Slentik

003 State of the Blog

2012-01-28T23:44:00.000-08:00

This week I've been getting at least one hit per day, sometimes more. That's a big improvement on previous weeks.
I figured out how to register on Technorati. They gave me 111 Authority to start, I'm now on 116, which I think is pretty good. But it looks like I would need to get over 500 before I start getting a lot of traffic from there. Even so, I got a few visitors from that site this week. Just for the record, I think my rank is 16,406.
Today I registered for Google Webmaster Tools and also for the advertising package. I figured I might as well make a little money if something I post here becomes really popular.
I've continued to answer questions on Yahoo Answers, but I don't know if anyone's visited from there. But I did get a few visits from Google searches, so I guess I must rank somewhere.
I think next week I'll register blogs with a few other free website providers just to direct some traffic to this site and for the backlinks. I'm not sure if that's a fair way to win readers, but I figure it's worth a try.
There's not a lot of current news on the site because I'm still transferring stuff from my old paid site, but that should be finished in a day or so. After that I'll be transferring other old stuff from another old site, but adding new original content as well.

010 Jakarta Street Food: Candy Sculptures

2012-01-28T01:05:00.000-08:00

Watch this video to see how to turn a lump of melted sugar into a butterfly or a horsie.
Some people are put off by the fact that he uses his hands and everything’s done a foot off the dusty ground. Indonesians are generally very clean when handling food and they often use thir hands, even with communal food. But they always wash their hands first and their fingers never touch their mouths. Regarding the second point, children themselves are only a couple of feet off the ground and go through stages where they have no qualms about eating mud pies and earth worms.
This is the second time I’ve posted a street food clip taken in a school yard. You can see the typical red and white uniform of the child standing next to the vendor.

001 Balinese Monkey Chant

2012-01-28T00:56:00.000-08:00

This clip from the movie Baraka shows a dance which has its origins in the Ramayana story. The Ramayana is an epic poem originating from India and is an important source of Hindu beliefs.
Although it has its origins in tradition, this dance is an expansion of a part of the original story. The main purpose is tourist entertainment, however this does not detract from the spectacle of watching a hundred or so men chanting in a group, at least some of them entering into a trance and adopting the identities of monkeys.
In Rama’s quest, he calls upon Hanuman the king of the monkeys for assistance. Hanuman in turn summons his army of monkeys. The dance represents the monkeys gathering for their king before a battle with the demons. In part of the story, Hanuman destroys the palace of the demon king by catching his own tail on fire and spreading the fire by running about the palace. If you attend a performance, you will find that it is much longer than this clip indicates, perhaps 15 minutes? At the end, a dancer representing Hanuman enters a trance state and performs a fire dance, kicking apart a fire, or fires and stamping on the coals. I still remember these details after 15 years of seeing it, it made such an impression on me.
The performance which I saw was at the main temple in Ubud, Bali. The performance in the clip seems to have taken place in Java at the Prambanan temple complex, near Yogyakarta. Although Bali is the only island where the majority of people are Hindu, there are quite a few Hindu villages in Central and East Java. Even so, you are unlikely to see this dance performed outside of Bali.
Among the footage of Prambanan are some images from the famous Buddhist temple of Borobodur, which is also near Yogyakarta, but quite a long distance from Prambanan. Both Borobudur and Prambanan are well worth a visit and each deserves a post in its own right. At the end of the clip, there is some footage of Mount Bromo, one of many volcanoes in Indonesia, but also one of the most accessible. It’s also located in Java, but a long way from Yogyakarta and the two temples.

001 82% Have No Bank Accounts

2012-01-28T00:51:00.000-08:00

Bank Indonesia is concerned that 82% of Indonesia’s rural population do not hold a bank account. A drive to increase the number of account holders began in February, but it yielded ‘only’ 480,000 new customers whereas they were hoping to attract over a million.
It would be interesting to know exactly how rural people actually handle their finances, don’t you think? I suppose that income flows are more steady because there are several harvests in a year, so there is not such a big need to save ahead of long periods of no income. Perhaps they prefer different ways of saving, such as physical gold (if that’s so, they’ll be cashed up now). Certainly, interest rates are low compared to what they have been and since so many banks failed during the Asian financial crisis, a bank deposit is not a great investment.
I’ll be doing some research on this, so please let me know if you can shed more light on it.

009 Jakarta Street Food: Roti Goreng (fried bread)

2012-01-27T00:47:00.000-08:00

Basically it’s a chocolate sandwich in batter, deep fried.
A very simple and popular snack.
What’s not to like about it?
Other than consideration for your arteries?

001 Rhoma Irama - Satria Bergitar

2012-01-27T00:38:00.000-08:00

Satria Bergitar has a bit too much talking and pantomime acting. But it has its moments. In this film Rhoma plays himself (as always), this time in his incarnation as medieval errant knight who has gone undercover as a wandering minstrel to infiltrate the Evil King’s court. His cunning disguise is a moustache!
This clip begins with Rhoma doing a song while holding a guitar with no strings! He is accompanied by some of the least enthusiastic dancers you are ever likely to see. The song drags on and several times seems to be about to come to an abrupt stop, but then continues. Eventually it comes to an abrupt stop and a baddie takes away his strange guitar-thing.
Next is a bizarre scene where the Bad King tries to seduce the Good King’s daughter but she puts his eye out with a knife. I don’t think he was expecting that move. Anyhow, he seems to be a very forgiving kind of guy, or else he’s the sort to make the best of adversity because instead of having her torn to pieces by wolves, in the next scene he’s had a splendid eye patch made for his now useless eye socket and he’s getting ready to marry the eye-gouging harridan. This guy has commendable persistence. Their entry into the throne room is heralded by a lady wearing clown make-up.
The clip ends with Rhoma performing another song. He has managed to get his hands on another weird stringless guitar, and has a back-up group which carries an assortment of other obscure and unplayable instruments. The choreography for this song consists of putting one foot in and one foot out and prancing around in a circle singing ‘woo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo’. Once you’ve seen this you will never forget it. Even the actors who are supposed to find this performance entertaining seem to be falling asleep. Maybe it’s a magic guitar that has a soporific effect on the enemy?
In the clip which follows, Rhoma is betrayed by the Good King’s son, who tears off Rhoma’s disguise. Everyone expresses shock that they didn’t realise that the guy with the moustache who looked exactly like Rhoma is actually – drumroll - Rhoma! There’s a duel and the Good King’s son wins it fairly, but just as he’s about to give Rhoma the coup-de-grace, his own father stabs him in the back! What sort of ‘Good King’ stabs anyone in the back, let alone his own son? Well, I was certainly surprised by that. We also discover that the guitar also has an in-built shotgun which the Bad King’s wife uses to good effect and then stops using.
After that, the film reverts to a talkfest and drags on to an eventual end. At least, I hope it ends – I’ve never watched it to it’s conclusion, I value my time slightly higher than that. At least this little part of the film is worth watching, at least for its weirdness. Considering the look of the film, I initially thought it was quite old, but in fact it’s much more recent than it looks - mid 1980’s.
You may be surprised to learn that Rhoma has not stopped making films. Well, he did stop for a long time, but he’s recently made another one in which he again plays himself – Dawai 2 Asmara. It seems to have been made as a vehicle for Rhoma’s son, Rhido Rhoma. Apart from an ‘eternal triangle’ love story, the plot is supposed to be about the old man encouraging his son to develop an updated form of dangdut to make it relevant to today’s audience. From the clip it looks like they’ve just tried to include some Bollywood elements. Rhido performs a cover version of his old man’s best selling song, Dawai Asmara:

Call me old fashioned, but I still prefer the original:

001 Sex and Government Agencies

2012-01-27T00:14:00.000-08:00

Three stories from a bit over a year ago. Each one seems to illustrate a slightly different facet of how the Indonesian bureaucracy is trying to come to terms with the sexual revolution that is raging through the country. The government sector shows an unhealthy willingness to regulate this part of people’s lives.
First, we have the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which has been given the task of blocking all internet porn sites. They claim to have blocked 90% of all porn sites from Indonesia servers, but some of the most popular ones are still accessible. Now it seems they intend to offer some kind of reward for people notifying them of porn sites which they haven’t blocked yet. It all sounds a bit like King Canute to me. There’s too much money in porn, and Indonesia is too big a market for those dealing in porn to give up so easily. It might be more effective if they gave some ground and just tried to control the worst offenders, which seems to work reasonably well in the West. Anyhow, there is a comment on that story which sums up the craziness of it:
So lets get this straight, Porn is illegal in Indonesia. Ministry of Communications is blocking all or at least 90% of porn sites on the Internet but since it is failing he now wants people to actively look for porn on the web and win a prize. So he wants kids and of course adults, enticed by the prize, to break the law by looking for porn and then turn themselves in? So now there is a competition to look for porn on the web…. sort of defeats the whole point doesn’t it? -Enakajah
Next, we have a 26 year old taekwando teacher who had sex with her 15 year old female student. As so often happens, the victim is punished. The girl was sent to an institution for ’sexual orientation’ classes. Meanwhile, the paedophile teacher gets let off the hook. Nothing surprising about that. The twist is, the teacher tracks the girl down and breaks her out of protective custody. I don’t think the prison break would have been as spectacular as I’d like to imagine it. It probably involved less use of taekwando skills and more of money being passed to a few strategically identified guards. Now the officials are nonplussed, they are not sure what to do about the teacher’s actions, whether they can prosecute her for it. Well, I have a suggestion – that they throw her in jail for interfering with a minor and abusing her position of trust. Of course that won’t happen as Indonesia doesn’t seem to have an age of consent, or at least it isn’t applied. Especially not in the case of people who call themselves imams and want to interfere with 12 year olds.
Finally, some common sense as the government overturned a judgement by a court in the Sumatran province of Jambi that would force teenage school girls to undertake a virginity test. What would posess lawmakers to come up with such an idea? Do they have no empathy, or do they take some smutty delight in such evil? Would they want to deny an education to girls who had been abused at home?
A similar thing happened in Jakarta when it became public that street children are often victims of sexual abuse. The police were proposing to round them all up and have them examined for abuse. Fortunately that scheme was eventually abandoned too.

001 Social Marketing - How to Gain an Edge

2012-01-27T00:02:00.000-08:00

Indonesia now boasts one of the largest groups of Facebook users in the world. Not all of the users are wealthy people, but most of the Indonesian members seem to use the service for pretty much the same reasons that people in the West do – for meeting new people, staying in contact with friends and family.
In this clip, we see another use, more creative than most – marketing through social networking – by this tukang becak (bicycle rickshaw driver). Ana has summarised the contents:
The name of the tukang becak is Hariadi or Haryadi? It’s pronounced the same anyway.
His family home also came from Facebook. It was given to him by an English tourist. Hariadi may have told some of his customers his unfortunate life story. His wife died in the great earthquake which hit Yogyakarta on 27 May 2006 and his house was destroyed. It was an English tourist who funded the development of his new home.
He’s a typical tukang becak who operates in Yogyakarta (friendly personality, will show you the touristry places, places to buy souvenirs etc), the difference is that he’s connected to Facebook and is actively using it not only for social networking, but also to market his services.
When he’s waiting for customers, he connects to facebook thru his mobile phone and makes friends from all over the world (the reporter says he has more than 800 facebook friends). While making friends, he also offers his services for taking them touring the city, when they visit Yogyakarta.
From Facebook, he learnt how to speak English and how to communicate with tourists. The cost of maintaining his Facebook friendships is expensive, but he accepts that extra cost knowing that the benefits are far greater. From his facebook friends he gets many recommendations (especially from foreign tourists) and his income is much more now than when he started.
My opinion : he’s a very smart, open-hearted and optimistic person who embraces new technology and has the courage to seize the opportunity to use facebook to market his services. He doesn’t feel malu (shy) in practicing English on the tourists, unlike many other Javanese.
As a Javanese, I notice a tendency for people to ’sell’ their poverty to tourists every time they get a chance. I remember when I was in Yogyakarta and Borobudur years ago. When we rode a becak, the story was typical - he’s poor, needs more money to send the kids to school, and income from becak was just not enough. When we rode a delman (horse cart), the story was the same.
The typical thinking of treating foreign people as a cash cow is totally unacceptable! But maybe it’s because they just do not have access to facebook, eh? Hehe… From Facebook they should learn more about global friendship and
how to appreciate and value themselves.
Indonesians generally have a tendency to ‘cry poverty’. It’s one of the less appealing habits. They seem to want to present themselves as being from a ‘poor’ country, when in fact the middle classes and elite are generally far more wealthy than people holding similar status in Western countries. Even the poor, in Java and Bali, are in much more comfortable circumstances than those I have seen in the Phillipines, Vietnam, India.
I notice a big difference among becak drivers. It’s a common sight in many small cities to see them sleeping in their rigs by the side of the road. Sometimes they don’t even want to stir if I need a ride. Of course, they may be resting after a hard job, or they may be waiting for a regular customer who would be put out if they weren’t there when needed. But there’s also social pressure to be seen not to be making too much money. There are only a few like Pak Hari who find creative ways to build their businesses. Even without the house being donated to him, I’m sure he is one becak driver who will make good.
My first exprience with a becak was in Yogya, many years ago. The driver was rake-thin and sported a diamond in his front tooth, which was made of gold. He worked hard and was obviously doing well from it.

001 Jakarta - Tips for First Time Visitors

2012-01-26T23:31:00.001-08:00

Jakarta can be a bit intimidating for the first-time visitor. Its reputation precedes it as a big industrial city with few concessions made for tourists. It’s hot, dirty, smelly, polluted, busy, anarchic. When you land there, you’ll find it’s not quite as bad as you thought. Sure, it’s all those negative things, but not as badly as other cities I’ve been to: for ‘hot’ try Dubai; dirty – London; smelly – Bankok; polluted – Santiago; busy – Tokyo; anarchic – Caracas. Even so, it’s a bit overwhelming to deal with all that AND an unfamiliar culture too. So here are my basic tips. In no particular order of importance. I intend to add to them in future as I think of more:
1. Have the Right Attitude Patience, calm, humour. You’ll need these virtues in spades. You will be tested by misunderstandings, people promising and not delivering, services not being available when you want them, the heat and humidity. It’s considered very poor form to show anger. Actually, it’s considered poor form to show any emotion at all. Indonesians work hard to maintain a calm atmosphere, you will lose face if you disrupt their calm. Anger can get results, but it can easily destroy relationships. Relationships are the basis of business here.
2. Changing Money Credit cards are useful up to a point. You’ll need cash at least for the taxis and most entertainments. Change a small amount at the airport in the arrivals hall, enough for a couple of days until you can get to a money changer. I normally use the money changer in Gedung Setia Budi Building as it’s central. There’s also a good one in Pasar Raya Blok M. The rates in Jakarta are the best in the country, so if you’re in transit to an outer island, change as much as you’re going to need in Jakarta. It’s also a nice feeling to have millions in your pocket (even if it’s only rupiah). Those rupiah aren’t worth much outside Indonesia. After you leave, you may be able to change them at Changi Airport if you have a connecting flight there.
3 Carry your Passport at All Times Everyone carries an ID card and the police don’t make an exception for you. They often set up roadblocks and they will want to check your ID. If you don’t have it on you, you will have to pay a small ‘fine’. A photocopy will not be sufficient. Bring a photocopy in your luggage in case the original gets stolen, but carry the original with you. Don’t put it in your shirt pocket, find a safe place for it.
4. Don’t do Anything you’d be Ashamed to do at Home You’ll get plenty of opportunities to do stupid things. Try not to do them. Don’t pick a fight with the scrawny annoying kid who sells cigarettes around the corner from your hotel. Yes, you will beat him up. Yes, 20 of his friends will be waiting for you tomorrow night as you walk back from the pub. They will likely have machetes, but they probably won’t kill you.
5. Don’t bother Bargaining for Small Things In Bali you bargain for everything. Jakarta is more businesslike. People here don’t have much time for bargaining and prices are generally as low as the merchant can offer. Most middle class Indonesians don’t bother bargaining for small purchases. As a foreigner, you’re considered at least middle class, regardless of how wealthy you actually think you are. You’re rich compared to most Indonesians. You can bargain clothes and souvenirs – clothes are usually fixed price, but it’s worth asking. There’s sometimes a big mark up on souvenirs, and they’re more expensive here than Bali, so give it a try.

008 Jakarta Street Food: Deep Fried Pasta and Sausage Omelette on a Stick

2012-01-26T06:57:00.001-08:00

Amri has gone back to school again for this clip. The vendor has two snacks, neither of which I have seen before. He’s obviously a creative guy.
The first is some kind of deep fried pastry. The vendor uses a pasta machine to make the pastry strips. It looks like he’s making fetuccini until he drops it in the oil. Anyhow, these pasta machines are quite common, they use them to make the pastry for pisang molen (banana wrapped in pastry). They don’t seem to use them for making pasta or noodles, though.
The second one is cheaply made sausages (sosis) which have been cut into quarters lengthways and skewered. The white ones are chicken, the red is beef, the one made of quartered balls is bakso (meat balls) and there is a yellow one which may be chicken nugget. All are deep fried and then wrapped in a thin omelette.

001 Using Traditional Medicine to Beat Cancer

2012-01-26T06:48:00.000-08:00

The Herald Sun reports Australian Rules Football great Jim Stynes has been in Bali trying a traditional treatment to cure his cancer. The treatment includes smoke and massage.
The article notes that this is only one of the treatments which Mr Stynes is trying. He has been on a Western medicine course which includes chemotherapy, but he has been trying a number of other methods which include coffee enemas and drinking his own urine.
Even if the Balinese smoke and massage doesn’t cure the cancer, it sure sounds more relaxing after all those other harsh cures. The article reports him as saying that at least it’s fixed some of his old sporting injuries, which was something Western medicine couldn’t do.
Mr Stynes is still alive and doing well at 14 January 2012.

001 Facts and Lies about Indonesia

2012-01-26T06:46:00.000-08:00

The Telegraph has an article listing a few interesting ‘facts’ about Indonesia. There were a few things that I didn’t know before, such as where the name came from.
There is one significant non-fact, where the reporters say that Indonesia is a NATO country – except that they probably meant to say it’s an OPEC country – except that it’s not an OPEC country anymore.
And there’s at least one outright lie, where they say Indonesian textile workers have been known to work 36 hour shifts. This is completely absurd. Any factory owner who worked his operators that hard would soon find himself without any workers. Nobody works more than a few hours at a time because they take at least five breaks for prayers in the course of a day.
It’s like saying that household maids work 24 hours every day because they sleep at their employer’s house and prefer to watch tv than go outside.

007 Jakarta Street Food - Dawet Hitam, Wedang Ronde and Kupat Tahu

2012-01-26T01:22:00.000-08:00

This clip showcases three delicious dishes, I’ll discuss them in order of appearance.
Dawet Hitam
The basic ingredient is glutinous rice flour. The black colouring is merang, which is made from burnt rice stalks. A green variation of this dish is coloured using pandan or suji leaves. As you can see in the clip, a great deal of syrup is added along with evaporated milk and ice. All served up just as the call to prayers starts.
Wedang Ronde
This is normally eaten to protect against the cold (yes, it does get cold in Indonesia sometimes). There are big differences in the way this dish is made depending on the region. The one shown is, of course, Jakarta style. It’s made with water, ginger and cane sugar, so it’s quite a clear broth. To this they add condensed milk, maizena (corn starch), kolang-kaleng (palm fruit), green bean and sweet bread. Further East in Java, the water is made from sugar and ginger, so it’s brown. In this variety, the broth contains sticky rice flour balls containing peanut and sugar, and smaller balls that are just made of flour. In both types you have some nuts floating around too. Either way, it’s the perfect dish for a rainy night.
Kupat Tahu
This is a specialty of Magelang and surrounding areas. As you can see, it contains fried tofu. The white stuff she’s cutting up from the banana leaf packet is a rice ball. It’s served in a clear, sweet garlic and chili flavoured soup with bean sprouts. The variation from Cirebon uses peanut sauce and is called ketoprak. A further variation from further West again is made with santan sauce and uses labu (pumpkin) as the vegetable. This one is known as ketupat sayur.
So, even after you’ve tasted all the different foods available in Indonesia, you will have to go back to try the regional variation of each one. It’s a delicious lifetime occupation for those up for the challenge.

001 Magic Goat or Animal Cruelty (NSFW)

2012-01-26T01:10:00.000-08:00

I touched a raw nerve when I sent this clip to Ana, Aboutindo’s resident translator, for comment. I knew she’s a dog lover, but I didn’t realise her empathy extends to goats too. Anyhow, here’s her response:
This clip is ridiculous! That goat was one of the poor animals selected for Idul Adha sacrifice at Jombang, East Java. That line at the neck is the line used as a guide for cutting.
They said the slaughterman was a very experienced one, had slaughtered more than 100 goats. The process was also done in accordance with Islamic laws which dictate that you have to pray first before killing (halal).
Anyhow, this goat happened to still be alive 8 hours after being ’slaughtered’. But instead of blaming the butcher who screwed up and just tortured the goat, the word went out that this goat has supernatural power (usually the animals just died without trouble), or maybe (this is my opinion)…. maybe they are afraid that somehow the power of an angel, or God’s grace is protecting the goat from a quick and painless death.
Hmm.. how come someone there didn’t think of making the crowd really scared, like… this goat’s soul was protected by the Prophet Ismael himself! So, it cannot be slaughtered, that’s why it’s still alive although it should be dead.
Or, someone didn’t say, omg! We slaughtered wrong goat! This goat isn’t Muslim! It must be a Christian goat, because it resurrects after death
Instead of quickly re-slaughtering the goat to finish it off, they stupidly kept it alive. Surely the wound tortured the poor creature, at least it must have been dizzy or something!
The guy in the clip said: they have conducted the correct ritual of Idul Adha slaughtering (including praying and cutting the veins), so for the moment they just do nothing except to wait for the goat to die (Let God decide whether this goat will live or die eventually)
Meanwhile the hansip took the initiative and started collecting money from people wanting to see the magic, dying goat.
One of the Idul Adha Sacrifice committee members said on the clip that only when the goat really really shows the signs of being alive, will they again repeat the ritual.
I believe the goat died that day. Poor animal! And I agree with one of the YouTube commentators who condemned this pathetic TV station (the logo is on the screen) for broadcasting this news as ‘KAMBING AJAIB’ supernatural… Oh come on, don’t you have any other angle to report that news? why didn’t the reporter contact a licensed vet to take a look whether the butcher did the job right!
And I bet the TV broadcasted this item during the ‘family entertainment’ news segment… Arrrrgh!
I must say in my defense that I didn’t notice how unsteady the goat actually looks. Watching it a second time, I can now see it’s barely able to stand. I was more intrigued by the way such a simple thing as a stray goat can become a huge (local) tourist attraction. I shouldn’t really be so surprised - even I can draw a small crowd in certain parts of Java, just by being me!
It’s almost Idul Adha time again, I hope to bring you another interesting story about it in a few weeks. Maybe I should make a separate category just for goats?

001 Painting from a Bamboo Scaffold in Jakarta

2012-01-25T02:55:00.000-08:00

A bit of bamboo scaffolding on a building. Nothing interesting about that…

Scaffolding in place, but what's this?

Hang on, what’s this?

Bamboo scaffolding

Some guys on that scaffolding way up there? It looks a bit flimsy, but bamboo is makes good scaffoding, doesn’t it. Anyhow, they’re wearing safety harnesses aren’t they? Aren’t they?

Spiderman

Nope, this is Indonesia.

005 Jakarta Street Food - Cimol

2012-01-25T02:32:00.000-08:00

Basically flavoured dough balls, cimol is pempek without the fish. Cheap and tasty, though.

001 Durian - Beware of Cheap Prices

2012-01-25T00:48:00.000-08:00

This video should serve as a general warning for those bargain hunters who love to brag about the cheap deals they find when travelling in Indonesia. There is definitely good value for money to be found, prices are generally much lower than in any Western country. But alarm bells should ring when you find something that’s much cheaper than the going rate.
This clip deals with deceptive practices in durian retailing. In Indonesia, the farmers are paid by the tree. The trader gives the farmer an agreed amount and the farmer strips the tree of all the fruit. The problem is that the fruit on any tree doesn’t ripen at the same time, so the trader will get a mixture of ripe and unripe fruit. The unripe fruit is tasteless but it can be sold to make candy or durian sauce. Even so, the value of unripe durian is far less than the ripe one.
To give the appearance of ripeness, some traders will inject the fruit with a mixture of syrup and dye. They choose a particular spot, just above where they will later cut the skin for the buyer to sample. This is done after waiting a few weeks for the hard flesh to soften and give the appearance of ripeness. The reporter doesn’t say whether the dye is food grade, but since the trader said they normally use printer cartridges to inject the fruit because of the cost of syringes – I don’t think they worry about such things as whether the dye is healthy.
One way to tell that the fruit is ripe is the presence of flies attracted by the foul smell. This is why the vendors sometimes expose some of the fruit, although the sight of them almost puts me off ever tasting durian again. Here are some more tips on how to identify good durian.
Price is the best indicator of quality. If you pay a fair price, the vendor is usually happy to replace the fruit if you find that it is not good. This is because he will have already covered his costs as well as his margin in the price you paid.
Click here for another clip showing durian vendors.

001 Republik Twitter

2012-01-24T18:25:00.000-08:00

A film to be released on 16 February will feature Indonesia's obsession with Twitter as its main device. It is unlikely to be released outside of Indonesia. The genre is romantic comedy, however it may be of interest to students of social media to understand why Twitter is such a big thing in Indonesia and explore differences in usage.

A review of the film: twitter inspired republik set to hit cinemas in indonesia next month

Official website of the film: #republiktwitter

004 Jakarta Street Food - Bakso

2012-01-24T00:20:00.000-08:00

Obama’s favourite food. When he was visiting Indonesia, he made a big thing about his memories of eating bakso as a boy. I think the intention was to endear himself to normal Indonesian people. It seemed to pay off, during my trip, taxi drivers would only say good things about him. In fact, Indonesians already had a positive attitude towards him. One lady I met named her son Obama shortly after he was inaugurated.
Anyhow, bakso gained much attention after receiving the Presidential approval. It’s a simple dish, easy to make, cheap, available everywhere and much loved by Indonesian people.
In the version shown in the clip, two types of noodles are shown – mie (yellow noodles) and soun (glass noodles). I guess the main purpose is to give a variation in texture. The large balls are normally coarsely groundand sometimes contain a surprise such as an egg or a piece of chicken liver. The smaller balls are fine grained ground beef.
The customer drenches his bakso with chili sauce and soy. Probably a good thing as these balls look somewhat rubbery. Who knows what binding chemicals were used to make these compact meatballs? There are better dishes to sample for Indonesian visitors.

011 Dangdut - Elvy Sukaesih

2012-01-24T00:16:00.000-08:00

I’ve written about the self-styled King of Dangdut (Rhoma Irama) before, now it’s the turn of the Queen. Elvy has been making music continuously since the 70s. You have to wait till three minutes into the clip to hear her singing. Before that there is some plot development and you also get to hear the Indonesian version of the ’Happy Birthday’ song. During Elvy’s song, you can see her trademark wink and her ability to dance (somewhat) in elevated stiletto heels. Don’t bother watching any more of the clip after she stops singing, it’s just dialogue. We at Aboutindo are hoping to start making clips of our own soon, so you will only get the good bits when we’ve figured that out.
Meanwhile, here’s another Elvy song from the good old days (sorry about the pixillated picture quality, but the sound is reasonable, we’re working on finding a better one):

In this clip, the guy (an actor named Kasino) dreams of singing a duet with Elvy. The singing is quite good.
As the decades passed, Elvy’s voice has stood up quite well. She has a huge fan base throughout Asia (including a big following in Japan). These fans have mostly grown up with her and to them she is as attractive as ever. Unfortunately for those who came late to the Elvy phenomenon, she seems to have continued to see herself as the sexy singer/dancer. After 40 years as an entertainer, this is not a good look:

I’m not sure exactly what’s going on in that clip, but this pharoah has strange tastes – consorting with scary middle aged women and getting massaged by dwarves. I guess it shows the depravity of aristocratic tastes.
When you think about it, though, 40 years in any business is quite an achievement. There aren’t many in the entertainment industry that can claim that sort of longevity. In fact, I’ve shown you the worst of her recent clips. Even so, her singing is still quite good. So I’ll leave you with one of her better ones from not long ago:

002 State of the Blog - 500% Increase in Traffic

2012-01-22T23:09:00.000-08:00

This week I did very little to promote the blog. I put the url in a couple of answers I gave on 'answers.com' and I also started to claim the blog on Technorati. By the way: KPH9ARNE9C5U
Sorry about that, Technorati told me to publish that code in a blog post to complete the claim process.
Anyhow, I still managed to get 5 hits from various places, mostly from Russia, it seems someone linked to my blog in a Tweet. All very mysterious.
I'm continuing the process of transferring my posts from my old blog to here. It will probably take a couple of weeks to move all of them as I'm editing them as I go, so not much time for new posts.
Some of the news that I would have reported on includes:

The Raid had a showing at the Sundance Film Festival, an unlikely venue but yay for them;
A guy who professes atheism was arrested on a charge of blasphemy for stating that God does not exist, although I suspect the arrest may have more to do with the civil unrest he caused by doing so;
A species of monkey which had been thought extinct has been rediscovered; and
Desperate and possibly lethal attempts have been made to stop people from riding on the roofs of trains.

You can catch up on those stories by tapping the links. I'll be posting more original stuff soon. Thanks for reading.

001 It’Snot What You Think – Unfortunate Advertising Positioning

2012-01-21T06:59:00.000-08:00

Cosmetics counter

I took a double take as I walked past this counter in the basement of Jakarta’s upmarket Senayan City shopping mall. Let’s take a closer look:

Let all eyes stare at you

“Let all eyes stare at you”. Well, they won’t be able to resist staring at you with that thing hanging under your nostril. The apparent booger is actually a keyhole for the doors set into the front of the display. It just happens to be in a very unfortunate location.

Let’s not even mention that nobody wants other people to ’stare’ at them. Look, notice, gaze, regard – almost anything but ’stare’. Then there’s the fact that Indonesian ladies prefer to have a pale complexion, so why would the copywriter use the word ‘baked’? And finally, we won’t query why it is so important to have the cabinet doors at the front of the display, thereby breaking the advertisement into four sections with three lines running through the picture. No, we won’t discuss these things, but rather check out the advertisement right next to the first one:

Soft, fine, perfect

Yes, perfect positioning of the booger/keyhole again! To do it once is careless, but twice in a row makes me wonder if they did it on purpose, but I don’t think so. It’s just thoughtless lack of care for the client.

BTW, I’m sure you noticed the phallus right next to her face? “Inspire from flower petal” indeed! More like stamen. And please, if you’re going to be sophisticated and use English, get the grammar right.

001 Crime - Hypnotists Rob a Cashier

2012-01-21T01:10:00.000-08:00

This CCTV clip is like a silent movie. Dialogue is unnecessary in this case, where the action unfolds entirely within the camera’s range of view.
A typical Jakarta restaurant, empty, and maybe mid-afternoon, when most of the other customers have left and the staff are tired and ready to relax. There is an elderly cashier and perhaps four staff. The hypnotist and his female accomplice come to the counter to pay for their meal. From their appearance and manner, they seem to be Indians (there is a large Indian community in Jakarta). While the woman distracts the staff, the hypnotist sets to work on the cashier, confusing her with various requests concerning money, eventually ‘helping’ her by helping himself to the cash drawer, even putting his had right up into the drawer. Eventually they get what they came for and the cashier is left to puzzle over what happened to the days takings.
Restaurants are an easy target for hypnotists. The routine of restaurants is predictable, they are easy to ‘case’. There is almost certainly going to be cash in the till.
Hypnotic fraud is a common means of robbery in Indonesia. Violent crime is still very unusual, although there has been an increase in the number of shootings in Jakarta recently. Even so, Jakarta must rank as one of the safest cities in the world, for its size.
Hypnotists generally work around train stations and bus stops, places where people might be a little confused or dazed. They pick their targets carefully, usually going for elderly people. However there are many cases where they will sexually assault a female victim while also relieving her of her cash and valuables. If you are an English native speaker, you are far less likely to be victimised by the hypnotists because of the language and cultural barrier and the natural caution which most travellers have in a strange country. But don’t discount the possibility that it can happen to you.

010 Dangdut - Lilin Herlina

2012-01-20T23:35:00.000-08:00

We at Aboutindo are debating the second of Joko’s personal selection of dangdut vids. I consider Lilin Herlina to be somewhat of a ‘girl next door’ type, whereas Ana thinks she’s raunchy. Considering she doesn’t dance at all, I thought a bit of slow tempo music would be a nice contrast after all the Dewi Persik vids I posted before Xmas. Still, Ana insists. With a dispute like that, I’ll leave it up to you to judge.
Highlights of this clip include:

The soldiers whispering in the corner of the stage. What are those guys saying? And why are they whispering? I’d love to know.
The guy playing with the toddler at the back of the stage. Ahh, so cute.
The drummer with a fag hanging permanently from his lips.
The tambourine guy who actually looks like he’s contributing something, unlike the one from Sonata .
Members of the audience passing her oleander twigs (instead of money) which she accepts and later throws on the floor (Indonesian girls don’t really appreciate flowers, guys). And,
The strange looking orange haired guy with the black moustache us the MC. They have a far more dominant presence than someone with a similar role in the West. I figure it’s partly traditional (the dalang, or puppet master) and partly due to the fact that there is always a line-up of singers, some of whom need back-up singing and even encouragement.

At some point, Lilin had her hair cut shorter. It definitely changes her looks. Here’s another laidback Lilin Herlina clip so you can see:

010 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Final Battle

2012-01-20T23:24:00.000-08:00

Here is the first part of the final battle, where the second bad guy gets his come-uppance. And one of the good guys too.
The gangsters are rather upset with Diah after what she did to Donna. She made things worse by waiting around for them to come home and starting this shoot-out. Now Rhoma and his detective buddy have come to help out.
The gangster on guard duty waits for the detective to come up close and shoot him. There’s plenty of gunfire, Rhoma does a funny pose at 3:02 and then demonstrates a strange way of running (maybe because of his high heels?). Next there are a couple of tedious fight scenes, where the outcome is never in doubt, but the bad guy in the first ends up lying on barbed wire and in the second over-reacts to every punch to comic effect.
Rhoma is about to rescue Debby, but forgets all about his daughter when he sees Diah get shot. For unknown reasons, Bonang – who can hit a tiny camera with a shot from the hip – is unable to hit a slow running Rhoma, except for a flesh wound to the arm which is soon forgotten. Diah gets the reward due all women who challenge man’s authority. Rhoma is incensed at losing an addition to his wife collection and gives Bonang a firey death. Why are they storing gasoline at a boat yard? Don’t the boats use diesel, like in every other country?

In our 11th and final clip, Rhoma deals with the last gangster, Herman. It seems pathetic that the climax of the film should be Rhoma beating up on a disabled person. But Herman makes a good show of it. I was also a bit surprised by 1:28, where they roll around on the ground together. Is that a nod to the gay section of the audience? I’m just asking.
It all ends with Rhoma tipping Herman into the well. Herman freefalls for 7 seconds, which means the well is 240 metres deep! And it’s dry! That’s incredible that they should sink a well so deep in the swampy ground of North Jakarta, right inside a shipyard, and not find water.
And that’s the end of the film. Rhoma is reunited with his wife and daughter, which is to say - one of his wives and one of his daughters. I’ve already checked Google, but Delsy Linasari who plays Debby doesn’t appear. Maybe her parents used an assumed name for her and she went the way of most child actors (into obscurity) after that?
I’m pleased to say that this is the first English language synopsis for this film. I’m also glad that it’s finished. I feel like I’ve been living in Rhoma’s pocket these past few weeks and it’s not a comfortable place to be. Anyhow, there’s plenty of action and variety and certainly plenty of laughs in this film.
Is there anything we can take away from the movie? Rhoma behaves in a reckless and agressive manner thoughout. From the very beginning, he gets himself involved in someone else’s fight, bringing disaster on his family. Having gained the respect of the police, he refuses to call on their assistance when his family is attacked. Instead, he tries to solve the problem by himself, leading to bigger problems. In fact, it leads to the death of an innocent person when he participates in a bank robbery. In the midst of this carnage, he drops everything and orders his wife to make arrangements so that he can perform a concert. When he is almost assassinated by a music lover (joke), he returns to reality and joins with the police to rescue his daughter. However, it is not clear whether he is more interested in rescuing his daughter or sharing some tender moments with a woman who is not his wife or relative (haram). Accordingly, my conclusion? Pure exploitation.

009 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Cat Fight

2012-01-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

This film has had just about everything – kidnapping, sex slave trading, rape, child abuse, bank robbery, car chase. With this scene we can add a cat fight into the mix. It’s a sure crowd pleaser.
As we can see, the girls are tired and emotional after a long day. Donna is having her period (she asked Diah to give her kerokan, and she’s put Salonpas – a pain reliever – on her temples) The baby has been a nuisance ever since they kidnapped her. But now, when she politely declines a second glass of water, Donna shows the same care her own mother must have lavished on her and attempts to push the glass down the little girl’s throat. This causes Diah to go nuts and the fight is on!
Diah has the best of it until Donna pulls out a switchblade. But you can guess how it’s going to end as soon as Diah notices the trident that just happens to be lying next to her.
It’s a short scene, but memorable.

009 Dangdut - Shinta and Arlan Sing Aduhai

2012-01-20T22:56:00.000-08:00

Joko gave me this and a whole bundle of other music clips when I was in Java. I’ll upload them over the next few months.
It’s a very sweet version of this very sweet song. I don’t know anything about the performers. As you can see, Shinta is absolutely gorgeous. Arlan’s voice is a bit weak. The smoke that’s rising isn’t from a fog machine, it’s kretek (clove cigarette) smoke.
The song was written by Rhoma Irama, who we’ve been featuring quite a lot of lately through his old 80’s movie Badai di Awal Bahagia. Here’s his version of Aduhai from back in the good old days (can’t remember the name of the film for now):

Rhoma’s son, Ridho has taken to covering his father’s songs. I guess he saves on copywrite fees. In his version of Aduhai, he sings the duet by himself, which is a bit strange (there’s no activity in this clip, just a picture of Ridho:

Lyrics with translation (plus small surprise) after the jump:

If you want to sing along, but want to know what you’re singing, here are the (rather intimate) lyrics:
Male:
Indahnya, indahnya aduhai
<Beautiful oh so beautiful>
Female:
Manisnya, manisnya aduhai
<Sweet oh so sweet>
Duet:
Saat-saat memadu cinta, Saat-saat yang paling indah
Kata-kata bak mutiara, Kata-kata dalam bercinta
<moments when we share love, moments which most beautiful
words like the pearls, words when we make love>
Female :
Mesranya, mesranya aduhai
<Close, oh we’re so close>
Pria:
Rasanya, rasanya aduhai
<Emotion, oh such (strong) emotion>
Female : La-la
Pria: Hm-hm
(2X)
Female : La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Male : La-la-la-la-la-la
Female:
Menyanyi, bersama menyanyi, mencurahkan rasa cinta dalam hati
<Let’s sing, let’s sing together, expressing the love from the hearts>
Male:
Bersemi, semoga bersemi, tumbuhlah dan mekarlah cinta sejati
<Spring, let it spring, let it Grow and blossom, the true love>
Female:
Indahnya, indahnya aduhai
<Beautiful oh so beautiful>
Male:
Manisnya, manisnya aduhai
<Sweet oh so sweet>
Duet:
Saat-saat memadu cinta, saat-saat yang paling indah
Kata-kata bak mutiara, kata-kata dalam bercinta
<moments when we share love, moments which most beautiful
words like the pearls, words when we make love>
Male:
Mesranya, mesranya aduhai
<Close, oh we’re so close>
Female:
Rasanya, rasanya aduhai
<Emotion, oh such (a strong) emotion>
Male : La-la
Wanita: Hm-hm
(2X)
Male : La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Female : La-la-la-la-la-la
Male:
Sang bunga tersenyum merekah, gembira menyambut tiba musim cinta
<The flower smiles wide, gladly to greet the love season coming>
Female:
Semuanya nampak gembira, seakan turut merasa bahagia
<Everything looks happy, looks like they can feel the gladness>
Here’s a song which is also called Aduhai. Although its a duet, it has a different tune and different lyrics. It was written by Reynold Panggabean, who you see at the start of the clip. The guy in the clip is Benigno, who hasn’t been in the media much since he was outed as being gay, though I don’t know if that was the matter which finished his career, even in Indonesia it's not a career stopper. Check out his expression at 2:25 hehe. The best part of the clip is the dancers, who wear some strange tissue paper- like skirt over their clothes, they do a funny dance:

006 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Shoot Out

2012-01-20T20:26:00.000-08:00

This clip marks the point in the film where things start to go bad for the kidnappers.
We open with the child being held at knifepoint, which I think is a bit more security than absolutely necessary. Rhoma tells the guys at the safe to stop filling their swags because they already have enough loot! Next, one brave satpam (guard) decides to fight it out. One of the bank robbers saves Rhoma’s life by shooting the satpam, and then shoots him again when the satpam aims his pistol at him. The satpam hams up his death scene. Rhoma takes exception to all this and gives his rescuer a good talking to. Then we have a demonstration of superb marksmanship as the robber shoots from the hip to take out the camera. I thought the idea is to kill the cameras at the start of the robbery, but there you go.
The police show up and the nasi goreng vendor doesn’t even turn around to look. I don’t know what he’s selling, because that hand cart explodes in spectacular style. These days a lot of food vendors use lpg for fuel, but back in the 1980’s, I’m pretty sure it was still charcoal. I guess the budget didn’t extend to exploding cars, so we have an exploding kaki lima (hand cart). Rhoma takes out one of the robbers and then realises the police aren’t going to listen to him while he’s pointing a sub-machine gun at them.
Through all the crossfire, one of the bad guys has been sitting at the jeep’s wheel, waiting for orders. Someone finally puts this idiot out of his misery which spurs the mute robber to action. We get to see what the traffic was like in North Jakarta back then. In fact, it’s not much better than now. The busses are just as battered and everything moves slowly, including the cars involved in the chase. There were a lot of sedans (today more vans and 4WD lookalikes) and almost no motorcycles. The streetscape looks just the same today. Rhoma and the mute robber lose the cops when the police stop for a red traffic light.

001 Advertising - Bad Hair Day

2012-01-20T18:15:00.000-08:00

This funny Indonesian advertisement with the surprise ending has been doing the rounds lately. I found it on Neatorama, who got it from Dark Roasted Blend.

005 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Rhoma Robs a Bank

2012-01-20T18:10:00.000-08:00

With his daughter’s life at stake, Rhoma carries obeys his kidnappers and participates in a bank robbery.
For some reason, the satpam (guard) does not react to the jeep screeching to a halt right outside the bank’s doors. He doesn’t even look up when five guys carrying gunny sacks storm into the foyer. This is perhaps the most realistic part of the film. Satpams are not noted for their bravery and are commonly ignored by people coming and going from the buildings they supposedly guard. Unlike in the West, they are not recruited from retired police or military personnel, but are usually just local guys who would otherwise be unemployed. There are some exceptions, of course.
Once inside, Rhoma does a very poor job as a robber. This will lead to an unfortunate outcome. By doing an unprofessional job, he puts at risk the lives of himself and innocent people. The satpam who escapes up the stairs comes back later, only to be shot dead as a consequence of Rhoma’s dithering. However, he has a commanding voice. One staff member throws his hands in the air and freezes when Rhoma says ‘excuse me’.
We get an insight into Rhoma’s fan base when granny is the only one among all the staff and customers to identify him.
From what I’ve seen of Indonesian banks, there’s hardly any need to open the safe. Usually there are piles of cash bundled up in bricks. Maybe that’s why there are so few real bank robberies – the highest denomination note is worth $US10, which means you need a wheelbarrow to move any sizeable amount of cash.

004 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Rhoma Breaks Out

2012-01-18T23:02:00.000-08:00

A lot has happened since we left the children clapping in part 3. Having established Rhoma’s credentials as a Dangdut Superstar, we need to see him as a family man, personally building a swing after which he sings a duet with second wife Ricca Rachim. The voice actually belongs to the lovely Rita Sugiarto, who’s had a long music career and deserves a post in our “Dangdut” section when I get around to it. Anyhow, the song’s a bit of a filler, watch it at your own risk (saccarine sweetness warning):

Fortunately (for us), the family bliss ends when the ‘very smart’ child allows herself to be kidnapped. You see, since he escaped from prison, Herman has vowed revenge against Rhoma. He tells the teacher that Rhoma’s in hospital and Herman has come to bring her to see him. In fact, Rhoma was busy – perhaps visiting his first wife… or his third? Amazingly, after demanding a ransom, Herman shows up at Rhoma’s house that very night and offers to set things right. But Rita won’t talk to him while her husband’s away. Too bad, because when Rhoma goes to pay the ransom he gets beaten to a pulp and kidnapped himself. Just to show us how really nasty Herman’s gang is, we see them exporting a group of girls to an uncertain fate in Singapore (maids? the horror!). One of the girls, Diah, misses the boat after one of the gang tries to rape her, so she’s given the responsibility of keeping Rhoma’s brat quiet. This is the occasion for another song from Rita Sugiarto. It a bit ponderous and the lyrics don’t fit the stanzas all the time, but here it is, if you must watch it:

This brings us to the current clip (at the top), where Rhoma punches a hole in his cell to get a good look at what they’re doing to his daughter. I shouldn’t laugh, but seeing him clutching helplessly at Herman cracked me up. The bad guys don’t seem quite so bad when they have so much trouble just catching a child. I really thought for a moment the director would actually suspend the little girl over the well. I believe he would have done it if it had been technically possible. Anyhow, Rhoma is told that he has to rob a bank, and he agrees to it.

003 Badai di Awal Bahagia - Adu Domba

2012-01-18T22:54:00.000-08:00

If you’ve been watching so far, you’ll know the bad guys have busted Herman out of prison. After that we get to watch what seems like hours of Rhoma’s home movies showing what a good family man he is, and he sings a duet with his current favourite wife and their irritating daughter.
This clip has no relationship to the rest of the film, except to demonstrate Rhoma’s credentials as a star. When I read the title of the song, Adu Domba, I translated it literally as “oh, sheep”. In fact, the phrase is an idiom. Domba can mean sheep, but also ram. The idiom refers to a situation where two strong men are made to fight each other, usually for the benefit of whoever instigated the fight. These lyrics have nothing to do with the film’s plot, though.
Some interesting features of this clip include the drummer who doesn’t use sticks, the exceptional flautist (why is he the most charismatic guy in the group?), the crazy medieval style costumes, Rhoma’s beret and the mincing dance steps which the band make, especially the guy on the tambourine. How do you get a job as tambourinist? That guy looks completely superfluous. Rhoma does a good job of singing, which is something he should concentrate on.
At the end of the song, we have a weird segue to a classroom full of kids clapping. It’s a little unsettling as we were expecting a bigger crowd to be applauding Rhoma. Instead, we see it’s his daughter getting the applause. The teacher congratulates her for her singing and also for her dancing and asks her where she learnt to dance? “Nobody taught me, I just watched Pappa”… hmmm, so she’s saying Rhoma dances like a girl? Anyhow, the teacher thinks the girl is so clever she deserves another round of applause. See the disturbing mannequins in the background? They’re used to teach the children how to dress in the “Islamic style”. I guess the school is funded by Saudi money. Anyhow, you can still find mannequins like that in cheap clothing stores, they still make them like that.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the song.

002 Badai di Awal Bahagia -

2012-01-18T22:32:00.000-08:00

After the first scene in this movie, the bad guy (Herman) who got left behind was arrested and thrown in jail. Rhoma did his civic duty and identified him. We were also subjected to some sickening scenes of domestic bliss between Rhoma, one of his wives and their chubby toddler daughter. But Herman doesn’t like prison life and decides he wants to leave. Instead of leaving prison in the usual way (paying the governer and a few guards a fat bribe and then walking out), these baddies have to do things the hard way.
The scene opens outside Cipinang Prison. This location used to be a famous hang out place in the days before nice air conditioned malls. So the two of Herman’s collaborators pose as lovers as they wait for him to break out. Ever the ham actor, he waits for the spotlight to shine on him before he makes a break for the wall. I won’t spoil the rest of the clip for you, but in case you’re confused, there’s another escapee who follows Herman out, but doesn’t make it over the wall. But do watch out for 0:44, where the lady in the green dress is caught unprepared.
There’s so many weird things in this clip – how the guard can shoot the rope but then miss him every time, why his rescuers make him limp all the way to their car… I’ll leave it for you to find more.

001 Tarzan Raja Rimba

2012-01-18T07:41:00.000-08:00

There’s not much I can add to this clip that you won’t notice yourself. My favourite bits are:

when Barry wobbles on the log while addressing the baddies after he lets go of the vine;
the two guys at :15 who continue chipping away at a branch while it’s all happening in the foreground;
the chainsaw fight, which is a total classic;
the two-man manual saw fight, particularly where Barry holds the tree for them to cut it so they can get at him; and
the marksmanship displayed by the lady with the gun. Look at how she holds it!

Exploitation at its best.

Barry Prima had a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother, hence his Western looks. This film is one of many he starred in, this one dating from 1989. His martial arts skills are outstanding, as you can see.

001 Jakarta Airport - Dangerous by Design

2012-01-18T00:30:00.000-08:00

The ramp hardly makes these stairs easier to navigate

As I’ve previously mentioned, on my last trip to Indonesia I ended up spending more time than intended at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Security could be a lot better – the gates are designed so that arriving passengers walk through the area where departing passengers are waiting to board. Although they are separated by glass, they pass two glass doors which are not always locked, and are sometimes even open.
But the main danger is the design elements of the airport hotel. The airport hotel is a good place to take refuge from the bustle of the arrival and departure halls. Its main attraction is that it is air conditioned and has a bar and restaurant. The problem is, how to get there. In the picture above, you can see the view of the stairs from the restaurant. You can see two flights of stairs, but you can’t see the other flights of stairs which you have to take before you get to those flights! There is no elevator and those steps are steep. The management has thoughtfully built ramps on one side of the steps so you can drag your luggage up. Getting down is worse as you struggle to keep a grip on the handle for fear your suitcase will roll down and hit some other unsuspecting traveller.

Doorway to the toilet

The bigger danger is getting in and out of the toilet. As you can see in the photo, there is a tiny step to enter the toilet. Maybe I spent a little too much time in the bar, but it’s easy to miss that little step and come a cropper – going in or out.
As it happened, I observed a separate hazard which decided me against using the restaurant – one of the waiters used the toilet. It’s not a good policy for any restaurant or hotel to allow their staff to mingle with guests, but if they have to they should make sure the staff are seen to wash their hands!

001 Pop - Mari Bercinta

2012-01-17T23:59:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across this video last night featuring Vicky Shu, who claims to be Indonesia’s new sex symbol. I think I heard it a couple of times during my trip, but most pop songs sound the same to me these days. Anyhow, the claim to sexiness rests on some agressive booty shaking and switching between various fetish costumes. It’s a little unfortunate for her that they included the back-up dancers, which immediately invites comparison. Firstly it makes me suspect that she can’t dance, in fact, she doesn’t really dance in the clip. Second, her legs are sticks compared with the dancers’. Overall, the sterile nature of the clip, with its primary colours and not a hair out of place doesn’t add up to sexiness in my book.
Since Vicky’s song is titled ‘Mari Bercinta 2′, it obviously refers to Aura Kasih’s song of a couple of years ago, Mari Bercinta:

Apart from the delivery being so fast I’ve got no hope of catching any of the words, this clip screams sex. She seems to have very wide hips, but that’s only visible in one short shot where she’s wearing unflattering black tights.
But maybe people perceive sexiness in different ways? What do you think? I need to add a voting widget.

001 Special Silencers

2012-01-17T23:24:00.000-08:00

Possibly NSFW (violence)

The special silencers referred to in the title of this movie from 1981 are the magic pills which the bad guy uses to kill the young man in this scene. The bad guy sneaks the pills into his lunch after the girl (Eva Arnaz) leaves it to join him at the river. This couple don’t seem to enjoy doing things together. After he leaves her at the river bank, it seems that she takes a pee! Well, that’s a natural thing to do, but I’ve never seen it in a movie before. That’s actually one way Indonesians tend to differ from Westerners – they think nothing of giving prosaic factual information about things which we shroud in euphemism. The little fight scene was quite irrelevant, just thrown in for the audience’s amusement, I suppose.
Why he would choose to picnic in a spot without any shade, you would have to ask the director. Anyhow, the guy gets his reward for not waiting for his girlfriend before he starts his meal. As you can see, branches emerge from his stomach while blood spouts everywhere.
The punchline comes right at the end of the clip: ”she fainted before she could eat anything”. As if seeing her boyfriend writhing on the ground with bloody sticks coming out of his stomach would not put her off her food! Why the baddie couldn’t kill her while she was lying fainted on the ground – well, that’s another ‘why’ question, logic is irrelevant in a film like this.
Interestingly, this film was first released in English, as you see in this clip. It was released to the Indonesian market a couple of years later. That was a time when some Indonesian producers tried to break in to the Englsh-speaking market. It’s a shame they weren’t able to continue.
There is in fact an Indonesian superstition about people putting wires and things magically into other people’s stomachs. The most bizarre recent example occurred only a couple of years ago:

This lady, a kindergarden teacher, claims that wires grow out of her stomach. Her sister tried to cut them off, but she says they retreated into her tummy when they saw the scissors coming. The claim is that someone has put a curse on her to make these wires grow. I suspect that she is merely an attention seeker and she’s been sticking the wires in herself. This is supported by the lack of additional reportage about her on the internet for the past couple of years since she went public with her problem.

002 Street Food - Cassava Chips

2012-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

What’s the American word for this type of food? I know it’s chips in Australia and crisps in England. Anyhow, these look like potato chips, but the taste and the texture are quite distinctive. Made from cassava root instead of potato. You can get potato chips too, but you have to seek them out. Sometimes you can find potato chips as a Padang dish, but not every Padang restaurant serves them. The most popular form of ‘crisp’ is the krupuk, but that’s for another post.
A couple of other things I want to comment on. First, the vendor’s incredible hairstyle. Is 1980’s glam rock back in fashion? Second is the gas bottle. Gas has replaced the charcoal cooking fires from a few years ago. The government undertook a major gas bottle give away, creating an industry virtually overnight. Until they did that, most people could not afford to switch to gas, even though the running cost of a gas burner is cheaper in the long run than burning charcoal. Unfortunately some of these free gas bottles were defective, sometimes with fatal results. Even now, you will occasionally read of gas bottle explosions causing death and injuries, though these are mostly due to carelessness rather than bad manufacture (the defective bottles were never recalled, but the ones that were going to explode already have by now). So at least Indonesia has taken a step towards environmentalism. Hopefully we’ll see more of this kind of initiative in the future.

001 Badai di Awal Bahagia - the Ambush

2012-01-17T06:24:00.000-08:00

Rhoma Irama is one of the most popular singers in Indonesia, and he has been for the past 30 years. I’m probably not going too far if I say he’s the Indonesian Elvis. Unfortunately he has been known to criticsise other singers on moral grounds. He claims that his music and films have always promoted proper morals and are a positive influence on people to do the right thing. I’m not so sure about that.
I have watched a couple of Rhoma’s films. While they are mostly tedious and predictable, I have always found at least one scene which has astonished me for its unintended humour. There are also parts which show aspects of Indonesian life which have already faded into the past, but influence the way people live today.
So I have taken upon myself the task of reviewing all of Rhoma’s films and selecting the ‘best of the worst’ for your amusement and enlightenment.
Here is the first clip from the movie ‘Badai di Awal Bahagia’, made in 1981. It’s the opening scene and we’re already started in with the sex and violence. A carload of randy youths stops to ‘help’ what they perceive to be a damsel in distress only to find that they’ve been set up to be robbed. The action takes place on the Puncak Pass, for many years the only road from Jakarta to Bandung. My memories of the Pass are of interminable traffic jams as I joined hordes of people fleeing Jakarta on the weekend for a night in the relative coolness of Bandung. But at the time the film was made only the wealthy could afford cars and so the road was relatively quiet. Today the road is quiet again, there is a new road leading to Bandung with more lanes and not so winding and dangerous.
Most crime in Indonesia is not confrontational. Criminals prefer to be stealthy than violent. So in this case, I guess the criminals have bit off more than they can chew as they have to deal with a carload of men instead of just one or two. So we get to watch our first fight scene for this film. And very stagey it is. I’m not sure why the lady throws away her knife just as she orders the skinny guy to give her the keys and papers to his car. Then they both move to a nice patch of clear ground to fight in - how sporting of them!
Review continues after the jump, followed by a full transcript and translation of the clip:

Thanks for reading on...

We don’t have to wait long before Rhoma shows up. Somehow his wife knows that it’s a robbery instead of just a fight. Anyhow, Rhoma is too late to save the skinny guy from being stabbed so instead he has a conversation with his wife while the skinny guy stands dying at their window begging for help. Rhoma gives a look that says ‘don’t bleed on my car’ while he struggles to take his jacket off. I don’t know what the point of the jacket is, when it seems its sole purpose is to be taken off and thrown away, instead of being e.g. wrapped around an arm to protect it from the knife that his enemy is wielding. Look for a glimpse of Rhoma’s high heeled shoes. I’m sure it was just the fashion of the day, but we’ll see more of them in future clips.
The first baddie loses his knife, then instead of attacking him from behind, he goes to the back of the queue of people waiting to attack Rhoma one by one. This always happens in real life. Rhoma somehow unbalances the two baddies but then instead of following up on his advantage, chooses to demonstrate some slow motion kung fu moves. That doesn’t matter though, as it isn’t long before his own gang shows up and the mob attacks the baddies four to one.
Rhoma allows his guys to continue beating the baddies into a pulp until the police arrive. That is actually the most realistic part of the scene. It’s quite common for a crowd to beat a criminal they have caught to death if he isn’t quickly rescued by the police. There are many clips on youtube showing criminals being beaten by mobs or showing the wounds they received before they were rescued from the crowd. Even people who are unaffected by the criminal’s activity will join in the mob, hoping to get a punch or kick in. It’s an unsavoury part of the Indonesian psyche, maybe an anthropologist can explain it. I’ve heard it said that it’s because the society is so repressive, people look to joining a crowd for the permission it gives them to lash out at something… anything.
We get some eye candy for the girls when the policeman shows up, even though he almost falls over getting into the shot. Indonesian cops don’t wear tight fitting uniforms like that anymore, and most of them don’t have the figure for it anyway. The scene closes with Rhoma’s buddy telling him that they fought those baddies a while ago. Wait… what?! ‘Fought them a while ago’? How many fights does Rhoma and his buddies get into? So many that Rhoma doesn’t even remember who he fought with? What kind of people are these who are getting themselves into so many fights? So, our Rhoma is a bit of a sadist, enjoys getting into a fight on a Saturday night. Not exactly the sort of person who should be teaching religion to others, now, is he?

For your information, here is a transcript of the scene, first in Indonesian, then the English translation:

BAHASA INDONESIA
Victim 1 : Boy, Boy, minggir dulu Boy. Ada bidadari! [bidadari literally means angel, but it refers to a pretty girl / hot chick]Victim 2 : Mana tuh?
Victim 3 : Wah.. Ayo Boy kita mundur, Boy [Boy in this case is the name of the character]Victim 1 : Sendirian lagi
Victim 2 : Aduh, Kayaknya mobilnya mogok tuh
Victim 3 : liat belakang dong…ayo terus, terus, hop
Victim 1 : 36, 28, 38
All victims : hahahaha
Robber 1 : Jangan bergerak
Girl : Hey serahkan kuncinya lengkap dengan STNKnya
Victim 2 : Ternyata perempuan kuntilanak, kau
[STNK = Vehicle Registration Number]
[Kuntilanak = ghost of pregnant woman, this type of ghost often takes revenge on men]
Rhoma : Rita, buka chanel, ada perkelahian di hadapan kita
Rita : Kelihatannya ada perampokan Kak rhoma
Rhoma : Break-break-break-break-break, Juliet Zulu 09 Bravo, Bravo hotel, Bravo Hotel Juliet, ada perkelahian di km 40 apa berita ini bisa di copy, begitu? Lanjutkan ke polisi
Victim 2 : Ahh… Bung, tolong bung, kami dirampookkkkk
Rhoma : Teruskan
Rita : Break-break-break-break-break disini Juliet Zulu 09… (faded out)
Crowd : Cepat! bung sini Bung! Bung, Bung pegang! Tonjok aja!
Robber left behind : Eh tunggu.. tunggu…
Rhoma : Adi, cukup!
Police : Ini pelakunya?
Rhoma : Betul
Rhoma’s friend : Rhoma, dia kan orang yang pernah ane tonjok di Granada
Rhoma : Oh ya? hmm kalo gitu, temennya bonang?
[ane (Betawi-Arabic expression for aku / saya) = I]Rhoma’s friend : Bener, emang dia…
Rhoma : hmmm… (Rhoma looks at them with disgust)

ENGLISH…
Victim 1 : Boy, Boy, pull over Boy. There’s a hot chick!
Victim 2 : Where?
Victim 3 : Wow.. Come on, Boy. Let’s go back, Boy
Victim 1 : She’s alone
Victim 2 : Oh my, her car is in trouble.
Victim 3 : Look behind you…go reverse, go, go, go, stop.
Victim 1 : 36, 28, 38
All victims : hahahaha
Robber 1 : Don’t move
Bad girl : Hey, give me the key and the car’s ownership papers.
Victim 2 : You! Kuntilanak b**ch!
Rhoma : Rita, open the frequency. There’s a fight in front of us.
Rita : It seems like a robbery, Kak Rhoma
Rhoma : Break-break-break-break-break, Juliet Zulu 09 Bravo, Bravo Hotel, Bravo Hotel Juliet – There’s fighting at the km 40 marker – can you copy this? – follow this through to the police!
Victim 2 : Ahh… Bro, help Bro! We are robbed…
Rhoma : Continue paging
Rita : Break-break-break-break-break here is Juliet Zulu 09… (faded out)
Crowd : Quick! Bro, over here Bro! Bro, hold him Bro! Just beat him up!
Robber left behind : Hey, wait up… wait up…
Rhoma : Adi, enough!
Police : Is this the bad guy?
Rhoma : Yeah
Rhoma’s friend : Rhoma, he is the same guy I’ve beaten up in Granada.
Rhoma : Really? Uhhmm… one of Bonang’s men?
Rhoma’s friend : Yup, he is…
Rhoma looks at them with disgust

002 Dangdut - Lilin Herlina

2012-01-17T01:11:00.000-08:00

Highlights of this clip include:

The soldiers whispering in the corner of the stage. What are those guys saying? And why are they whispering? I’d love to know.
The guy playing with the toddler at the back of the stage. Ahh, so cute.
The drummer with a fag hanging permanently from his lips.
The tambourine guy who actually looks like he’s contributing something.
Members of the audience passing her oleander twigs (instead of money) which she accepts and later throws on the floor (Indonesian girls don’t really appreciate flowers, guys). And,
The strange looking orange haired guy with the black moustache us the MC. They have a far more dominant presence than someone with a similar role in the West. I figure it’s partly traditional (the dalang, or puppet master) and partly due to the fact that there is always a line-up of singers, some of whom need back-up singing and even encouragement.

At some point, Lilin had her hair cut shorter. It definitely changes her looks. Here’s another laidback Lilin Herlina clip so you can see:

003 Dangdut - Ratna Antika

2012-01-17T00:59:00.000-08:00

I’m fairly sure the music is by Mozart, I just can’t recall the name of the piece they’re ripping off for this song. The title of the song is Abang Roni, if you’re interested. Ratna Antika is quite a popular performer in Java. As you can see in this clip, Ratna has a good strong voice and is quite energetic, although she could do with a few sessions with a choreographer. She has a habit of sitting directly on the stage and singing, which seems wrong, but she is somehow able to carry it off.
Ratna has been in the music game for a while. Here’s a clip of her singing the same song but looking a few years younger:

Check the guy in the audience at 8:04. I wonder what he was smoking?
Here’s Ratna Antika again, with the same song again but this time with her hair dyed red. I’m trying to figure out whether this is before or after the first clip in this post was recorded? Red hair dye is easily reversed, so she could have done it at any time. It seems it didn’t go down well, as I haven’t seen her in red hair anywhere else:

002 Village Life - Fire Fighting

2012-01-17T00:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, we shouldn’t laugh – he’s a brave man - but it IS funny. At first I thought he was hopping because the roof was hot and they don’t have any footwear. In fact, he’s trying to jump over a wire. I have no information as to whether he was injured from the fall.
It’s a desperate and forlorn effort trying to put out this fire with a bucket of water. A fire in a kampung (humble village) like this can spread very quickly and wipe out entire neighbourhoods. Of course, for many poor people, their entire lives are located in the posessions they keep in their houses – savings, furnigure, tools of the trade, heirlooms. The poorest don’t have bank accounts.
I once knew an American, working as a teacher, a real pig. The only thing he did regularly was to go home drunk and beat his wife. He lived in a kampung. Anyhow, one night he decided to set fire to his house. The locals were so incensed they gave him a thorough beating. He only survived because the police arrived soon enough.

001 Jakarta Street Food - Skoteng

2012-01-17T00:35:00.000-08:00

There are quite a few variations on warm milky ginger drinks which Indonesians love to eat on a cool night. As you can see, skoteng includes mutiara (pink sago beads), bread cubes, peanut, sweet beans, condensed milk and jahe (ginger tea), of course. Sweet yet spicy.
The interesting part of this video starts at 2:20. You can see how the vendor cleans the bowl and spoon after the customer has eaten. This is why people bring their own bowls if they can. That way also, the vendor doesn’t have to wait for them to finish eating before he moves off. Anyhow, it’s something to bear in mind when you’re tempted by a food stall or small restaurant. I guess restaurant hygeine problems aren’t exclusive to Asian countries. We in the West can take a superior attitude because we don’t see what goes on in our own restaurant kitchens.

004 Dangdut - Denis Arista

2012-01-17T00:31:00.000-08:00

This young lady can really belt out a song. In this one, ‘Aku’, it’s mostly rock with the dangdut showing through occasionally. This has been the most popular of all the songs we’ve uploaded to youtube so far. If I can work out why, I’ll be very popular indeed. But finding out the ’why’ is often a hopeless quest when it comes to Indonesia, I find.

In this next clip, Denis shares the stage with some bonsai plants. I can’t see the connection and probably the only connection is that the promoters also have a nursery business. She’s wearing dreadlocks, which I’m not crazy about:

Just to prove she can do real dangdut, here’s Denis again, with something we’re a bit more familiar with. She’s dyed her hair a much paler auburn than in the first clip and she’s wearing a great jumpsuit – very shimmery:

005 Dangdut - Evi Puspitasari

2012-01-17T00:14:00.000-08:00

We get to watch Evi (Evipus to her fans) collect an endless stream of cash from the audience as she sings. I’ve often heard this song which while travelling in Java, so it must be popular, but I have no idea what it’s about.
Compare with this version by the husky voiced Vivi Rosalita:

This song should really be classified as campursari, especially when I watch this version by the gorgeous Dini Aditama:

002 Police are People Too - Norman

2012-01-16T23:54:00.000-08:00

Life at the station can be boring unless you make your own entertainment. From the look on the face of the first policeman, he knows exactly what entertainment his colleague is bringing.
The real surprise of this clip comes at the end – if you’re willing to sit through six and a half minutes of Chaiya-Chaiya to see it.
Here’s the original classic:

The policeman, known only as Norman, was suspended because of the supposed damage he did to the image of the Indonesian police as corrupt thugs.
As the video went viral in Indonesia, there was an outcry of support for Norman over the internet.
Perhaps embarassed by the wave of support for Norman, his superiors gave him a repremand and ‘punished’ him by making him perform in front of all his colleagues. The alternative would have probably been dismissal.
Naturally, someone was there to record this performance. He began rather nervously with a reprisal of the lipsynch which got him into trouble in the first place. But after he warmed up, he sang quite an accomplished version of another Bollywood song:

As you might expect, Norman became a celebrity on the chat show circuit and it was all downhill from there. He's still around, though and released this clip not so long ago:

It's an 'Indonesianisation' of the song that started it all. Looks like he's left the police for good now, judging from the face hair. The celebrity life has to be more fun than policing, but I've got a feeling he shouldn't have given up his job.

006 Dangdut - Reny Farida

2012-01-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

Reny has quite a following, this is one of the more popular dangdut clips I posted to my old site. She has a solid performance style, but it doesn’t strike me as being unique. Whether it’s the key to her popularity or not, having an unusual appearance can only help to make her stand out from the many other dangdut singers in East Java. To my mind, there is something in her expressive eyebrows, combined with that cute snub nose which stirs a kind of deja vu in me.

This song is more laid back, but still a good showcase for Reny. You can see quite clearly here that the music isn’t live, they record it in a studio some time after the concert. I have some live music vids from my latest trip to Java, but it will be a while before I get to publishing them, sorry to say.

001 Village Life - Blood Money Causes Feud

2012-01-16T22:25:00.000-08:00

A decision by a Dutch court to compensate the families of victims of a massacre which occurred shortly before Indonesia gained independence has destroyed the harmony of a village and torn families apart.
Compensation was paid only to those villagers who were joined in the claim against the Dutch Government. Those who missed out were consumed with jealousy, tempers erupted.
The beneficiaries were forced to share part of their payout. I would have thought a better solution would be for them to sponsor their fellow villagers in making their own legal claims against the Dutch Government. Now that a precedent has been set, the Dutch would probably settle further claims out of court.
Jealousy is an unfortunate feature of poverty and village life. Its main effect is to prevent anyone achieving a better life. In hindsight, the court should have considered the ability of the recipients to handle the large amount they were awarded and structured it in a better way.
Article here:
Indonesian village riven by massacre compensation

002 Jaka Sambung - Kobar Applies for a Job

2012-01-15T00:51:00.000-08:00

After making his escape, Jaka Sembung leads the resistance against the Dutch. Unable to catch him, they post a 100 guider reward.

This clip opens with Kobar arriving at the alun alun (town square) in style. Jaka’s wife, played by Eva Arnaz, bumps into him as he takes a closer look at the ‘wanted’ poster. Making a friendly visit to the Governor’s fort, Kobar laughs off all attempts to stop him as knives and bullets fail to penetrate his skin. He makes a personal request for the bounty to be raised to 300 guilder. Van Shramm agrees, but first he must prove himself by fighting a bull!

Kobar makes a meal of bull fighting, but eventually subdues the tame-looking animal. The Dutch are suitably impressed and show their appreciation in the appropriate way.

It might be a while before I continue with this Jaka Sambung review I have a lot of other work to do on this site and it takes a long time to prepare these clips. Maybe I'll do another one next Sunday? Meanwhile, I'm sure you can find the complete film on YouTube or on a torrent site if you're the sort to wear a patch over your eye... my purpose with these clips is to share the delights of the Indonesian film industry and find like-minded people.

001 Jaka Sambung - Creditis

2012-01-15T00:33:00.000-08:00

The credits of this film follow a lengthy prologue which introduces the situation and some of the main characters. The setting is Java, some time during the Dutch Colonial period, though you would be excused for thinking it is somewhere in the Spanish spagetti badlands. Javanese hero Jaka Sembung (Barry Prima) is imprisoned along with a group of fellow tax evaders. The military governor (Dicky Zulkarnaen) identifies him as a dangerous insurgent, dealing him a violent interrogation, but allows him the same level of security as the other prisoners. This proves to be a mistake, as we shall see later. The Governor’s daughter (Dana Christina) expresses sympathy for Jaka’s harsh treatment.

The prisoners are marched off to a (limestone?) quarry and the credits roll. At this point we can enjoy the distinctive music of this film. This music, by Gatot Sudarto, is a curious blend of spagetti western and Sundanese traditional. In my opinion, it’s a highlight of this movie.

As you can see, the brutality of the colonial Dutch is shown once more as they try to suppress the prisoners’ riot. Jaka is finally stirred to action and demonstrates his martial arts skills before escaping with the other prisoners. Interestingly, the Dutch prove to be excellent riflemen, with each gunshot felling half a dozen prisoners. Their fighting skills get worse as the film progresses.

If the film ended at this point, I would be quite satisfied. But there is much more craziness to come.

001 State of the Blog - Interest from Germany

2012-01-14T23:57:00.000-08:00

This blog had its first visitor last night. Someone from Germany came and looked at my post about The Raid. That's about all I know about it, they didn't leave a message so I don't know whether they liked it or what they thought about it.
I wonder how they came upon this site, since I haven't done anything to advertise it? Anyhow, I'm happy that someone found it.

001 Dangdut Singing Contest

2012-01-14T20:35:00.000-08:00

Joko’s selection of four contestants in a recent Dangdut sing-off somewhere in East Java. Our first clip is Derby Florentina, from Pare, singing Pacar Temanku.

Our next contestant, #12, is Firda Asilvi, also from Pare. Her song is ‘Keramat’.

We aren’t told the name of contestant #28, but the song is ‘Emang Dasar Bajingan’.

Our final contestant, #20 is Aulia Mustika, singing ‘Dik’.

I think all the contestants are very good, though I have a favourite. Who do you think is the winner?

For your information, I have copied the lyrics for each of the above songs:

Here’s the lyrics for Pacar Temanku:
Aku diam-diam
Curi-curi waktu
Dengan si dia
Pacar temanku
Aku diam-diam
Menjalin hubungan
Dengan si dia
Selingkuhanku
Chorus:
Jangan, Jangan Jangan
Sampai ketahuan
Kalau aku berkencan
Dengan pacar temanku
Cumbu-cumbu, gitu..
Jangan, Jangan Jangan..
Sampai ketahuan
Aku sekedar suka
Bermain-main cinta
Cumbu-cumbu, gitu..
Tapi ku tak peduli
Andainya dia tahu
Yang penting aku hepi
Dengan pacar temanku
Back to Chorus
Akhir sebuah cerita
Aku dipergokinya
Sedang asyik duaan
Dengan pacar temanku

Aku diam-diam
Curi-curi waktu
Dengan si dia
Pacar temanku
Dulu, diam-diam
Kau goda pacarku
Bercumbu rayu
Dibelakangku

Here’s the lyrics for Keramat:
Hai manusia, hormati ibumu
Yang melahirkan dan membesarkanmu
Darah dagingmu dari air susunya
Jiwa ragamu dari kasih-sayangnya
Dialah manusia satu-satunya
Yang menyayangimu tanpa ada batasnya
Doa ibumu dikabulkan Tuhan
Dan kutukannya jadi kenyataan
Ridla Ilahi karena ridlanya
Murka Ilahi karena murkanya
Bila kau sayang pada kekasih
Lebih sayanglah pada ibumu
Bila kau patuh pada rajamu
Lebih patuhlah pada ibumu
Bukannya gunung tempat kau meminta
Bukan lautan tempat kau memuja
Bukan pula dukun tempat kau menghiba
Bukan kuburan tempat memohon doa
Tiada keramat yang ampuh di dunia
Selain dari doa ibumu jua

Here are the lyrics for Emang Dasar Bajingan:
Aku tahu kamu
Kamu seorang bajingan
Aku tahu kamu
Kau banyak jurus andalan
Matamu stereo
Lihat kekiri kekanan
Apalagi menawan
Pasti bakal kebobolan
Tapi ada Satu
Hal yang harus kamu tahu
Wanita juga tak mau
Bila terus terus kau tipu
Satu pasangan tak cukup
Dua simpanan juga tak cukup
(emang dasar ah emang dasar)
Eh dasar kamu bajingan
Kamu mau apalagi
Kamu mau yang gimana lagi
(ah emang dasar emang dasar)
Eh dasar kamu bajingan
Tapi ada Satu
Hal yang harusnya kamu tahu
Wanita juga tak mau
Bila terus terus kau tipu
Satu pasangan tak cukup
Dua simpanan juga tak cukup
(emang dasar emang dasar)
Eh dasar kamu bajingan
Kamu mau apalagi
Kamu mau yang gimana lagi
(emang dasar emang dasar)
Eh dasar kamu bajingan
Satu pasangan tak cukup
Dua simpanan juga tak cukup
emang dasar emang dasar
Eh dasar kamu bajingan

Lyrics for Dik follow:
Dik, aku pinta kau akan s’lalu setia
Dik, aku mohon kau s’lalu menemani
Saat ku tengah terluka
Kala ku tengah gundah
Chorus:
Ku akan menjagamu
Di bangun dan tidurmu
Di semua mimpi dan nyatamu
Ku akan menjagamu
Tuk hidup dan matiku
Tak ingin, tak ingin kau rapuh
Dik, jangan engkau pergi tinggalkan aku oh…
Dik, ingin aku cinta dan cinta s’lalu
Saat kau tengah terluka
Kala kau tengah gundah
Back to Chorus:
Kau akan menjagaku
Di bangun dan tidurku
Di semua mimpi dan nyataku
Kau akan menjagaku
Tuk hidup dan matiku
Tak ingin, tak ingin kau rapuh

001 Small Business - Road Farming in Jakarta

2012-01-14T02:45:00.000-08:00

Indonesians are an enterprising people and operate many types of small businesses which are unique to their country. A tambal ban (roadside tyre fixing) business can be conducted by anyone with access to a compressor.
I met the guy in the yellow tee shirt as I was on my way to my favourite restaurant in Jl Hayam Wuruk. Sadly, I didn't learn anything from him about his business when I tried to talk as he seemed to be overcome with nervous excitement. Anyhow, it was also too hot standing in the sun trying to make myself understood. Luckily he stood still long enough for me to take the picture.
He may be an owner operator, but it's more likely that he rents the compressor from someone who owns several of them and controls the site where the compressor sits.
When things are quiet and there are few customers, business can be made in an unconventional manner. I don't know if all tambal bans are guilty of it, but it's very common practice for an accomplice to 'seed' the street with nails to create business. The police use special cars with magnets to collect about a kilogram of nails every day, but it seems the problem is getting worse as they've recently doubled the number of anti-nail cars to four. But it seems likely to alleviate the problem, not stop it completely.
The small chance of having an unnecessary puncture is one of the many small annoyances which teach us patience when we visit Indonesia. At least there is a smiling face ready to help you out when that happens.

001 The Raid - Indonesian Exploitation Flick Goes International (NSFW)

2012-01-11T00:39:00.000-08:00

Be warned, this clip may be NSFW or even NSFL if you're the sensitive type:

If the clip is anything to go by, whatever plot this film contains is merely a flimsy excuse for a lengthy string of violent acts. Although, as acts of violence go, they seem to be nicely choreographed. The IMDb info is here.
Anyhow, the big news about The Raid (originally released in Indonesia as Serbuan Maut) is that it's been picked up by Sony Pictures and slated for international release in late March. From the internet buzz, I have a feeling this might become big.