pliny who noted that the two sides of the human face are physically asymmetrical. This, of course, is no bad thing as it is the asymmetry which makes a human face interesting to look at. Aware of this phenomenon, portrait painters have often accentuated the asymmetry in their paintings in order to create a more attractive portrait. And photographers have also been careful to avoid the problems associated with unresolved duality (problem photos here and here ) As for unresolved duality and the human face, the theorist Piere Abraham discovered that faces have spiritual symmetry as well. In essence what he found was this: The right hand side of the face is more the window into the inner soul of a person, a revelation of their introverted tendencies, feelings and struggles. And in contrast, the left hand side of the face is the extroverted part of the face; i.e. a reflection of how we like to project ourselves on others; our public image you might say. Anyw...

It was like in one of those disaster movies and everyone’s panicking and screaming to rush down the stairs and the streets are full of throngs of people and you can’t call your wife cos the telecommunications are down and…  …But hold on a sec. There’s no damage. And the building didn’t shake that much.  But nearer to the quake’s epicenter (Tasikmalaya) - which is a good 300 kms from Jakarta - the damage was much worse and many buildings - including the large Ar Rahman Mosque - have collapsed.  The fears now, though, are that a further quake is imminent and, because of this, the authorities have issued a set of guidelines which Jakarta residents are urged to follow in the event of another (large) quake:  If you are inside:   1. Remain calm and stay away from things that could fall easily. Wearing a motorcycle crash helmet will give you added protection. 2. Crawl under a sturdy desk or go to a corner of the room. If you don’t have a desk in your house a table wi...

The latest news on the ongoing Indonesian-Malaysian cultural wars is that a website for travelers committed the grave sin of wrongly stating that Pulau Jemur was part of Malaysia. It was probably just a simple mistake, but the Indonesian press lapped it up, virtually taking the website claim as a Malaysian declaration of war. Oh for the days of Sukarno… Image from Google Maps: "A" marks the location of Pulau Jemur

It’s a long standing joke in Aus that if you want to become a millionaire you simply take a holiday in Bali. And for one crisp US$100 bill you will receive one million Indonesian rupiah – most likely 20xRp50,000 notes. Alternatively, of course you could take 100xRp10,000 notes or even – although this is taking it a bit far – 1000xRp1,000 bank notes! But the glory days of the Rp1,000 bank note are now over and Bank Indonesia will gradually phase it out now that it has issued the new Rp2,000 note to replace it as the country’s smallest denominated bank note. If, like me, you’ve been in Indonesia for some time, then you will find this pretty sad. Sure the Rp1,000 note ain’t worth much any more – about 10 cents – but it does have nostalgic value aplenty. A number of years back, it used to be a “real” bank note of course, and prior to the financial crisis in 98 - when the exchange rate was around Rp2,200/USD - it was worth almost 50 cents. Hell: in those days you could actually buy somethin...

A couple of weeks back and I was filling up at the petrol station when this dude on a motorcycle turns up and starts to have a heated exchange with the petrol assistant. Although I’m not far from them, I can’t make out what the dispute is about. No big deal I think. They’ll soon be on their way. But I’m wrong. Cos in what seemed like a slow motion sequence from a shoot-out scene in a Quentin Tarantino film, the guy with the motorcycle suddenly pulls out a shooter from inside his jacket and starts waving it around like a right and utter lunatic.  No one ducks or runs surprisingly - and the few onlookers just stand rooted to the spot in complete amazement. A few seconds pass, and cool as you like, the guy just gets back on his bike and roars off.  Naturally curious, I go up to the petrol assistant and ask him what the dispute was about. “His fuel gage didn’t rise after he filled up. So he came back and told me I had cheated him.”  WTF! ------------------------ A few week...