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

UNDERSTAND RELIGION TO DO BUSINESS

Kresnayana Yahya

Doing it our way                                           

Finding folk who think the Jakarta floods are a hint of the Deity’s displeasure isn’t difficult.  But when the believer is a famous overseas trained statistician and economic commentator, it’s time to raise eyebrows.

Though only marginally and seasonally adjusted.

So what sort of message from above? “That we haven’t managed the environment properly,” said Kresnayana Yahya, a Christian.

“Joko (Jakarta Governor Joko Widodo) has been put there by God to improve the welfare of the people. Westerners don’t understand that Indonesians believe in the power of the Almighty.  We are certain there is a God.

“Overseas business people need to realise this about our culture and society.  The Japanese appreciate our ways and don’t seem to have the same problems.

“In the West you just pay your taxes and expect the government to take care of welfare, but not here. This is poorly understood by the Western media that’s caught in the mindset of 20 years ago – we are no longer a midget nation.

“You must respond to these new realities and take part in CSR (corporate social responsibility) programs to help raise the dignity of the people. We want things to be done our way.”

‘Raising dignity’ is a common phrase in Kresnayana‘s lexicon, stressing it as a factor along with the “Indonesian ideology of a shared life” that he says outsiders need to comprehend.

Now 63 he teaches at Surabaya’s prestigious Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS 10 November Technology Institute, named after the 1945 Battle of Surabaya).  Kresnayana pioneered the study of statistics at ITS in 1983 after returning from the University of Wisconsin-Madison two years earlier.

ITS now has around 1000 maturing statisticians.  There are 3000 nationwide, but Kresnayana claims ten times more are needed to fill gaps in government and industry with graduates working as forecasters, planners, data analysts and social developers.

 “I started studying mathematics at high school because I thought that was the queen of the sciences that would give me easy access to all the other disciplines,” he said.

But why queen? “Queens are wiser and kings too authoritarian.  They can’t be challenged.”

Kresnayana spoke to The Jakarta Post after delivering a lecture in mid January on the 2013 economic outlook before an audience of about 250 at the Malang branch of the Indonesian Management Association.

“Twenty years ago about 80 per cent of the people attending would have been Chinese,” he said.  “Now it’s down to 60 per cent – that’s how much our society is changing.”

His message was upbeat. “The future for Indonesia is bright regardless of the world economy and the uncertainties in Europe and America.

 “Our growth rate of around 6.3 per cent doesn’t take the warung economy (roadside stalls and home industries) into account.  I think the real figure is closer to eight per cent.

“It’s true this is mainly due to population growth, not exports, but this is changing. Just look back and see the differences. The national budget is five times larger than during Soeharto’s regime, and at least a third now goes to local government.

“Decentralization has liberated the provinces to develop their ideas and responses to change. Think how Sulawesi is now challenging Java in food production. Consider how ayam kampung (the almost wild, lean and tasty village chickens), once too expensive for poor people, are now being bred on farms and the price of protein has come down.

“Our strength is our diversity.  Most of us have grown up in a homogenous environment. Indonesians live with and for each other.

“There aren’t that many countries in the world which have these benefits and the experience of working together. The danger is of becoming dominated by others – like our reliance on Japanese vehicles, not public transport”.

Statisticians keep comics in business.  New Zealand economist Sir Frank Holmes once said statistics were like bikinis – what they reveal is important, what they conceal is vital.

Then there’s the old joke about a statistician putting his feet in a fridge and head in a fire and feeling comfortable ‘on average’.  Kresnayana chuckled, but said this misunderstands his profession.   “These are two different things that can’t be compared,” he said.

 It’s the loose balls, like the Jakarta floods and political crises that upset economic forecasting, with 2013 set to be a year of political floods as candidates joust for positions ahead of next year’s election.

“We are tolerating democracy and going through the learning process, though too few understand what it means,” he said. “Feudalism is still present, but diminishing as people get better educated.

 “It’s not so easy for politicians now – at least a third of the population knows what’s good and proper and can see through propaganda.  They are getting frustrated because of the way policies are being mishandled.

“I’m not impressed with the candidates so far. We are still looking for the right person.  Why aren’t good people willing to get involved?”

The son of teachers in Malang, Kresnayana doesn’t fit the definition of an economist as someone who talks about money without making any.  He is also a commissioner with fertilizer manufacturer PT Petrokimia Gresik and works for the Enciety business consultancy which publishes enough data to fuse a calculator.

As a media commentator he pushes a vision of a greater Indonesia in the big league alongside China and India, stressing that the Republic is rich, the workers keen and open to change, wanting to take on new technology – but need to be respected for who they are.

He rejects the line that Australia needs Indonesia, but not vice versa, saying: “We need each other.

“The role of the intellectual is to speak the facts as he or she sees them, whether the rest of society likes it or not, or whether they are curious or angry.

“It’s easy to cheat with figures, but a statistician’s role is to tell the truth.  Or at least what is closest to the truth.”

First published in The Jakarta Post, 11 February 2013

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LUPIN TEMPE - A FUTURE BEAN OR A HAS BEEN?

The bean battle for Indonesian palates

A robust multi-million dollar bid by Western Australian lupin growers to penetrate Indonesia’s tempe (soybean cake) market is taking a long time to ferment.  Duncan Graham reports from Sanan, Malang’s famous home industry kampong.

More than two years ago an Australian trade mission sat down in Jakarta to a serve of tempe.  So what? Only that the meal used lupins, not soybeans imported from the US.  Media reports on the VIP lunch claimed the product was ‘expected to become commercially available in Indonesia in coming months’.

Those months are a long time coming.  Despite extensive university research and promotion the Australians still have to convince Indonesian tempe manufacturers that lupins are the future.

“The taste is different, and whether that’s good or bad depends on the individual,” said Mohamad Isman (pictured above), treasurer of Malang’s 500-member Primkopti Bangkit Usaha (boosting business Co-op) while running through a parade of Australian politicians’ and bureaucrats’ names in his visitor’s book. 

“The problem is that lupin tempe is hard and doesn’t absorb water (prior to cooking at home).  I haven’t tried it but that’s what our members say. Research is good, but it’s word-of-mouth that’s important in Indonesia.

“Whether we start using it or not depends on many things, such as the continuing availability of soybeans and the price of lupins – which we don’t know.”

The lupin bulk price in WA is AUD$355 a tonne (Rp 3.5 million).  The world price for soybeans is fickle, currently around US$570 (Rp 5.47 million), but the industry is predicting a hefty jump.

Strangely soybean sales aren’t taxed – lupins are at 10 per cent, a problem for traders.  When the WA push started lupins were quoted at 20 per cent cheaper than imported soybeans.

Close to East Java, underpinned by an active 22-year old Sister-State relationship, are WA grain growers who have topped 750,000 tonnes of lupins annually though the forecast this year is below 300,000 tonnes, mainly for stockfeed. They produce 80 per cent of the world output.

More lupins would be planted if there was a stable higher-price human food market.

WA is a big state with few people that has to export to survive. East Java is a small province with a huge and hungry population, importing to live.  A win-win fit?  If only.

In what Indonesia claims is a bid for food self sufficiency, the government has been rapidly ring-fencing so many imports that this month (Jan) the US filed a complaint at the World Trade Organisation. Australia may join the dispute.

Assuming these quicksands can be crossed, and that sour soybean traders don’t start a political or smear campaign against a rival product, lupin tempe still has to pass the toughest tests of all – manufacture and taste.

“There’s no doubt that technical support is required to help tempe makers achieve the correct process, just the same as with any new never-seen-before product,” said David Fienberg, managing director of Australasian Lupin Processing.

“We’ve completed many technical trials in and around Jakarta and in Surabaya.  We’ve developed a simple, easy-to-use recipe which makes a very good tempe.  The taste is good – if not better – than soybean tempe.” 

Most trials have involved a mix of lupins and soybeans. A de-hulling and splitting plant has been built in Perth using processes so secret access was denied to The Jakarta Post.

Mr Fienberg said a training program would be run among the nation’s tempe producers starting around May emphasising that lupins are drier, safer, have higher health values and come de-hulled.

However Mr Isman said this was no advantage because the beans still had to be boiled. “The prices are not so significant,” said Mr Isman, picking stalks out of the American soybeans.

 “The Co-op board has yet to make a decision but I think that as long as soybeans are available from the US we’ll continue to use them.  At this stage I don’t see the benefit. Taste is everything.”

Success Street

Founding President Soekarno once abused his fellow citizens by calling them soft and smelly, like tempe. Better if he’d called them healthy and energetic, because tempe, the protein of the poor, keeps the nation fit.

If there’s steam swirling out of the windows and doors and smoke puffing out of upstairs rooms you’re in one of East Java’s most industrious kampongs.  Residents keep their houses open on Jalan Sanan and its capillary lanes for ventilation and the busy coming and goings.

Odor?  Not as evident as the heat and certainly not unpleasant.

“We are blessed by a good climate and a long tradition to produce Indonesia’s best tempe,” said Mohamad Isman. Unlike many Asian foods tempe originated in Java, not China.

Jalan Sanan is Malang’s Success Street and everyone seems to be occupied in producing the food that’s sustained Indonesians for at least five centuries, grading, boiling, stirring, slicing, processing and delivering.

Many tasks, such as packaging, could be done by readily available machines but families fear this would throw many out of work.

Every day up to seven tonnes of soybeans are delivered in 50 kilogram sacks, carted on motorbikes, pedicabs and hand carts out of the Co-op warehouse through narrow alleyways and tipped into gas-fired vats.

This is home-industry central and centuries apart from modern factories.  Muscles, not mechanics, do the value-adding work

Depending on the beans’ quality they wholesale for around Rp 7000 (US$0.66) a kilo.  About a million tonnes a year are imported.  So far Indonesian farmers haven’t managed to produce the quality or quantities required, or sustain supply.

In the last few years the cooperative has worked to upgrade hygiene, though several men were openly getting their nicotine fix under signs prohibiting smoking.  The mash is no longer trodden, but the dark cooking rooms are mainly untiled, smoke-blackened concrete.

It takes about four days to boil, cool, drain, press with a fermenting agent, usually hibiscus leaves, and ferment in shallow boxes covered by pinholed plastic.

Marketing has improved, with innovative products like keripik (fried slices of tempe) flavored with chilli and other sauces. These deserve to crush potato chips as the snack of choice with a cold drink come sunset.

Jalan Sanan (left) is lined with shops offering presentation packs of multiple varieties, ensuring visitors have a local speciality for their folks back home.

But the bulk of the produce goes to markets around East Java, the raw tempe transported overnight to keep cool, and sold in grey cheese-like slabs.  Buyers finger it for firmness; if it crumbles when cut it’s from a bad batch.

Over-fermented tempe turns black and looks repulsive to all but the true connoisseur.

Once in the kitchen it’s sliced and deep fried after soaking in spice-laden water.

Although long considered village fare tempe is now making an impact overseas, particularly among health conscious vegans seeking a natural product with high nutritional value.  Boosters claim it has anti-bacterial qualities and assists in preventing diabetes. Lupin tempe is now available in some Australian shops and on the menu at a few restaurants.

Though not yet in Indonesia at your local market or roadside stall.

(First published in The Jakarta Post 28 January 2013

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INDONESIA'S CATARACT CRISIS: NO SOLUTIONS IN SIGHT

Losing sight of the plight

Around 3.8 million Indonesians can’t read this or any other blog because they suffer from curable eye conditions.  At least half are cataracts.  The goal is to clear the problem by 2020. Yet just 11,000 free cataract operations for the poor were performed last year, mostly funded by overseas and local donors. Duncan Graham reports on an opaque problem.

Foreign doctors are not allowed to work in Indonesia.  Permission is sometimes given for overseas specialists to make short training visits to the Republic, but that’s all.

There are only 1179 members of PERDAMI, the Indonesian Ophthalmologists’ Association.  That’s a ratio of one eye surgeon to every 203,000 citizens.  The World Health Organization recommends one to 20,000.

Blurring the problem is that most eye doctors work in the big cities, and not all are active.  Few practise in the regions where the need is greatest.

Cataracts can strike anyone, but the rural poor who toil outside without using sunglasses are most vulnerable.

To get a cataract operation in Indonesia you need to be rich – or very poor and in the right place, like Bali, Medan or Malang.  Here your surgery might be conducted by an Indonesian doctor paid by an aid agency or benevolent business.  The system seems hit or miss, and that includes the subsidies .

The Indonesian Red Cross has allocated Rp 1 billion (US$104,000) for eye surgery for the poor through hospitals treating 500 patients.

However the Singapore-based A New Vision managed to get 625 operations and training programs run in Sumatra for US$75,000 (Rp 720 million).  Effi Jono, the founder of the charity, raised the money from family and friends. 

“We were greeted with protests and petitions (from local medical professionals) when we first tried to work in Medan,” said the Indonesian-born accountant.

“Thankfully we were allowed to go in and now have a much better relationship with the ophthalmologists of North Sumatra.

“Not allowing foreign doctors to work is a huge problem. Unless something changes it will take almost 40 years to clear the backlog of cataracts – provided no new cases are detected.”

In 1990 Australian potter turned aid activist John Fawcett raised funds to pioneer lens implant surgery in Bali.  Since then his foundation has screened 750,000 people and treated more than 34,000 cataracts.

Malang’s largest private eye clinic employs eight ophthalmologists who also work in the public sector.  Klinik Mata Malang charges upwards of Rp 7 million (US$730) per cataract for private patients, but discounts this to Rp 1.5 million (US$156) when altruistic companies sponsor operations for the poor.

“They must have a letter from their local community leader confirming they have no money,” said clinic spokeswoman Dr Seskoati. 

“Personally I think we need overseas doctors to enhance our skills because the techniques and technology are changing so fast.”

The clinic’s two operation rooms look more like dentists’ surgeries than hospital theatres.  The patient sits in a chair that tilts flat. Local anaesthetic is used and music to sooth.  Dr Seskoati prefers the voice of Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli. He’s blind.

The Jakarta Post watched an operation on closed circuit TV conducted by four doctors, including two trainees.  Using a powerful microscope the eye was sliced, probed, vacuumed and fitted with a new lens before three stitches were inserted. It took about 30 minutes.

Starting as a bright orange globe the jelly eye wept a little blood before turning black, like a solar eclipse. 

Moments later the patient, second-hand goods dealer Nero, 64, (left, with his wife Luluk Hasana) was slumped on a sofa surrounded by family and friends, his right eye bandaged.  His cataract had been growing for 20 years following a poke with a piece of wood.

He felt groggy, but said he was not in pain. The cost was met by a company that makes herbal remedies.

Nero should see clearly soon, but for a few days he won’t be able to pray by kneeling and pressing his head to the ground. 

Where to?

“The days of cataract surgery in hospitals needs to pass,” said John Fawcett (left).  “Provided proper sterilization procedures are followed operations don’t require the massive and costly resources of a sophisticated hospital. 

“Surgical day centers and mobile clinics are the way to go. A slow but acceptable rate for a surgeon is two cataract operations an hour.” 

 “I’ve been advocating change but hitting brick walls trying to get an audience with the health policy makers in Jakarta,” said Ms Jono. “The whole public health system is crumbling and it seems the bureaucrats aren’t interested.

“Sometimes I wonder whether we should be putting our money into countries where we’d be more welcome.”

If you blink your way off the street into a Singapore hospital seeking cataract surgery you’ll walk out with clearer vision but a lighter purse.  Prices vary, but SGD$ 4000 (Rp 32 million) is average.

The costs are similar in Australasia where insurance companies often pick up the tab.

Yet overseas aid agencies appealing for donors claim just US$25 (Rp 240,000) will restore an Indonesian’s sight.

“That’s the cost of materials, the surgery is extra,” said Mr Fawcett.  “If you look at the agencies’ ads closely they say donors can ‘help’ save an eye for US$25.  The patient pays nothing, but the real cost is around US$50 for walk-in operations at a big city clinic like the one we have in Surabaya, or double that in isolated areas.”

These figures are skewed because the Fawcett rural clinics are supported by the Indonesian Air Force, which has been flying surgeons and equipment into remote areas at no cost.

It’s a similar situation in Medan where the hospital doesn’t charge for A New Vision’s theater use.  Regencies have helped transport patients for free along with the Army, effectively using the military to subsidize treatments.  Ms Jono said a general justified his troops’ involvement “because the army had two duties – to defend the nation and to help the poor.”

Even after including all these factors the gap between prices is enormous.

 “Doctors like to drive Lexus,” said Ms Jono dryly.  “This is a business – charges depend on demand and what the market can bear.”  

“Not everyone thinks like that,” commented Dr Anny Sulistyowati (right), head of PERDAMI in the Malang region. 

“We operate on the poor for very little.  We tour the islands of Eastern Indonesia seeking patients. “I drive a Toyota Alphard.

“I studied for nine years and I’ve been a surgeon for 12.  We never think in terms of getting a high return from our training – we’re not traders.” 

She rejected allegations that PERDAMI had a quota system for graduates. “The problem is that only 12 universities teach ophthalmology and each takes around six per semester,” she said. “There aren’t enough lecturers or facilities, and few graduates want to be ophthalmologists.”  Those that do are often women, attracted by regular hours because most work isn’t emergency.

Dr Sulistyowati said she had no issues with foreign doctors, or local general practitioners doing eye operations provided they were properly trained and registered.

So how can the backlog be cleared and the 2020 goal achieved?  Dr Sulistyowati: “This is a very serious problem, but frankly speaking, I don’t know the answer.”

FACT BOX

WHO’s Vision 2020 goal: A world in which no-one is needlessly blind

Ratio of ophthalmologists to citizens in Indonesia: 1 / 203,000

WHO recommendation: 1 / 20,000

Number of free cataract operations in 2012: 11,000

Backlog:  Close to 2,000,000

(First published in The Jakarta Post 23 January 2013)