JAVA STYLE - CERTAINLY NOT BALI

 SUNUP IN SAWOJAJAR

Expat blogs praise the joys of living in Bali.  A low-cost paradise, they say. Sundowners with fellow retirees while a maid (‘a real treasure’) prepares dinner and ‘our’ gardener trims the lawn. Good time to bitch about deemed interest rates on pensions.  Below the green paddy, the cheerful reapers.

This is Indonesia.  So is East Java, though unalike Bali on every measure. A peek next door.

 All our street’s a stage

 And all the men and women in it mainly hawkers.                                                      

They have their exits and their entrances                                                                              

And all in their allotted time must play the scene.

The late Kiwi ethnomusicologist Jack Body used the dawn chorus of Java’s towns to compose strange soundscapes of vendors’ horns and hails, jingles and drums.

The welder bangs a spanner on an acetylene cylinder in his pedicab. The vegie seller sings out sayur.  A rhythmic rap on hollow wood announces the bakso (meatball soup) cook.

He’ll boil a breakfast broth on his kaki Lima (five foot) pushcart while the neighbours in pyjamas collect to chat.  Semi-feral cats gather and yowl in season.

The language is Javanese, an ancient hierarchical tongue where a wrong word can cause offence.  Fortunately we’re egalitarian so all use the common version Ngoko.

The parade is thinning.  The jamu lady vanished last year.  She carried a basket of bottles on her head, stirring a herbal mix on the spot to fix most moans - menstrual cramps, a sore back, inflamed throat.

Now the shops sell sealed packs of traditional medicines.  Stock up - no waiting for the pedestrian pharmacy’s cure-alls.

Though nothing for hangovers, an unknown condition in this dry community; we were pushed into prohibition a decade ago by Muslim enforcers demanding all adhere to their interpretations of piety.

These include setting the time. Alarm clocks are unnecessary.  The 4.15 wakey-wakey comes with azan, the taped call to prayer through loud screechers.

Not all are as considerate as our local Al Ma’shum mosque which has dialled down the volume; others claim the shriller the din the holier the message.  The blessings of uproar aren’t exclusive to Islam; Christians can be equally raucous in the eastern islands where they control the knobs. 

Sawojajar is a suburb of Malang, eight degrees under the Equator.  It’s a hilltown 444 metres above and 90 kilometres south of the provincial capital Surabaya, the Republic’s second biggest city and a major port.

Malang is a start point for the mainly European tourists heading to Mount Bromo, the spectacular volcano nearby.  It’s named after Brahma, the Hindu creator god who once ruled all but now treads lightly on this land where 90 per cent are Muslims. 

On its slopes live maybe 100,000 Tenggerese, remnants of the Majapahit Kingdom which ruled before the arrival of Islam in the 15^th century.

Either that or a volcanic explosion or maybe both forced the royals and their followers to flee east to Bali, which may be why the island remains largely Hindu.  Away from Bromo there’s a few scattered settlements. 

In the hills behind our suburb is a modern Hindu temple and school, well hidden. It was trashed last century, then rebuilt.

Our street has 70 semi-detached cottages.  When built 30 years ago all were single storey.  Now second floors are common as prosperity rises; there’s only space to grow up and we’re doing the same.

No building permits required.  What’s the load-bearing capacity of this crossbeam?  Mmmm – looks OK. Whaddya reckon?

This is dicey and DIYCE (DIY + Civil Engineering ex Google) while hoping the wire-and-nails bamboo scaffolds hold.  Health and safety laws - insurance?   Sorry, not with you.

The workers were recruited through mulut ke mulut (word of mouth).   Facebook is fast though less efficient. The rate is 100,000 rupiah ($11) a day per tradie plus coffee and cakes for smoko. 

The guys start a bit before 8 and knock off around 3.30, six days a week.  They’re jacks of all trades and licensed in none. They’ve mastered everything from plumbing to power on the job.  On Fridays one takes a long break to pray.  The others slumber.

I’m a bule – meaning Caucasian. Or londo, long nose.  It’s assumed I’m from the Netherlands or the US.  Few guess Australia, which is probably just as well. 

This year the ABC’s extraordinary Australia Talks poll of 54,000 found 80 per cent ‘expressed distrust’ of Indonesia.  Although no such survey here I imagine a similar result. 

Our national reputation has been corroded by spying on a past president, a proposed embassy move to Jerusalem and securing East Timor after the 1999 referendum.  That last action is defensible.

In local tabloid tales of fantasy and fear, Australians are coarse kafir (unbelievers) planning to splinter the Republic and plunder its riches.

Yet personal discrimination is rare.  Neither government policies nor crass Okker behaviour in Kuta bars have been smeared on this head-down foreigner. So far no fist-shakes, only handshakes. 

The only non-Indonesian within coo-ee is a Dutch businesswoman married to a local and with three wee boys.

Next August there’ll be a Big Bash.  The 17^th marks the 75^th anniversary of the founding of modern Indonesia in 1945 with the proclamation of independence by Soekarno. 

The Dutch ignored him and then jailed him as they set out to recover their lost colony.  A four year guerrilla war took the lives of at least 100,000 before the Hollanders quit. 

Australians were not passive onlookers as we are now with West Papua killings.  The Jakarta Embassy says it plans to re-publish in English and Indonesian an old government-commissioned photo-filled book Australia and Indonesia’s Struggle for Independence. 

Commented Ambassador Gary Quinlan: ‘Today’s generations, certainly in Australia, don’t know how important Australia’s energetic support for Indonesian independence was. We lobbied for Indonesia in the newly-created UN Security Council and were chosen by Indonesia as its representative in the UN discussions which led to independence.’

Opposite my mother-in-law’s house is the city’s Heroes’ Cemetery with hundreds of graves of those who died fighting on their own soil to create their own country.  Most cities have similar fields of remembrance.

National pride in evicting the powerful Europeans after three centuries of occupation, dread of disunity and maintaining religion are the bedrocks of Indonesian culture and the bricks of identity.   The most contested is religion.  Officially the nation is secular.  Unofficially it’s Sunni Islam.

Shia Islam, practised in Iran, Iraq, Bahrain and Azerbaijan is banned in Indonesia and its supporters persecuted.

Citizens must follow an approved faith which is stamped on ID cards -   Muslim, Catholic, Protestant, Hindu, Buddhist or Confucian.

Australians would protest such gross invasions of privacy; Indonesians accept it as right and proper.  However not all are committed.  Society is split between the largely rural Abangan – who tend to blend traditional beliefs with Islam - and the more orthodox Santri who are more likely to be city dwellers and better educated.

Atheism is not allowed.   Kebatinan, the original faith of Java has the official status of a folk tradition though still practised by millions, usually quietly.  We know – we’ve witnessed under full moons in the ruins of once glorious temples built when Europe languished in the Dark Ages.

Al Ma’shum’s kyai looks like a cartoon preacher with white beard and matching robes; he’s a friendly fellow, waving to this lapsed Presbyterian on his dawn strolls. The parishioners nod as they head home to change from whitewear into work gear.

The women in mukenah (prayer shawls) sit apart lest their shapes and scents distract.  Indonesia is not a Gulf State, but women are still in the rear – in this case literally – and presumably immune from lustful dreams about slim-hip lads in the front rows.

Separate are the misanthropes of the Saudi-funded Al Ashr pesantren (Islamic boarding house), just 300 metres and several centuries behind; young male ascetics chant inside high walls daubed with Arabic slogans.  They’re good at glaring.

Seeing the satpam (security) knocking off triggers a reminder: Today it’s our turn on the refreshment roster and to pay 25,000 rupiah ($3) towards his monthly service.

He’s a bluff guy employed to frighten scavengers who upend bins seeking plastic bottles and aluminium cans, and put up red-and-white bunting on national days.  Like the US, every house has a flagpole.  He’s usually dozing or watching TV sport.

Like most men he’s soccer-mad, though Indonesian teams are spectacular losers. Football is big business, wildly popular and more wildly corrupt. The Archipelago has skilled players, lousy coaches and primitive facilities. Expect some changes now it will host the U-20 World Cup in 2021.

By 6.30 the babes are being nursed by plump carers while Dads and Mums head to work.  The littlies kick balls around the commuters’ motorbikes. Whining kids with satchels and shining morning faces creep like snails unwillingly to school.

The stroke victims catch the sun in wheelchairs.  All five are late middle-age.  Once were smokers.  Their wives look exhausted.

On this street stage there’s child care, aged care and everything between, blending, organic. The bitumen is a sports ground, a market, a community hall, a thoroughfare.   Come weddings, wakes or circumcisions the road is closed and a tent raised.  All attend, if only for the feed.

A quarter of Australians are reported to be lonely.  Again no similar studies in Indonesia (mental health is not a front-page issue here) but chances are that there’d be only a few suffering solitude.

No need to open a smartphone app to know what the neighbours are doing and saying. Just open the gate.

The women run an arisan, a monthly get-together and microfinance business.  Subs are pooled and distributed, and visits to the sick or bereaved are organised.

Indonesians engage easily in conversations with strangers.  The steps into familiarity start with asking where you’re going and rapidly lead to questions about the family’s origins, age, the number of children and religion. 

In the west we’d open with a weather comment and maybe venture into mention of work.  Fertility and faith are off limits till much later but in Indonesia they’re the ice breakers.

Every year we elect a Rukun Tetangga, a neighbourhood leader.  This is now a voluntary position and powerless as the formal local government bureaucracy has moved in, but the RT is still handy for whinges about things like potholes and telcos’ broken wires.

Rukun means harmony.

The Great Australian Fear of millions of Asians happily quitting their ghettos and pouring into the empty land below does not apply to Javanese, even though their island is already overpacked. Rindu Kampung Halaman is the common phrase for feeling homesick.  The Javanese are not like the Chinese and Indians who move overseas, settle and adapt.

This is neither Struggle Street nor a Hollywood neighbourhood comedy.  An old crank opposite gets shitty because my pigeons poo on his washing. Street parking causes friction.  The avenue of mango trees lures scrumpers.

Yet rage is rare.  When living is close, rukun must rule; keeping the peace is a task for all.   That’s Java style.

 First published in Pearls and Irritations, 29 November 2019.  See:
  https://johnmenadue.com/duncan-graham-sunup-in-sawojajar/

SCUNGE CITY

Look back in wonder

Fifteen years ago this story was published in what was then the quarterly print magazine Inside Indonesia.

For some curious reason the title cropped up during a recent visit.  I'd kept the copy on a small disc which can no longer be read - but fortunately it survived on the Web.  So here it is:

------------------------------------------------------------

The East Java Provincial Government, like most administrations world wide, is not above a little dissembling. You get it on the road into Surabaya where the official welcome signs note that Indonesia's second biggest city is 'Bersih dan Hijau' - Clean and Green.

The signs are best seen at first light. By 9 am smog blurs the image and attention is distracted by beggars and newspaper sellers who swarm around any slow-moving car. Which is just about any vehicle, for the traffic density is close to gridlock. Try not to breathe.

That's in the dry season: In the wet roads are flooded from door to door, so pavement, verge, drain and bitumen merge into a seamless black scum where floating objects best remain unscrutinised. Then Surabaya stalls as saturated engines short circuit.

And the green? Most obvious on bright coloured giant billboards offering sexual, sporting and social success for the tiny price of a pack of smokes. Real trees are as rare as a shark (sura) fighting a crocodile (buaya), the city's mythological origin.

The authorities claim Surabaya has a Centre. If there is a focal point it has to be Tunjungan Plaza, a garish multi-storey department store full of over-priced goods and costly American fast-food shops. Here the poor peer, the middle class preen, and salesgirls professionally ignore customers with cash.

For Surabaya has not been planned, or if that claim is denied, the planners were corrupt, inept, or asleep. Probably all three.

Like some sci-fi squid from outer space which feeds on city sewers, Surabaya is devouring Gresik up the coast, climbing into the hill town of Tretes, swallowing nearby Sidoarjo, to be stopped only by the Straits of Madura. But even then its plastic excreta can be found far offshore.

Who can tell where it all begins and ends, because it doesn't. Surabaya defies definitions and census-takers, but four to five million for the area around the port could be a reasonable guess, with 30 million more in the hinterland. Or maybe that's the other way around.

At least 20,000 are prostitutes, for among its many credentials this sweaty, grimy industrial megapolis seven degrees south of the equator is reputedly Southeast Asia's biggest brothel, with the accessories of disease and despair to match.

And yet...

Without doubt Surabaya is Scunge City.

And yet and yet.

Unlike Bali, Surabaya doesn't care whether you come, and unlike Jakarta it's indifferent to whether you go. The few tourists who find themselves in Surabaya wander bemused, clutching handbags and hands, restless eyes playing spot-the-mugger.

Relax: Even the thieves are indifferent.

Expat businessmen and government officials are not to be spotted in public, except at product launches. They're more at ease gliding between hotel and office behind the black windows of their chauffeur-driven Super Kijangs.

Ignore them: They only mix with their own kind, then sell themselves as experts on the culture and economy.

In a narrow trench alongside Tunjungan Plaza, crushed by a motorbike park, are the warungs where shopgirls on $60 a month and their boyfriends retreat from their air-conditioned glitzy workplace to eat well for less than one Australian dollar.

And so can you. Rip-offs are rare and gawking at Western intruders is subtle.

For although Surabaya is chaotic, grotesque, dirty, impossible to negotiate, crass in its Soviet-realism monuments, noteworthy for its lack of notable buildings, events and attractions, try finding any place more Javanese.

The language of the kampungs and the street is Javanese, not Bahasa Indonesia. Advertisements for cigarettes, mobile phones and dandruff-cures may be English in a pretence of refinement, but the world language is rare outside the campuses.

What you see is what you get. The indifference towards Westerners extends to the locals. This is not special treatment, it is the treatment. Surabaya is raw and honest. No 'morning price', no concessions and, best of all, no contempt.

The obsequiousness, sneers and arrogance, so much the part of the local response in other Asian cities towards white skinned creatures outside their environment, is seldom encountered in Surabaya. You are obviously a walking cash box, but the temptation to make a quick withdrawal is usually found only among a few taxi drivers late on a wet night.

Yet what you see is not what you get. The splendid Majapahit Hotel, reputedly the most expensive in Indonesia and a marvel of indulgence and beauty with a fine historic past, is hidden behind a drab fence which blends anonymously into a coarse streetscape of commercial sameness.

Likewise with Kampung Sasak. Even the locals have difficulty finding the entrance of this Arab quarter, which leads through a cramped street of traders to the ancient Ampel Mosque, founded by Sunan Ampel, one of the nine holy men who brought Islam to Java.

The mosque, in this densely packed centre of Middle Eastern commerce, always seems to be busy with the business of worship, unlike the landmark Agung Mosque near the toll road to Malang. This grand blue-domed and government-built celebration of Islam, with a Catholic church in its shadow as forced propaganda for tolerance, is as sterile and obvious as Ampel is potent and hidden.

There are hundreds of other nooks in Surabaya which reveal some of the complex and subtle nuances of this fourteenth century remnant of the Majapahit Kingdom. That they're absent from the guide books is no indicator of a desire for privacy; it's just that the government has a stereotyped view of foreigners and thinks visitors only want poolside drinks and American breakfasts.

When Surabaya was created, the deity which governs tourism blinked, and praise be for a marvellous escape from Mammon.

The best food is often found in the gloomiest, oil-lit warungs, original handicrafts in the drabbest shops, the finest dancers and singers in schools where the concrete is cancerous and the architecture indistinguishable from a public toilet.

East Java proclaims it is a Muslim State, but even the most pious will visit a paranormal in times of strife. Ghosts lurk in banyan trees, wayward spirits send lax students into trances, mystics are consulted by brokers who trade on the Net. At midnight, street people drift to a Chinese temple seeking a peep into the future. Islam is just the outer skin of an onion covering animism, Hinduism and other ancient mysteries.

Slim girls in gladwrap-tight jeans revealing navels, shoulders and their readership of Cosmopolitan, hold hands with friends covered from head to toe in the tradition of their grandmothers. Men smoke, drink and gamble, then pray.

To find the secret places and learn of the magics you need a special guide. Not a professional from a hotel - they'll only take you to KFC. The person you require will find you and will be insulted if you offer money, though a feed and help with English conversation will be appreciated.

How to meet such a marvel?

It's not that difficult. Wander the streets and markets alone, with an open mind, friendly face and polite gestures. Take your time. You'll be seen and watched. If you're sending the right signals someone is bound to find the courage to practise their English. Don't rush. Build an acquaintance - or walk away if the mood or person isn't right.

In a few days you'll have met a few of his or her friends, had a meal or two, maybe visited the family home, exchanged views and discovered differences. With luck you'll find more in common despite the Timor Sea of misunderstanding, language, religion, income, experience and lifestyle which separates us as neighbours. Then the smog starts to lift.

Since the British bombed the city in November 1945, Surabaya has been deceived and betrayed by successive governments in Jakarta, but its residents remain resilient, independent, stoic, Javanese.

For although Surabaya is rough and ugly, its people are genuine, keen to share, humble but proud. They apologise for the manifold faults of government, but retain hope for change. They hunger for knowledge. They thirst for understanding. Yet they are not ignorant or unsophisticated.

You may find wrinkled men sucking clove cigarettes who can debate philosophy having read the greats in Greek; young women studying John Donne and other metaphysical poets in the original yet destined to become secretaries; students who know more of Australian politics than the average Okker undergraduate. They hate KKN (corruption, collusion and nepotism) but know that without it they will surely miss the best jobs.

It's a humbling experience to continuously meet fluent self-taught English speakers when you're struggling with a language which is supposed to be easy, to discover the astonishing achievements of young people handicapped by lack of money, few books and a 1950-style education system.

Despite the universe-sized problems which beset this cumbersome and fumbling democracy, the next generation is largely incandescent with energy and determination to right the wrongs, all tempered with reality and an undercurrent of fear. Expect to be dazzled and confused. But never dismayed.

All this and more, as the tourist brochures like to say. Seek and ye will find. In Surabaya.

Duncan Graham (wordstars@hotmail.com) is a Perth based journalist who can't get enough of East Java.

Inside Indonesia 69: Jan - Mar 2002

TOBACCO PORN

Selling smokes with smut           

                                                

Politicians debating a new Tobacco Bill might want to look at the way the addictive is marketed. 

Indonesia is one of only eight countries that’s neither a signatory nor a party to the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.  That puts the Republic way offside with the 180 states which ban or limit advertisements promoting smoking, and prompts this question for parliamentarians:

Is the lawmakers’ priority the physical health of its citizens, or the financial health of the tobacco industry? 

Big adverts in public places linking a deadly product with good times and sexual prowess sounds like debauched Europe, degenerate Australia or too-liberal America - but surely not in upright, uptight Indonesia? Yet that’s happening.

Exposure of a workshop producing drugs to corrode young bodies would provide a feast month for the media. There’d be leaks to TV stations of raids, lurid details in tabloids pushing the limits of taste, and manufactured outrage.

The sleaze-masters involved in marketing by shooting the pix, hiring the models, writing the scripts, printing and distribution would be publicly hounded before being convicted.

Yet suggestive smut is on display right now and few seem concerned.  Transgressors have no fear of sudden bursts of Kopassus AK-47 fire; prisoners will not gulp cleaning fluid to avoid interrogation.

Instead the guilty continue to work in high-rise comfort, enjoy top salaries and get home early to their kids, for these people are nicotine promoters - a protected species in Indonesia:  The untouchables’ job is to boost Big Tobacco and ramp sales by devising ways to get citizens hooked. 

They do this by shouting loudly that for around one US dollar a packet consumers can find happiness, enjoy adventures, get great girlfriends and snare success in the boardroom and bedroom.

Their quest is to find the images and phrases which suggest these achievements without actually promising fulfilment.

The prominent, colorful and creative banners and billboards that flank roads in the tobacco heartland of East Java can’t be ignored.  They also mask views of Welirang, Arjuna, Semeru and the other mysterious mountains so create visual pollution - but that’s an issue for another column.

One of the latest slogans is ‘longer is better’ as though the use of English mitigates the offence. It’s a variation of the old saw ‘size matters’. Of course the ad highlights the length of the cigarette.  Don’t snigger; what other interpretation is possible? 

Other posters say ‘Don’t Quit’.  This captions a picture of a craftsman striving for perfection. Any resemblance to the internationally-famous term for breaking the habit and regaining health must be coincidental.  Cheeky, eh?

The ‘account executives’, as they call themselves to mask their grubby trade, are employed in an industry which is illegal in countries where governments prioritize public health.

Indonesia is so wedded to tobacco promotion that it took its big southern neighbor to the World Trade Organization in a bid to beat back Australian laws enforcing plain packaging. Supporting litigants were the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Honduras.

Although an official decision has yet to be announced, Bloomberg News has reported a win for Australia. (American billionaire Michael Bloomberg who co-founded the media group also funds an international campaign to cut an estimated six million deaths a year from smoking),

If the WTO decision is confirmed, Indonesian health authorities’ attempts to reduce harm from smoking will be strengthened.  So will the companies’ resolve to fight change.

Five years ago Australia became the first country to start plain packaging. Since then Britain, France, Ireland, Hungary and New Zealand have either followed or will do so soon.

Purchasing smokes in Australia today is like buying condoms half a century ago – an almost shameful act.  Locked cabinets are opened only on request.  The price of a pack will soon be AUD $40 (Rp 400,000), thirty times dearer than in Indonesia and a cost so high cigarettes are now a prime target for burglars.

The plain packaging law – which Indonesia and its three friends argued was a breach of trade rights - enforced bland brown wrappers with small brand names and horror pix of sick smokers. The packs look grubby, not something a sophisticate would want to flaunt.

Grim graphics are also required in Indonesia but the message Peringatan Merokok Membunuhmu (Warning – smoking kills) is tiny compared to the funtime images.  Even more blatant is the sponsorship of music shows by the tobacco companies. 

Because these don’t directly name a brand the alerts don’t get used. Elsewhere such promotions aimed at youth are illegal.  Indonesia has banned tobacco promotion in the mass media, and ads targeting minors.

This rule is ignored: The hipsters featured on the hoardings may be over the age of consent, but their antics, like racing on office chairs, are certainly adolescent. One slogan is barefaced: ‘Shape of New Generation’.

According to the Indonesian Health Department more than two-thirds of males over 15 light-up to look manly.

Indonesia is the fourth largest consumer behind China, the US and Russia. But while these and other heavy-user countries have signed the WHO’s Framework, Indonesia has yet to find a pen. 

Instead companies plan to double production so logically more deaths will follow. Current estimates start at 244,000 a year and rise to more than 400,000.  Strokes and cancers are agonizing ways to die.

Australia’s former Health Minister Nicola Roxon who introduced the plain packaging law has been promoting tougher controls on the world’s baccy barons.

She cites four key factors in medicos winning the fight – ‘smart researchers, very professional public servants, recognised non-government organisations and a skeptical media’ – meaning journalists have not always been swayed by denials of damage.

In 2015 cigarettes were the second largest family expense after rice, according to the Indonesian Government Statistics Bureau, with households spending three to five times more on cigarettes than on education.

Another cause for concern?

(First published in The Jakarta Post 20 June 2017)

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STRAIGHT SHOOTERS

Bowyers, quivers and cupid                               

      

When she’s disarmed Malang high school student Difah [Dwi] Anggraeni (left) looks like any other texting and tweeting teen, seemingly more concerned with friends than future.

But after warm-up exercises on a scorching morning, the 17-year old shoulders her high-tech weapon, garners more gear, straps on a chest protector and gets deadly serious. She’s soft spoken and unassertive, but you wouldn’t want to get between this lady and a yellow disc, whatever the distance.

Standing sideways to the mark she stares through the peep sight.  A moment to be pensive.  A glance at the trees and their waving leaves.  Mmm, a westerly – five knots?  A tweak of the sight – half a notch should be enough – no, make that a quarter.

Slowly she takes aim and gives undiluted, unqualified, no-compromise concentration plus what she calls “feeling” to the task in hand:  To speed a steel-tipped carbon-fiber projectile at more than 300 kilometers an hour and hit with such force it will puncture the outer skin and penetrate deep inside.

Using a trigger release she fires. A hiss as the strings relax.  She checks the result using a ten times magnification monocular. Bullseye [or what the pros call ‘gold’] and more; this shot is in a tight cluster in the four centimeter center. No surprise, for this adolescent archer is the national champion in her class and practising for the June regional competition in Banyuwangi.

“Some friends who hang out in malls think I’m a bit crazy,” Dwi said.  “Every day I must do better than yesterday. I’m trying to reach such a level that I’ll represent Indonesia internationally.”

Unlike other archers who need total quiet to focus their eyes and minds, and bristle at interruptions, Dwi claimed she performed better with an audience because noise made her work harder to shut out distractions.

Her shooting partner Nur Amalina [Lina], 17, uses a more traditional long bow.  This speaks the ‘twang’ that struck fear in medieval armies faced with squadrons of bowmen launching sheaves of arrows. 

It would also have frightened a family at the far end of the suburban wasteland range and across a road when Lina overshot and potted a pot on their veranda about 200 meters beyond her target.

The neighbors blamed Dwi because she was carrying a compound bow that appeared far more formidable with its pulleys and limb bolts, sprouting a stabilizer and making it look like an outdoor television antenna.  But even this modern invention (see breakout) is still hard pressed to beat the simple traditional bow in the hands of an expert.

Coach Yudhi Purwanto, (left) who used to practise silat [Indonesian martial arts] before adding another string to his bow, said archery was not a point-and-shoot game. “A good archer needs to be many things, scientist, meteorologist, technician and athlete,” he said. “But above all they must have the right mentality.

“Here we’re practising on targets 50 and 70 meters distant.  If Dwi fired straight gravity would drag her arrow down.  So she calculates the range, calibrates the bow and fires five centimeters above the center to allow for trajectory.

“Today there’s little air movement, but a cross wind or down draft can deflect an arrow. Horizontal allowances have to be made.  On top of all this a top archer must have strong nerves.  This is not a sport for those without willpower.”

Although many spend big, archery doesn’t have to be expensive. Sweet potato seller Machbud Junaidi equipped his son Abel Hisyam Azhara  (left) with a Rp 90,000 [US $7] length of PVC plumbing pipe to make a passable bow – and no-one in the egalitarian fraternity sneered.  Which is as it should be;  Robin Hood wasn’t an elitist.

Little Abel is able and ambitious.  The 12-year old wants to use his skills to take flight and travel the world; when he’s not lining up an arrow he’s practising English so he can articulate archery everywhere.

University student bowman Danang Kamal Musthofa’s parents helped fund his hobby – Rp 6 million [US$ 460] for a dozen arrows and four times that sum for the bow and accessories.  These include a quiver and so many gadgets there’s a separate purse.

There’s even a special grip to help pull arrows out of the target, but a strong wrist does the job equally well. Boots, however, are necessary. Tournaments are supposed to be set in swards of glory, but Indonesia’s Sherwood Forests are thick with mud as adhesive as sticky rice.

Danang claimed archery helped his psychology studies because it has taught him concentration.

“You need to be dedicated and fit, able to stay calm and control your breathing,” he said. “I enjoy challenging myself, trying to be the best I can. You also get to meet other people because archery isn’t dominated by men and it’s really a young person’s sport.”

Another advantage? “My girlfriend is also an archer.”

How Mr Archer got his break

Ten millennia ago some cave dweller with more smarts than pelts reckoned there had to be a better way to get a bison steak than chasing, stoning and spearing. Every week a fellow woodsman was trampled or gored when a wounded beast turned on its tormenters trying to push a pointed stick through its hide.

How could a hunter kill from a distance without getting hurt by his prey? The pioneer of occupational health and safety had probably noticed how tense forest vines could be plucked and used to flick leaves. Why not adapt this idea – and let’s call our family The Archers.

If you don’t like this theory develop another – it can’t be trumped.  Like the invention of the wheel and the mastery of fire, the bow has shaped the development of humankind, but its origins are unknown.

The bow appeared on all continents bar Australia, where Aborigines developed the spear launcher known as a woomera, the name now used for an outback rocket range.

Some bows were small, like those used by North American Indians shooting from horseback.  Others, like the English longbow, were infantry weapons.

The 13^th century Mongolian leader Genghis Khan conquered much of Central Asia with troops equipped with recurve bows. The ends, or limbs of the weapon, are turned outwards, creating greater force.

The weapons still used in Papua are reported to be about two meters long and made of bamboo.

Although the development of strong but flexible materials last century such as fiberglass, carbon, laminated wood and lightweight metals pushed archery into a new level, composites using bamboo stuck to wood or animal horn were pioneered in Asia long ago.

The compound bow, invented in the US in 1966, uses a system of eccentric pulleys and cables, and is now widely seen in contests.

A skill this old has a special vocabulary: Arrows are made by fletchers, bows by bowyers.  The notch in the arrow that takes the string is a nock.

East Java has the reputation of being Indonesia’s premier archery province.  No-one seems to know exactly why, apart from claiming the people are famous for being straight shooters.

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(First published in  J-Plus, The Jakarta Post, 19 April 2015)

PLATES OF PERANAKAN

A taste of place, time and people        

                     

Flicking your eyes off Malang’s chaotic Jalan Laksamana Martadinata to try and spot the hidden one is not recommended; you’d hit a pothole or a pedicab. Yet the Go mansion was once a landmark.

The coffee baron’s neo-classical Indisch Empire residence in Klenteng Straat was built 115 years ago.  At the time it shouted: ‘Look, we’ve prospered.’  Now the message is whispered: ‘We’re just part of a business streetscape.’

Commodity prices crashed in the 1930s depression; after the Japanese invaded the house became a refugee center.  During the Revolution nearby buildings were torched, but the grand one was untouched.

The Go family survived, including one member who was interred during the occupation. Before the Japanese arrived Koo Siu Ling was born here to her schoolteacher mother Go Pheek Thoo, known as Ietje. Good times returned until President Soekarno mismanaged the economy and courted communism.

Some in the family moved to Jakarta, and then the Netherlands where Koo entered university aged 16 to study engineering.  Later she married, spent four years in Australia and another four in the US; now she lives in Holland but regularly visits her birthland.

Over the decades five meters has been cut off the front garden. In the erasure of all things colonial the widened road, formerly named after the 1825 Chinese temple opposite, was relabelled to recognize an admiral with no connections to the city.

The 1965 coup d’état and purge of real and imagined Reds hit the Chinese community badly.

But the people of Klenteng Straat had long severed their connections with China.  They were East Java Peranakan, mixed blood descendants of immigrants from Fujian Province who had married Javanese women. 

Though this family’s ancestors were relatively late arrivals some had been in Indonesia for centuries; the port of Gresik on the north coast of East Java was established by Chinese traders in the 14^th century. That made little difference. The narrative that accompanies their success story is sinophobia.  

“Since the Independence of Indonesia the Peranakan have periodically been subjected to discrimination and persecution,” writes medieval historian Paul Freedman in this unusual book. “This has produced a number of paradoxes.”

These included the repression of Chinese identity and culture, the closure of schools and the banning of Chinese language and writing. Despite this around 30 entrepreneurs got cosy with President Soeharto to build his and their business empires.

The tough Peranakan have learned resilience.  Freedman reports that despite two ministers in the 1947 revolutionary government having Peranakan origins, those labelled non-indigenous remained a convenient scapegoat for their perceived “clannishness and disengagement” and the nation’s economic ills.

Forced to Indonesianise, Koo’s father Koo Liong Bing changed his name to Kolama – meaning ‘formerly Koo’.  To keep their dignity the ever adaptable Peranakan scattered and like their ancestors, some sought opportunities in lands elsewhere.

The other survivor was the cuisine and in the Go family it all resided in the cookbook of Koo’s mother which had travelled to Holland.

The sun-parched pad was opened by Koo after the old lady’s death in 2000 aged 89.  It has become the primary source for Culture Cuisine Cooking published in Indonesian, Dutch and English under one cover.  Most of the 82 recipes were written in Dutch, though others used Hokkienese and Indonesian. Contributions from Ietje’s sisters and friends also found a place.

The title gives the impression that it’s ABC - Another Bloody Cookbook - on an already sagging shelf.  Wrong:  This is also a lucid account of the Peranakan, adding to our understanding of the complexities of this nation’s past.

It isn’t just a stew of Dutch, Javanese and Chinese tastes; it’s also a cultural history deftly recounted by Freedman, professor of history at Yale University and author of other books on food.

What’s cooking go to do with it? Koo answers well in her preface: ‘… a world of complex social interactions lies behind [cooking at home].  Before you cook you have to plant, or harvest, or shop, mostly together with other members of the family or village.  Cooking means interaction.’

Which leads to understanding and appreciation.  Diplomats should negotiate treaties and settle conflicts in kitchens, not board rooms, preferably while removing seeds from chilli peppers. [Instructions are on page 536 along with other handy tips.]

For cuisine, like language, is at the heart of cultures everywhere.  We learn our first words from our parents – our first tastes are the meals they’ve chosen. Before microwaves and fast food the process of preparation wasn’t just a chore – it was a binding household event.

Skilled cooks seldom bother with scales – they know how much is needed.  But a pinch of pepper or a handful of chives is no help to a modern cook demanding precision. On a brief visit to Malang last month (March) Koo explained how she spent four years  working on the recipes, decoding and translating the instructions, calculating the measurements, then testing to get them right.

At the rear of the family’s mansion is a kitchen that seems little changed from the time when Koo’s grandmother was matriarch. At a timber table three elderly women washed and chopped vegetables. Another was at the sink. On one side a hefty hand pump atop a well.

The dining table sitting on a floor of exquisitely patterned tiles with the sun filtered through stained glass windows, can comfortably seat 14.  It probably looked like this in the golden times, before World War II and the collapse of a colonial empire.

Where does this two kilo book belong – the library or the kitchen?  With its moody, timeless photos it’s too beautiful to be steamed and soaked in spilt palm oil. But the recipes make it too practical to be left on a shelf as an occasional reference.

The solution is to photocopy the recipes, make a book, add notes and keep in the kitchen. Just as Ietje Go Pheek Thoo did before it all turned rotten. As Soeharto discovered, governments can  attempt to crush a culture but its seeds are in the cuisine – and they germinate.

Culture Cuisine Cooking                                                                                                           

by Paul Freedman and Koo Siu Ling                                                                                

Lecturis, Amsterdam, 2015     

(First published in The Jakarta Post 6 April 2015)                                                                                                               

MALANG - NOT AN UNFORTUNATE CITY

MARVELLOUS MALANG

Malang Town Hall behind the Tugu monument

If you hadn’t read of Herman Thomas Karsten before opening this blog you’re not alone.  His name is seldom seen even though he supported Indonesian independence and died in a Japanese prison camp.

Yet the urban planner had a major impact on more than 20 Indonesian cities including the capital, and Merdeka Square in particular. He was also largely responsible for the high-ceiling, peak roof architecture that sheds tropical rain and keeps rooms cool.

Malang could rightly be called Karstenstad because he worked in the central East Java town between 1930 and 1935, creating a well laid-out metropolis that only recently has started to be despoiled by unforeseen traffic loads and reckless development.

“The Dutch made a modern city which was once said to rival Berlin, yet we seem to ruining it,” said a frustrated Dr Hery Kurniawan.  “I ask people that I’m showing around: ‘Do you think we are going backwards or forwards?’”

The answer has to be the latter if only because Dr Hery (pictured, left with Ismail Lutfi) and his colleagues in Pandu Pusaka (heritage guide) are doing their best to remind locals that they have a grand past worthy of understanding and preserving.

“When we don’t know our history we lose our dignity and values,” said archaeologist Ismail Lutfi who calls himself a “Nusantara heritage awareness specialist.”   

“We need to treasure our traditions, to remember that we have something important and precious that we have a responsibility to preserve.”

Responded Dr Hery: “In the Soeharto era we were taught that history started in 1965 (the year when Soekarno was ousted),” he said.  “Now we live in an open society when we should accept that our history began long ago.”

How far?  Precision is difficult because records have perished and myth has married fact to produce a slippery offspring.  However 760 AD during the Mataram Kingdom seems to be widely accepted as the start of the regency.

Although Ismail, who teaches history at the Malang State University specialises in this period, he’s equally concerned with understanding the colonial past. For Malang this grew once the railway from Surabaya was completed in 1879.

This gave residents of the steamy provincial capital the chance to escape to the cool hilltown and its well established tea and tobacco plantations.

The Dutch turned Malang into a garrison town and it remains home to the Brawijaya Regiment. More recently thousands of students from eastern Indonesia studying at scores of universities have made the city cosmopolitan.

Planner Karsten didn’t follow the European grid model when he laid out the present city, instead wrapping streets around the meandering Brantas River.  At the time the Dutch were beginning to realise that plunder had to be tempered with a responsibility to provide.

About 4,000 Europeans and 23,000 Javanese lived in Malang.  Now the population is close to one million with next to none from overseas.

Central Malang: Ebenezer Church and the Grand Mosque

Pandu Pusaka is a group of ten amateur historians including teachers, retired public servants and a psychologist that came together 18 months ago with general practitioner Dr Hery.

They’ve developed 12 walking trails based on the Karsten blueprint that are anything but pedestrian.  “There are similar trails in Jakarta and Yogya, but they’re getting to be commercial,” said Dr Hery. “Our tours are free because we want to attract young people.”

The guides put the story into history.  Forget plump burgemeesters and the dates of their drab tenure; out with the tedious, in with the titillating. Let the past live.

 There’s the department store that used to be a prison.  How many shoppers know criminals once cowed where boutiques blossom? Here’s the area favored by prostitutes – you won’t see them today in this buttoned-down age. 

Note that Catholic high school? It was bombed by the Dutch. The town hall’s architect was inspired by the shape of a lobster, presumably to remind officials to get their pincers into residents’ wallets.  And talking of aquatics, the navy has its base on this street, 444 meters above sea level.

That air-raid siren on its rusting tower stands ready to warn against Japanese Zero fighters. Here major courtyards designed to show off the majesty of a grand hotel have been filled in with shabby dwellings.  Karsten’s successors must have looked the other way.

One man’s vision splendid corrupted by short-term commerce. The old hasn’t always been bulldozed, just upstaged, eviscerated, shrouded and forgotten by most.  Though not by Dr Hery and his history sleuths.

The signpost hasn't changed since the 1930s

“We want heritage protection for the major buildings, as in Singapore,” he said.  “We’ve pleaded our case with the authorities and they say: ‘That’s good.  Keep on going’.  But they never offer support.”

Malang seems relaxed about its colonial past. Many streets retain their old names just slightly tweaked.  The city shield had European heraldic lions and the motto Malang nominor sursum moveor (my name in Malang, my goal forward).  Or as the fanatical supporters of soccer team Malang Arema shout: ‘Go Malang!’

The Dutch crest (left)  has given way to a commonplace phallic monument and the more uplifting Malang Kucecwara (God has destroyed the evil.)  

Although the adjective malang translates as ‘unfortunate’ the city is the opposite, blessed with a rich cultural past and numerous pre-Islamic temple sites. It has two well-kept alun-alun (town squares, though one is circular) and many lovely streets. There’s still plenty of art deco architecture and greenery with a riverbank flower market.

Its charm overtakes the traffic curse that clogs so many Indonesian towns.  Malang remains a ‘must see’ city.

In May thousands attend the Malang Tempo Doeloe (olden days) festival down the city’s magnificent boulevard, Jalan Ijen.  Many don period Dutch garb, strut like the born-to-rule and sell European snacks to universal delight for the tone is merriment, not mockery.

Despite Dr Hery’s despair his voice is being heard.  A few restaurants and some hotels are developing heritage themes and a private museum has opened.

Said Ismail: “We are eager and concerned to remember the past and be proud of our city.”

(Want to try a trail? Check the Pandu Pusaka Facebook) 

First published in The Sunday Post, 17 February 2013