Archive for February, 2008
JAKARTA (AFP) — Chinese-Indonesian Anatasha Eka will happily accept a red envelope stuffed with “good luck” cash from her grandmother and visit a temple for Lunar New Year — despite being among a swelling number of young evangelical Christians here shrugging off Chinese tradition.
Eka, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate, sits on a bench at the Jakarta Praise Community Church, or JPCC, where she converted to Christianity three years ago.
“My grandmother is still upset, so I didn’t get baptised until a year ago. She is very concerned about Chinese culture dying out,” said Eka, who has a non-practising Christian mother and strictly Buddhist father.
“I came to this church and just found I had a relationship with God. I’m not just praising him, He’s also helping me.
“I talked to my father — I said I want this, and this is the freedom that I have, to choose my religion.”
Both Christians and Buddhists are minorities in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. This Chinese New Year will be only the fifth time it will be celebrated as a national holiday after it was suppressed under ex-president Suharto, who ruled for more than three decades until 1998.
Like many ethnic Chinese communities abroad, a respect of tradition is the main bond connecting the group and distinguishing it from others regardless of religion.
In a hall next to a hotel in Jakarta’s leafy business district, sometimes 6,000 people, nearly all young adults and teenagers, have to queue to attend one of five consecutive Sunday services.
Sophisticated lights, cameras and sound equipment make the hall fit for a rock concert. Worshippers diligently follow the bible reading on their Palm Pilots.
About half the congregation are Chinese-Indonesian, the church’s youth minister, performer and record producer Sidney Mohede said at its business headquarters, high up in another office building in Jakarta.
The baby-faced 35-year-old of Chinese-Indonesian descent left college life in the United States, where he lived as a teenager, to set up a bible reading group of 60 people in Jakarta.
Nine years later, the JPCC has drastically expanded and incorporates a profit-making music business, True Worshippers Productions, on the side.
“In many ways I think the (Suharto) government did a lot of damage… They did a lot of things where the Chinese community just felt insecure,” Mohede said in an American twang.
“When I look at the younger generation now… I think it’s easier for them to embrace equality and just being one in this unity we call ‘church’ or ‘nation’ or ‘generation’,” he added.
During Suharto’s iron-fisted rule, the reputedly business-savvy ethnic Chinese endured attacks from Indonesians angry about a flailing economy in the 1990s and assimilation policies that banned their culture, the director of the Chinese Heritage Centre Leo Suryadinata said.
“It was the three pillars of the Chinese — no Chinese schools, no more Chinese mass media, no more Chinese organisations, including social and political organisations. The Chinese group in Indonesia became highly ‘Indonesianised’,” Suryadinata said.
Today, fewer of the population felt ‘Chinese’ enough to identify themselves as such in a 2005 national population survey compared to a census five years ago, according to demographer Aris Ananta of the Institute of South East Asian Studies in Singapore.
The figure fell from 1.20 percent in 2000 to 1.06 percent in the survey, he said, noting as well that Chinese-Indonesian birthrates have declined and immigration among ethnic Chinese out of Indonesia has occurred.
And while there may been something of a Chinese revivalist movement since Suharto was forced to step down — Confucianist, Taoist and feng shui products have become increasingly prevalent — “Chinese-ness does not necessarily mean Buddhism,” Anata said.
Of the approved religions in Indonesia, including Islam, Christianity and Hinduism, Buddhism is the only faith to have declined as a percentage of its 234-million strong population.
It dropped from 0.92 per cent in 1971 to 0.84 per cent in 2000. With the population growing at the same time, this meant an extra 600,000 people practising it over the period.
The number of Christians meanwhile nearly doubled to 17.9 million followers, according to Anata’s figures.
No official statistics exist to support it, but anecdotal evidence suggests that more Buddhist Chinese have become Christians as they increased their standards of education, Anata said.
“Christianity is often associated with ‘modernity’ and Western education. Buddhism is associated with Chinese traditional ways,” he says.
It was during his college education in the United States that Joe Sentoso, 27, now a minister at JPCC, finally abandoned the devout Buddhism of his parents for Christianity.
“It’s hard for my parents to understand what I’m doing, but I keep telling them it’s not just about Christianity. I’m investing my time for this new generation, so it can be awesome,” he said.
This Chinese New Year Sentoso will join his parents at a temple, where gifts of chicken and pork will be left as homage to his deceased grandparents.
“They do understand that once they’re gone we’re not going to do that anymore. We don’t believe in it,” he added.
Source: http://afp.google.com/
February 8th, 2008
Ary Hermawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Vivekanand, a mono act musical play by talented Indian singer, composer, lyricist and actor Shekhar Sen, will be staged Wednesday, Feb. 6, at Graha Bhakti Budaya, Taman Ismail Marzuki, to honor influential Vedanta philosopher Swami Vivekananda (1862-1902).
Shekhar Sen has performed more than 1,000 shows around the world in an aim to spread the ageless and universal message of peace, love and harmony through his plays.
Vivekanand is his third mono musical after Tulsi and Kabeer. All three plays carry the same message; the value of religious harmony.
Swami Vivekananda, born as Narendranath Dutta, is widely known as the messenger of the Eastern wisdoms, particularly Hinduism and the tradition of Vedanta, to the Western world. In 1893, he spoke before the World’s Parliament of Religions, offering the message of shared spirituality and harmony of world faiths.
His speech catapulted him to fame and since then he began giving lectures on Vedanta philosophy to his Western audiences in America and England. He was the first Indian to be honored with a professorship of Oriental Philosophy by Harvard University.
His dynamic spiritual personality and the universality of his religious convictions won the hearts and minds of truth-seekers. His vision: “Arise! Awake! And stop not till the goal is reached”, is still treasured by many until today.
The two-hour play Vivekanand by Shekhar Sen presents the life of Swami Vivekananda. It tells the stories of Vivekananda’s childhood, the impact of the religious Brahma Samaj group on him, his longing and eagerness to find God and the meeting with his great mentor, Sri Ramkrishna Paramhansa.
Shekhar writes, directs and acts in all his musicals, including Vivekanand. He was born into a musical family from Chhattisgarh and came to Mumbai to make music for movies, but was unsuccessful. His failures led him to spiritualism and he began to stage devotional music concerts and make records with research-based themes.
A visit to the U.S. in 1997 to attend a conference on the Ramayana opened his eyes to the impact of Indian culture across the world. This inspired him to write his first musical play Tulsi, which tells the story of the great Hindi poet Goswami Tulsidas (1532-1623).
The artist said he had a very intimate relationship with the characters in his plays.
“I must admit that I don’t start with definite plots or plans in mind. I go on writing for almost a year and the characters guide me … rather than I write them,” Shekhar said in an interview with www.mumbaitheatreguide.com.
The inspirational and highly acclaimed play on the life of the great spiritual leader Vivekananda by Shekhar has been brought to Jakarta by the India Club.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 6th, 2008
Suherdjoko, The Jakarta Post, Semarang
People from all walks of life have flocked in their thousands to Semawis Imlek (Chinese New Year) market on Jl. Pinggir in Semarang, Central Java.
“This is the fifth time we have organized Imlek Semawis market since it first ran in 2003,” Semarang Chinatown Tourism Community chairman Haryanto Halim told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.
“We have held the event every year since.”
Through to Wednesday the 300-meter stretch of road in Semarang’s Chinatown area will be filled with various stalls featuring the Chinese chess, medicine, comics, ornaments, sketches and photographs, folk performances and the famous lion dance.
Local cigarette, car, motorbike and medicinal herb companies are also participating in the festival, as well as Chinese and traditional food stands, to welcome the Chinese New Year which falls Thursday.
“We have maintained the spirit of a traditional night market in greeting the Chinese New Year, by holding it in the middle of the street. This is truly Semarang’s most popular night market,” Haryanto said.
Art performances have also developed into an exchange forum between different ethnicities.
Students from the Indonesian Christian School in Semarang, a majority of whom are from the Indonesian-Chinese community, staged a choir performance of traditional songs accompanied by angklung (Sundanese traditional bamboo musical instrument) and kolintang (North Sulawesi bamboo instrument) music.
Similarly pupils from Kong Kauw Hwee elementary school sang with an accompaniment of music played by musicians from the IAIN Walisongo Islamic University in Semarang.
“We aim to promote cultural exchange through the festival, so as to forge social interaction,” Haryanto said.
“We will invite artists from Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore next year, so that they can exchange knowledge with local artists,” he said, adding that he hoped the visits would lead to involvement of businessmen from the respective countries.
Semarang’s Chinatown district has apparently become one of the city’s main tourist attractions now.
Since former president Abdurrahman Wahid’s initiative to restore cultural freedom to Indonesian-Chinese citizens in 1999, Chinese culture in Semarang has prospered.
The art of playing Chinese chess has been revived by Kwan Bun, 78, who was engrossed in a game with his opponent, an architectural student at the Soegijapranata Catholic University, Melissa, 19.
“I’ve only played it for a year. It’s not hard. If you know how to play conventional chess then it’s not hard to play the Chinese version. You just have to follow the rules of the game,” Melissa said.
A master of the Li Dou ritual which stems from the Tao faith of asking for blessings and warding off misfortune, Santoso, said, “Around 500 people took part in the Li Dou ritual last year”.
“A similar ritual will be held Feb. 26 this year,” he said.
“Essentially each person has his or her own destiny. People can change bad fate by improving their behavior,” he said.
The festival will also host cultural dialogs, inviting a number of noted figures to speak, including cultural observer and former Diponegoro University rector Eko Budiharjo, jamu herbal medicine producer Irwan Hidayat, Father Setyaji of Bhinneka Swa Budaya, and Surabaya’s Sami Rukun Rahayu Agawe Santoso Association chairman Fadholi Said.
“Self-restraint is hard to come by these days because most people are influenced by spiritual illness like envy, spite, arrogance, egotism and greed. To maintain self-restraint people must be able to cure themselves from such illnesses,” Fadholi said.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 6th, 2008
Prominent businessman Hashim Djojohadikusumo is now not only busy doing business but also promoting Indonesian heritage, especially artifacts, fossils and wildlife. His love of Indonesian archeological heritage has made him active in many heritage foundations and led him to establish his own Hashim Djojohadikusumo Family Foundation (YKHD). The government has also asked his help in facilitating the return of the 1000-year-old Sanggurah Stone, or Minto Stone, from Lord Minto in Scotland. He promised to bring back the 3.8-ton stone tablet by the end of this year using his own money.
Hashim, son of Soemitro Djojohadikusumo, the late prominent economist from the Sukarno and Soeharto eras, uses fortunes from his multi-billion-dollar global businesses to pursue his love of collecting Indonesian artifacts from around the world. But his hunt for Indonesian artifacts hit a snag recently when the police confiscated five 9th century statues from his home in Kemang, South Jakarta, which the police said had been stolen from Radya Pustaka Museum in Surakarta, Central Java.
Hashim, however, argued he legally bought the statues from Hugo Kreijger, a Dutch art dealer and consultant for Christie’s auction house in Amsterdam, who claimed to get the statues from Paku Buwono XIII Hangabehi, current ruler of the Surakarta palace. One of the five statues, Ciwa Mahadewa, is Hashim’s favorite.
In an interview with Riyadi Suparno and Lilian Budianto of The Jakarta Post at his office in Midplaza building, Hashim vowed to get back the five statues. The following are excerpts from the interview.
Question: How do you see yourself in this whole affair of the five statues?
Answer: I’m a victim. I need to find out whether I’m a victim of Hugo or Heru (Suryanto, a middleman) or some other parties.
With this Surakarta incident, will you still use your money to bring back the Minto stone?
Yes. The government will not use its own money because if it did, it could set a bad precedent. Other countries which keep Indonesian ancient collections will ask for similar payment from the government if we want to have them back.
Will this incident affect your appetite for hunting for Indonesian antiques around the world?
Just last month, I went to New York to negotiate with a lady who holds many jewelry pieces from the Syailendra dynasty from the 7th to 10th centuries. I went there twice.
But now, I will be more careful. If we agree on a price, I will demand a certificate from her explaining where she got the jewelry and stating that it’s legal. I don’t want to be called a “buyer of stolen goods” anymore.
Next time, when I make a deal, I might need the police and prosecutors to confirm that it’s legal.
But how do you define legal and illegal? In the case of the five statues, if it is true that Paku Buwono XIII Hangabehi sold the statues, is it illegal?
I am not trying to defend Hangabehi. I don’t know him personally. I am in a neutral position and speaking as an art collector.
According to Christie’s auction house, those statues were owned by the palace rulers, not the state. Do you think we can blame the palace rulers for selling statues belonging to them? In this case, the rulers have the rights to sell them. However, if the government or the police say they belong to the state, they have to prove it.
The fact is that the statues are collections of Radya Pustaka Museum. Your opinion?
It is still questionable who owns the museum. While the Surakarta administration said it owns the museum, it has never taken care of it. The Surakarta Palace rulers also claim it is theirs. We have to trace it back to the Dutch colonization period.
Even if the museum belongs to the administration, the palace rulers may have lent the collections and therefore, they still own them.
This is a common practice worldwide. Noblemen sold their art collections, made their castles tourist destinations and used museums to support their lives.
Why does it then become problematic in Indonesia?
We have no regulations regarding this matter. Our concern is how the palace rulers can earn money. Surakarta rulers used to have sugar factories but it was a long time ago. Now they don’t have a steady stream of income.
If the government is not able to support them, the private sector can actually help them through a kind of philanthropic activity, like what I have been doing. We need to ask more entrepreneurs to get involved in taking care of our heritage.
It seems not many businessmen are interested in spending money for our heritage?
I identify a problem with our effort to encourage the private sector to contribute its money, not only for heritage, but for any philanthropic activities. There is no tax incentive like in many other countries.
Philanthropic activity here is not exempted from tax. In the United States, for example, if you spend your money on a philanthropic activity, it is tax-deductible. Here, this kind of spending is taxed. This is ridiculous.
It’s similar with textbooks. Our imported textbooks are taxed, and as a result they are more expensive than those sold in the United States and Australia.
We need a paradigm shift here. Philanthropic-related activities and education must be exempted from tax. We need new thinking.
We heard you are going to build a museum?
Actually, a library. We named it Soemitro Djojohadikusumo Institute. We have submitted our proposal to have it built in an area of the University of Indonesia (UI). However, we have yet to reach an agreement on it.
We will have two kinds of libraries there. First, online. We plan to provide access to more than 5,000 online international journals to Indonesian students for free.
Second, the real library with hardcover books. We plan to supply it with 3-4 million books. By comparison, if all libraries in UI were consolidated into one library, it would only have 500,000 books. In this library, we will have a section to display a collection of my father’s books.
We will also build a gallery, where I plan to keep my collection of artifacts and fossils. We also plan to buy the collection of documentary movies belonging to historian Des Alwi.
The library, gallery and also the private collection section will all be in one place. We need a total of five hectares of land.
Do you have any idea how to improve our museums?
Let me tell you, the salary of a guard in the National Museum, Jakarta, is only Rp 600,000 (US$63) a month. He is responsible for taking care of the museum, which is full of valuable items, but still he receives such a low salary.
I suggested to the Tourism Minister and his aides that they establish a national board of trustees, consisting of businessmen, who will work on museums’ funding and management. Our example is the British Museum, where its board of trustees is made up of the private sector and businessmen.
This is what our foundation does currently. We help the Radya Pustaka Museum with air conditioners, computers and allowances to its guards and staffers. The guards there receive only Rp 100,000 a month in salary.
We hope other businessmen will be interested in doing similar things. They will, I guess, if there is a tax incentive for philanthropic activities.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 5th, 2008
The government will have to work hard to meet its Visit Indonesia 2008 target of seven million foreign arrivals.
Indonesia saw 5.51 million foreign tourist arrivals last year, up 13 percent from 4.87 million in 2006, the Central Statistics Agency said Friday.
Due primarily to higher spending per visit, the increasing number of tourist arrivals generated US$5.3 billion in foreign exchange income last year, up from $4.4 billion in 2006.
Of the country’s 15 main points of entry, Ngurah Rai airport in Bali recorded the highest number of arrivals in 2006, with 1.74 million visitors, up by 3.95 percent from 1.32 million the year before.
“The rising number of tourist arrivals, mainly through Ngurah Rai, indicates progress in Indonesia’s tourism sector”, the agency’s deputy chairman for distribution and service Ali Rosidi said in a press briefing.
Meanwhile, the Minangkabau entry point experienced the steepest drop in foreign arrivals; they were down 20.92 percent, primarily due to an earthquake, the agency said.
The Ministry of Culture and Tourism recently launched the Visit Indonesia program which targets US$6.3 million in foreign exchange revenue in 2008.
Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, is still recovering from deadly terrorist attacks in the resort island of Bali in 2002 and 2005 and as well as similar incidents on a much smaller scale in Jakarta.
Foreign reporting on bird flu virus has also discouraged many foreign tourists from coming to Indonesia, despite the country’s numerous attractive tourist spots.
Lack of promotion also contributes to the sluggish growth. The government has said its budget is only $15 million for promoting tourism this year.
The agency said that in December the country’s total tourist arrivals reached 431,000, a mere 10.20 percent increase over the 390,800 arrivals recorded in the same period of 2006.
According to the agency, from November to December, the country recorded a 7.86 percent increase with 431,001 arrivals, as against 399,609 in the same period of 2006.
Foreign tourists spent about $107.70 per day, up by 7.19 percent from around $100.48 in 2006. But the rise is mostly driven by soaring inflation in the country’s consumer prices.
The average expenses per visit figure in 2007 was $970.98, higher than $913.09 in 2006, the agency said.
Also, foreign tourists aren’t staying as long, as indicated by an agency report showing average length of stay declined to 9.02 days last year from 9.09 days in 2006.
Analysts said a lack of transportation and recreational facilities discouraged tourists from staying longer.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 4th, 2008
Aimee Dawis, Contributor, Jakarta
The Indonesian film industry is growing rapidly. According to the Department of Films and Censorship, 70 feature films were released in Indonesia in 2007, up from 50 the year before. In 2008, more than 100 feature films will be released.
Each year, there are 400-500 sinetron (television drama) titles produced for audiences across the nation. Although frequently slammed by critics as low-quality programming, sinetron has proven to be immensely popular in the Indonesian market, capturing a high audience share.
In late 2007, “Get Married” and “Quickie Express” captured the attention of Indonesian movie-goers. “Get Married” had more than 1 million viewers, and “Quickie Express”, starring Tora Sudiro and produced by Nia Dinata, looks like it is going to be a runaway success.
Multiplexes such as the Blitz Megaplex at Grand Indonesia, which daily draws an average of 11,000 movie-goers on weekends and 4,000 on weekdays, are willing to give local films a longer run, which have contributed to the films’ increasing popularity.
Based on my own observations and conversations with the rising stars and key players in the Indonesian film industry, I see tremendous potential for Indonesian culture industries to become a formidable force in southeast Asia.
Indonesia boasts over 13,500 islands and 300 ethnic groups. We have some of the most beautiful islands on earth (i.e. Bali), dense rainforests and intricate monuments such as Borobudur and Candi Prambanan.
Thus, we have limitless untold stories and a unique cultural perspective. Indonesia is also home to untapped creative talents. However, much more needs to be done before that potential may be realized.
While recent hits such as “Quickie Express” and Nia Dinata’s “Arisan” are unconventional films that tackle sensitive subjects such as male gigolos and gays, respectively, most of the films released are in the teenage romance or horror genres.
They reflect the wariness of movie and sinetron investors to invest outside the “safe” genres.
This puts a clamp on creativity and restraints on investment.
In The Jakarta Post’s Weekender magazine (November 2007 issue), Shanty Harmayn, the co-founder of the Jakarta International Film Festival and one of the most influential filmmakers in Indonesia, said the Indonesian film industry needed to produce good scriptwriters, skilled and well-trained filmmakers, more technicians and good infrastructure for laboratory, digital lab and sound-mixing facilities.
For Indonesian cinema to grow, we need to build infrastructure (for example, a movie industrial complex complete with indoor and outdoor studios), film festivals, a market, film schools and an industry incentive system.
Harmayn also said the Indonesian film industry had much to learn from other Asian countries with a thriving culture industry, especially South Korea.
As with the Korean movie industry, where the filmmakers and government are able to collaborate, a good government policy in Indonesia is needed to build our movie industry.
A ruling that protects homegrown films such as the one implemented in Korea, where cinemas are required to screen locally produced films for at least 21 days, would be a good start.
The Indonesian government and filmmakers should also learn from the synergy of image production with the promotion of their culture, industrial products and/or brands that the Koreans have built within their popular movies and series.
The fans of Korean popular culture (or K-Pop) in Indonesia admit their affinity for Korean language and everything made in Korea begins with Korean movies, music and TV series.
The president of a K-Pop fan club I interviewed said she would do whatever it took to master the Korean language so she would be able to obtain more firsthand information on K-Pop.
She also tries to incorporate as many Korean items in her life as possible, such as Samsung mobile phones and LG computers.
Another K-pop fan said he encountered the Korean pride in their products and media when he went for a job interview with Samsung in Seoul.
The ways in which Koreans conduct their business (with efficiency and cutting-edge strategy) show clearly in how big-name Korean companies such as Samsung and LG treat their employees and implement their marketing campaigns.
Although these companies may not be directly involved with Korean media, the Korean government’s commitment to support and market Korean media abroad have resulted in a subliminal “brand loyalty” for fans of Korean series and cinema which my interviewees have shown.
My research on Korean media and their impact on Indonesian society suggests there is an excellent opportunity for the Indonesian government to market a thriving and growing market (for Indonesian cinema and series) overseas.
If our media products are well-known outside of Indonesia (as it is, our sinetron is very well-received in Malaysia), fans of our media will automatically be more alert to the country of Indonesia and the many things it has to offer (tourism, handicrafts and other locally produced items, to name a few).
That priceless world-wide awareness of our culture and country is the magic that Indonesian filmmakers can most certainly create. It is government and economic support they now need to create the magic.
The writer teaches at the School of Social and Political Sciences and the School of Humanities at the University of Indonesia. She can be reached at canting@hotmail.com.
Source: The Jakarta Post
February 4th, 2008
By Indonesia correspondent Geoff Thompson
Posted Thu Jan 31, 2008 9:27pm AEDT
Australian and Indonesian transport ministers have signed a new agreement to work together to improve air safety in Indonesia.
Under Australia’s $24 million assistance package, up to 40 Indonesian air safety inspectors will be trained to international standards.
Speaking in Jakarta, Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said the initiative was prompted by the Garuda crash which killed 21 people, including five Australians last March.
“The incident at Yogyakarta, now almost 12 months ago, brought home in a very practical and tragic way that Australian citizens also have a direct interest in safety of transport in Indonesia,” he said.
Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news
February 1st, 2008
JAKARTA, Jan 31 (Reuters) - The Indonesian and Australian governments have signed a preliminary pact to improve Indonesia’s transport safety and broaden levels of cooperation between the two countries, the Australian embassy said on Thursday.
“It is essential the travelling public of both countries have confidence that transport safety is a priority and that lessons from previous transport accidents are being acted upon,” Australian Transport Minister Anthony Albanese said in a statement.
Under the transport safety pact, Australia will provide almost 200 billion rupiah ($21.54 million) over three years for training and technical assistance.
Indonesia has suffered a string of airline accidents in recent years, raising questions about safety standards and prompting the European Union in June to ban Indonesian planes from flying to EU nations.
Australia has worked closely with Indonesia in investigating a Garuda Indonesia crash in Yogyakarta in March 2007 that killed more than 20 people. Five Australians were among the dead.
Air travel in Indonesia has grown since the sector was deregulated in 1999, leading to a proliferation of new airlines. ($1 = 9,285 rupiah) (Reporting by Mita Valina Liem; Editing by Sugita Katyal and Katie Nguyen)
Source: http://www.reuters.com/
February 1st, 2008
Next Posts