street artistry

Having been recently in the capital city of Kalimantan and the 'equatorial city' the following description of the monument of the same name caught my eye in the Lonely Planet:

"The official monument marking the equator was originally erected in 1928 as a simple obelisk mounted with a metallic arrow. In 1930 a circle was welded to the arrow, in 1938 another cirlcle was added in the other direction and its subsequent incarnation is unintentionally funny, looking like a giant gyroscope on a pillar."

Sorry to say, I never made it to the monument.

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One unremarkably hot afternoon I found myself squatting on the sidewalk in Yogya, while the motor of the Vespa sat in pieces, splitting time between a cardboard box and a particularly radiant patch pavement. Across the street there was a bus depot where one side of the gate had fallen over. Bus depots are a really hive of activity, in spite of the fact that they are often just dusty lots ringed by corrugated tin roofed stalls.


Anyhow, when the time came to close up the gate, only one side could swing in to close. Undoubtedly this presents a problem in that anyone (without even dismounting from their Shogun motor bike) could gain access to the one of our most precious resources: the vacant lot. Thankfully Indonesia is in possesion of yet another precious resource, a ready supply of completely unengaged men on every street.


In this case about eight men picked up the gate and angled it against the other. String was procured and used to lash them together with what appeared to be the Chateau D'If of knots. 10 minutes later they returned from around the block, rolling a semi-conical piece of the road that had been torn up along a crooked path. Positioning it under the highest point of the A-frame; you could tell these guys were security experts. Shorly thereafter someone showed up with a metal pipe, which was wedged, through some team effort, into this piece of concrete. A few minutes more yielded a piece of bamboo that, after a few trial runs, was revealed to fit inside the pipe. More string was brought (a different color, undoubtedly someone had sprung for the variety pack) and tied to the top of the bamboo. Apparently it must have looked a little bit lonely because the redoubtable group returned in another 10 minutes with the garnish: a plastic shopping bag tied to the string. Eveyone looked around contentedly and then returned to their spots in the shade for a well deserved cigarette.

Leo for Peace!

Of all the people I have met in Indonesia, next to none of them have been to the United States. Unto itself, this is unremarkable, given the simple economic prerequisites for such a trip. Moreover, many of the people that you meet daily would not know what to do if dropped in the middle of Jakarta, let alone the United States. The truly stunning thing is how many students, professionals, artists, and intellectuals have been rejected outright, and literally told, ‘you do not have a good enough reason to come to America.’

In fact, to date, I have yet to meet a single Indonesian not married to an American national (I maintain that these do not count) who has actually set foot inside the United States. As one would expect this has mostly permeated popular consciousness: more often than not when I encourage people to come to America—to see the museums, the wide open sky, and especially the freeing nature of social plurality—they automatically indicate that they would rather save the time, seeing as how they could never get a visa anyways.

I often have to check my instincts, as this reponse sounds simplistic and largely indolent, but, to the contrary, they truly never could get a visa.

If rhetorical devices of the type were not fustian in their insouciance, one might be tempted (and many have so yielded) to point out that 9/11 was even more tragic in that its perpetrators not only lived in the United States beforehand but were able to exploit the freedoms which they sought to make war upon to carry on relatively unadulterated existences. How close we might have come to avoiding such tragedy seems heart wrenching impetus to redouble our guard.
Undoubtedly there are people who wish to injure Americans and for whom conventional deterrence does not exist. It is more than likely that some of such people are Indonesians. Jemiiah Islamyiah (JI) has proved to be an intractable force in Indonesian religious society and the utter inhumanity of the two Bali bombings congeals any doubts of their fanaticism and wholesale brutality.

In light of this however, it seems to me a bit shortsighted to impose a policy that results in the near complete denial of visas to the citizens of a country that represents not only the world’s largest Islamic country, but undoubtedly its largest citizenship of moderate Muslims as well. Indonesia’s Muslims, on the whole, are of a remarkably non-extremist faith. At a point when the United States not only desperately needs positive publicity within the Muslim world but Islamic cultural allies (or, short of that, dialogue participants) of any stripe, that we should forgo our most powerful tool of education about the authentic American ideals of pluralism and freedom—showing them to our guests—strikes me as a miscalculation. American isolationism is not and never has been the solution for what ails the world. Inevitably there are military and security trade-offs involved that have no easy answer. However, I think a reevaluation of this calculus makes sense. If not, people will continue to become experts on America through the less optimal avenues of Hulk Hogan’s reality TV show, Titanic, or, perhaps more dangerously, radical imams.

'timber!'

Among the first fellings of coming to Sukadana, general impracticalities about the rainforest were the first to fall. All prior experiences with the rainforest—through Lisa Frank’s line of school supplies, television documentaries, and the café of the same name—presented a magical place where an absolute menagerie of exotic flora and fauna wanted to be your friend. In reality though, what the rainforest really wants, is to kill you.

To be precise, and to avoid pithiness, the rainforest does not really want anything (and that might get more at its essence than anything else) but its sheer ruthlessness in the face of modernity (which in most places has succeeded in subduing nature) seems to invoke this sort personification on its own. I suppose this sort of thing occurs to you when you live in the midst of what is basically a giant organism naturally engineered to devour and absorb everything in its path (except the chainsaw). After all, it is difficult to do much of anything without encountering an unending cabaret of insects, vines, weather (apparently it creates its own), lizards, or microbes that seem, if not hell bent on your destruction, certainly unfazed by your presence. The adventures only begin with trips to the bathroom.

More often than not, I cannot help wondering how exactly people, or, to be more precise, any sort of modern, semi-permanent means of social organization have any business being here. In terms of this competition, it is pretty clear that human beings have the means to destroy anything they put their full powers of indifference to, but as for life in Kalimantan, it certainly seems to be contested to the point that you wonder under what terms people deserve to be here in the first place.

Certainly, people who come from a stock that has lived here for hundreds of years have some sort of claim to being here, but when you walk through the jungle you realize that everything in it is rare. It is a place utterly devoid of ‘niche-ism’ in a way that I have never before experienced.

For instance, while walking along, I started counting fungi. While there was certainly plenty to see (I probably tallied 20 different sightings in an hour), the remarkable thing was that I did not see the same type of fungi twice. This struck me as utterly incredible and, what is more, this holds for virtually everything else, from flowers to birds. As this dawned upon me, the ensuing realization that a single organism should not only raze but even strive to domesticate what literally amounts to thousands upon thousands left me feeling something rather far out of place.

Kalimantan

Of late things have been a bit listless for me. Indonesia, even in the most important cities (Jakarta excluded) can be an achingly provincial place. Outside of a few places where economy or natural catastrophe has provided some sort of impetus, there is not a ton going on for foreigners. Indonesia is much more of a backwater than I expected and once outside the larger regional cities you completely fall off the map.

Yogyakarta, the city in Central Java where I have thus far spent most of my time, is advertised as the (in addition to ‘the soul of Java,’ which is probably true, but sometimes even souls prefer to spend their days smoking and sleeping) ‘student’s city’ of Indonesia (which is also probably true) and home of its most prestigious university, but scholarship is a relative term. The city is filled with German exchange students (attending this university: UGM), some of whom I am friendly with. Few attend class and some don’t even speak Indonesian (notable because they take half of their classes in Indonesian). Mostly they do their part to contribute to Yogya’s diminutive club scene, and surround themselves with Indonesians who rarely cease talking about their intention to ‘open a bottle’ later that night at the ‘theque du jour. This is not to say that there are not serious young Indonesian academics, but many of them seem to prefer computer games.

As usual, this sounds critical, but the important point is that thus far I have had trouble finding my way. In the midst of this I have been able to accomplish only because of my relative linguistic ineptitude upon arrival, something that I have been making real progress with. However, knowing that it was time to move forward, I have been casting about for something to do. The feasibility of my Rockefeller proposal is something that I have been coming to terms with: it is very difficult to just show up in a village to ‘study’ without arousing massive amounts of suspicion (popular as well as governmental). I have reached out to a few contacts in organizations like the World Bank that run the fisheries projects in Indonesia, but I do not see any action before the first of the year.

However, last week a fellow American that I overlapped with for a week at my language school and is presently working in an NGO is Kalimantan called me up, opening with, ‘Matt, we need you.’ He is presently working for an NGO that works to preserve Orangutan habitat basically by bribing the villagers with free health care to not log the jungle. Illegal logging (as well as lawful) is a huge problem in Indonesia and Kalimantan is pretty much the last, though rapidly vanishing, stronghold of untouched rainforest in Southeast Asia.

It turns out that this NGO is shorthanded for a few weeks and is looking for someone who can help keep books, teach English, write grants, and brainstorm how to start playing the carbon credit market. I, actually, can do many of these things. It is nice for me because I only have to make a short commitment since I do not think I want to spend the next 6 months in the jungle. I am also piqued by the opportunity to see first hand what I think of as the humanist-environmentalist tension inherent in any type of conservation. Too many westerners want to just ‘save the rainforest,’ without acknowledging that this means the people that actually live there will not be able to survive. Often, the destruction of forest is an economic decision made at the individual level, not by nefarious suits in shadowy boardrooms. Plus, I will get the chance to live, quite literally, in the jungle and, more importantly, live in a place where virtually no English is spoken. I think this will be great for both my Indonesian as well as my desire to experience a breadth of Indonesian life. Moreover, if I can acquit myself well, hopefully I will acquire some sort of reference from someone in the Indonesian research/NGO community (the person who runs this one is a Yale PhD candidate, probably in health policy or something).

Anyhow, I head out on Wednesday, to a place called Sukadana (its near Ketapang) in West Kalimantan. Moving closer to the equator, I will not quite yet escape the Southern Hemisphere. It is a bit off the beaten path and my technological connectivity is going to be limited. I am told there is internet two hours away by jeep and that my cell phone will work. (The number, by the way, is +62 0859 207 17599) So, if I am not as prolific in this space, I have explained myself. I imagine that I will have a whole host of stories and impressions from this new experience, and I will try to remain disciplined about putting them down.

honkyTV

As is too often endemic to the human condition, Indonesians love watching television.

Evenings in the alleyways are bathed by the familiar blue glow of pixels whirring and winding their way through the spectral decrescendos of gratification. Come dusk it spills out of windows agape, bounces off murky mirrors, and slinks out under sentinel doors. Ceiling fan blades, mired in perpetualilty, bat it askance; everything from Champion’s League soccer to Hulk Hogan’s reality TV show to combination soap opera/ karaoke programs are cast out, anonymous velocity and terminal identity, into the tropical night’s hazy blue entropy.

My new favorite program on Indonesian TV is a garden variety, Animal Planet, crocodile hunting program. As you might expect it features nerdy, honky, biologist types wearing khaki zip-off shorts (I have been toying with the idea of dedicating an entire entry to the affinity of the white male to these, a highly disturbing trend: stay tuned) rochambeauxing around bodies of water in the dark and subsequently getting overexcited at 15 foot long reptiles.

I can not imagine what it must feel like to be the crocodile in this case: big meal, ensuing food coma, just relaxin’ at the top of the food chain and all of a sudden here comes a bunch of twiggy guys with a bright light and a cable loop attached to a pole. It makes you think twice before you again think that alien abductions are fabricated. I imagine all the crocs hanging out on the muddy shore, chomping game, and working to slap some ladies probably think ‘this guy’ is pretty crazy too.

Anyhow, the saving grace of this particular program is that it is dubbed. Indonesian programming is kind of a mixed bag: Scooby Doo is dubbed, whereas Eddie Murphy movies only have subtitles. In this case though, the dubbing is the main attraction. Crocs thrash about, our intrepid explorers jump in and out of danger’s clamp, hot and bothered biologists detonate the fourth wall with excited explanations, and all the while a breathless Asian voice tries to keep up with the action. Like watching a Kung Fu movie in inverse, it marks one of my giddiest half hours.

mobile party

Yesterday, I saw a cake, of the cheap, grocery store, impending icing stomach ache, sheet cake iteration that occupied (in all three dimensions) the entire bed of a pickup truck. This left me incredibly excited:

1. Probably the largest cake I have ever seen

2. A pretty novel way to transport a cake

3. Something about the fact that you can back up to the house, drop the tailgate, and instantly have a party really thrills me

4. Still only four corner pieces

5. This is ouuuurrr country?

the 72 people that you meet in heaven

The girl, aged about fourteen years and still sporting the ruddy plump of youth, pads past meekly, unconvinced and reticent to accept the power of which biology is the sole guarantor. Her footfalls are ones of reticence, covering a distance laterally that is nearly as far as locomotive, as she tip toes down the sunny neighborhood alleyway. Youth is universal, she sporting a vertically striped polo shirt both distressed and cut (less than generous to the implacable holdout of a tummy) in the style that is just as popular with western ‘tweens.’ That is, until she shuffles and the unprepared observer notices, nestled into the nebula of pink stars between her shoulder blades: ‘virgin.’

Obviously, the social politics of sexuality in Indonesia are a bit of a departure from what many infidels in the West might be accustomed to. Yet the expectation of some code of higher morality that basically extols that endemic to Islam also seriously misses on reality. Certainly, in a cultural and religious (both Indonesian and Islamic, though it should be mentioned that Indonesian Christianity is no different) milieu where morality is paramount, it is inevitable that virginity is thoroughly prized and fortified by the community.

Yet, consider an oft-run television ad that begins with a shot of a young girl in her bedroom boxing up, among other artifacts of childhood, her teddy bear. An older female figure then hands her another box which contains the product in question, skin whitening body lotion which she applies and becomes, through the slow fill television effect, of even fairer complexion. The spot ends with this young girl walking down the street exuding radiance and soft light to the open mouthed astonishment of the boys along the route.

Save the explication, as one does not need to yank the tarpaulin off the Marshall McLuhan excavator to get a handle on this type of imagery. This is not meant as an ad hominine attack on Islam, nor a pronunciation on all Moslems, but in a great number of instances the battle of conservative ethics against modernity in adapting to modern medias and mores has done little more than synthesize and validate the cultural fetishization of adolescent purity and innocence. While this is not necessarily a wholly Islamic tendency, it is most often couched in Islamic terms and symbolism, and, after all, Indonesia is a country where headscarf sporting women appear in TV public service announcements encouraging you to call these numbers and advocate for further censorship of media (of which there is already plenty). Shakespeare in Love was on TV the other night and the whole screening took about forty minutes. The end result is such repression of sexuality that this chastity in itself becomes the fixation, often in crude and bizarre ways.

If nothing else this sort of reactionary conservatism ensconces nothing more than a slavering male vantage with purity and youth (not to mention women) as base sexual objects. Not just objects—when you first realize that yes, strangely, many young women choose to ride around on the backs’ of motor bikes sidesaddle—but virginity transporters. Not only disconcerting, but begs the question if traditional Islamic values and modernity (not to mention women’s issues) are mutually destructive. Where is the line between fetish and moral symbolism and when does the former begin to supersede the other?

Inasfar as fiefdom, I think you bad crook

Apologies for not writing of late, but I have spent the last few days camping with three friends (my buddy, his girlfriend, and her friend) on an uninhabited island in the Java Sea about 80km north of anything. It certainly was interesting, but the shores were so strewn with human artifacts, from water bottles to flip flops to bottles of male virility elixirs, that it felt a bit inauthentic. All in all an interesting trip, from which I take some lessons learned.

First, when signing up to be abandoned on an island for any appreciable length of time, choose your companions wisely. Potentially mentally unstable Japanese girls are generally not a good idea. Nor are people who cannot swim, people who are afraid of the dark and doubly afraid of lightning in the dark, or people who ‘just don’t trust’ the tidal process and therefore need to keep watch through an open tent flap all night with a flashlight trained on the waves. People who will become upset to the point of biting another human being and then go on hunger strike (deep irony in there, no doubt) in part because you spend your days sleeping and reading instead of smoking and talking in Japanese about your ex-boyfriends should also be avoided. Anyone who when angry speaks in the third person and brandishes an empty two liter water bottle at any stray flora or fauna within reach.

Second, reconsider when a suggestion that more than 8 liters of water is brought for four people over four days is met with ‘We can’t because whatever we do she will get mad at me.’ Or, ‘Don’t worry, we can definitely rely on my solar powered cell phone charger.’

Third, in terms of culinary pursuits, instant noodles three meals a day is not nearly as terrible as it sounds. If you manage to offend someone by eating the salt with rice that they have prepared before they mold it into balls with their hands because, ‘it is not the same dish,’ begin weighing your strengths as a swimmer.

Fourth, when a suicidal salamander dashes itself into your cooking fire and your companion looks at you pleadingly and says, ‘Please don’t say anything. If the girls hear you they will be so angry at us,’ do not think, just swim.