The Jakarta Globe is looking for some copy editors to help keep this place humming.
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The Jakarta Globe is one of Asia's leading English-language newspapers and websites (www.thejakartaglobe.com). Produced by a team of journalists from Indonesia and abroad, the outlet offers news on local, national and international affairs in the fields of politics, business, sports and the arts.
The Globe is looking for several new copy editing staff to help it maintain its position as a leading source of quality news and information on Indonesia.
SENIOR COPY EDITOR
The senior copy editor will have at least three years experience as a writer or editor with an English-language news outlet. Responsibilities include maintaining a high standard of written prose across the masthead, liaising with reporters, writing headlines and other story components, and mentoring copy editors and checking their work.
COPY EDITOR (Two vacancies)
The copy editors will have a degree in journalism or experience as a writer or editor with an English-language news outlet. Responsibilities include copy editing news stories, opinion articles and features, liaising with reporters and writing headlines and other story components.
Salaries and housing payments that allow a high standard of living in Jakarta, a thriving international city, are available for the right candidates.
Please contact chief copy editor Ari Sharp (ari.sharp@beritasatumedia.com) with any questions or to submit your CV. Applications close March 22, 2013.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Saturday, February 02, 2013
An open letter to the pickpocket on the No. 20 Kopaja
My dear sir,
Kudos to you on your fine accomplishment last Monday. I was completely oblivious to your wily deed for a good half-hour after I stepped off the minibus, until I did the Self-Pat Down of Doom in the office and felt nothing but crestfallen disappointment.
I must admit that early in your routine, before I knew that I was the mark, you had me feeling sorry for you. With your shabby clothes and receding hairline, you were struggling to generate much interest among my fellow travellers in your shabby A6 flyers that looked as if they were eighth-generation photocopies on a battered Xerox. Few people seemed interested in the Bandung reflexology service that you seemed to be touting for, and none at all were keen on having you demonstrate your technique on their hands.
The dejected look on your face briefly made me feel pity for you. But knowing that I once felt pity for you makes me now feel a pang of pity for myself, or at least for the me of last Monday.
So when you wandered up to my seat, looked me in the eye with a hangdog expression and reached for my hand, I was somewhat obliging. My left hand was clutching a retracted umbrella at the time, however you gently but firmly eased it into yours. I expected a squeeze, perhaps a pinch, and a bit of firm pressure. And you gave me those things, but pretty quickly you ventured up my arm with your right hand, until you'd reached over my shoulder and had brought my chest forward to my knees.
At the time I thought you were a bit rough, but then many Indonesian men are robustly physical, unafraid of delivering a firm slap. I had a hunch you were up to something sinister, so I kept a close eye on the pseudo-gold and silver watch on my left wrist. And when you let me sit back upright a few seconds later, I was sure to check that the watch was still in position. Which it was.
But my watch was not what you were seeking. As you well knew, my iPhone was sitting in the breast pocket of my shirt, within tantalisingly easy reach as I leaned forward. Your grip on it was so perfect and delicate - the sign of a true craftsman. Within seconds it had moved from my pocket to yours. And not long after, you'd called out to the driver to slow down so you could jump off. I don't recall if you had a grin on your face, but I suspect you're too good at your occupation to let a hubristic smile be your undoing.
Your unsolicited demonstration has led me to learn some of the theory and nomenclature of your occupation. Looks to me like you were working "single o" -- a "stick" (distractor), a "shade" (view-blocker) and a "tool" (lifter), all rolled into one. Your flyer -- an oh-so-crappy flyer -- was perfect as a "pattern interrupt" to distract me from my idle thoughts as I cruised down the street. And perhaps the pièce de résistance was using my own momentum as I sat back to effortlessly remove the goods from my pocket. Bravo.
One person I told my story to said they thought you'd been watching my pattern for a few days prior, knowing that I regularly catch the same Kopaja bus at about the same time, carry an expensive phone and would be easy prey. But I doubt you would have needed the reconnaissance. You strike me as the sort of petty crook who could use your intuition to find things of value, sizing me up on a single encounter rather than gathering clues over time. Instead, I think last Monday I was unlucky (and a touch naive), and you were fortunate (and rather cunning).
I wonder whether you've considered a career in Indonesian politics. Your ability to earn people's trust and assume a disposition of magnanimity in order to relieve them of the contents of their pockets would seem ideal preparation. Then again, there's probably more honour in being a petty thief on a minibus. I understand.
Jakarta can be a tough city to survive in, and we've all got to do what we can to keep our heads above water, sometimes literally. I'm guessing your line of work can be pretty lucrative on a good day. Enjoy your luck while it lasts. But remember, one day you'll pick on the wrong person, someone not as gormlessly trusting as me, and it'll end badly for you.
I've conceded that my phone has gone now, never to be straddled in my hands again. I hope you -- or whoever you sell it to for a fraction of the price I paid for it -- treat it well. Don't scratch the screen, don't drain the battery searching for Wi-Fi, and please don't ruin my 14-game Freecell winning streak.
Best wishes on your future endeavours,
Ari the Chump
Kudos to you on your fine accomplishment last Monday. I was completely oblivious to your wily deed for a good half-hour after I stepped off the minibus, until I did the Self-Pat Down of Doom in the office and felt nothing but crestfallen disappointment.
I must admit that early in your routine, before I knew that I was the mark, you had me feeling sorry for you. With your shabby clothes and receding hairline, you were struggling to generate much interest among my fellow travellers in your shabby A6 flyers that looked as if they were eighth-generation photocopies on a battered Xerox. Few people seemed interested in the Bandung reflexology service that you seemed to be touting for, and none at all were keen on having you demonstrate your technique on their hands.
The dejected look on your face briefly made me feel pity for you. But knowing that I once felt pity for you makes me now feel a pang of pity for myself, or at least for the me of last Monday.
So when you wandered up to my seat, looked me in the eye with a hangdog expression and reached for my hand, I was somewhat obliging. My left hand was clutching a retracted umbrella at the time, however you gently but firmly eased it into yours. I expected a squeeze, perhaps a pinch, and a bit of firm pressure. And you gave me those things, but pretty quickly you ventured up my arm with your right hand, until you'd reached over my shoulder and had brought my chest forward to my knees.
At the time I thought you were a bit rough, but then many Indonesian men are robustly physical, unafraid of delivering a firm slap. I had a hunch you were up to something sinister, so I kept a close eye on the pseudo-gold and silver watch on my left wrist. And when you let me sit back upright a few seconds later, I was sure to check that the watch was still in position. Which it was.
But my watch was not what you were seeking. As you well knew, my iPhone was sitting in the breast pocket of my shirt, within tantalisingly easy reach as I leaned forward. Your grip on it was so perfect and delicate - the sign of a true craftsman. Within seconds it had moved from my pocket to yours. And not long after, you'd called out to the driver to slow down so you could jump off. I don't recall if you had a grin on your face, but I suspect you're too good at your occupation to let a hubristic smile be your undoing.
Your unsolicited demonstration has led me to learn some of the theory and nomenclature of your occupation. Looks to me like you were working "single o" -- a "stick" (distractor), a "shade" (view-blocker) and a "tool" (lifter), all rolled into one. Your flyer -- an oh-so-crappy flyer -- was perfect as a "pattern interrupt" to distract me from my idle thoughts as I cruised down the street. And perhaps the pièce de résistance was using my own momentum as I sat back to effortlessly remove the goods from my pocket. Bravo.
One person I told my story to said they thought you'd been watching my pattern for a few days prior, knowing that I regularly catch the same Kopaja bus at about the same time, carry an expensive phone and would be easy prey. But I doubt you would have needed the reconnaissance. You strike me as the sort of petty crook who could use your intuition to find things of value, sizing me up on a single encounter rather than gathering clues over time. Instead, I think last Monday I was unlucky (and a touch naive), and you were fortunate (and rather cunning).
I wonder whether you've considered a career in Indonesian politics. Your ability to earn people's trust and assume a disposition of magnanimity in order to relieve them of the contents of their pockets would seem ideal preparation. Then again, there's probably more honour in being a petty thief on a minibus. I understand.
Jakarta can be a tough city to survive in, and we've all got to do what we can to keep our heads above water, sometimes literally. I'm guessing your line of work can be pretty lucrative on a good day. Enjoy your luck while it lasts. But remember, one day you'll pick on the wrong person, someone not as gormlessly trusting as me, and it'll end badly for you.
I've conceded that my phone has gone now, never to be straddled in my hands again. I hope you -- or whoever you sell it to for a fraction of the price I paid for it -- treat it well. Don't scratch the screen, don't drain the battery searching for Wi-Fi, and please don't ruin my 14-game Freecell winning streak.
Best wishes on your future endeavours,
Ari the Chump
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
S&M haircut
Every six weeks or so, I treat myself to a haircut. Not the ordinary shopping mall barbershop kind, but an authentic Indonesian military-style cut, deep in the bowels of Pasar Cikini, the ramshackle market that's home to a hundred surprises just a short stroll from my front door.
It's not the haircut itself that I look forward to - although the buzz cut is a decent one - but the head and shoulder massage that comes with it. It's tough and rough and can leave a few marks, but it's also a fantastic form of stress relief.
Many foreigners and well-to-do Indonesians here like to indulge in a "cream bath", where for an hour or two they can be gently pampered, scrubbed and massaged, all while reading out-of-date women's magazines. My massage is not like that - it's like venturing into an S&M dungeon, being roughed around a bit, smiling and asking for more.
Lucky for me, this morning was haircut time. So down to the market I wandered, through the middle-aged ladies tending their fruit and vegetable stalls, past the carefully denuded coconuts, the raw animal parts hanging on hooks and the fresh fish display peppered with flies.
I reached my hairdresser, a small room off the main laneway, about the size of an en suite bathroom. The place is run by a couple of easy-going men in their 20s, brothers or cousins I think, who live with their family in the home directly above the ground-level shop. The two guys are lean and fit, with the ragged T-shirts and spiky haircuts that are in fashion among young Jakartan men who feel they've got something to prove.
There are a four plastic green chairs lined up by the door, and they're often occupied, but rarely by customers. This barber shop is a place for men, young and old, to hang out, spread gossip, read the Topskor sports newspaper and snooze. A haircut is one of many reasons a person might venture through the door.
But that's what I was there for. So I stuck my head in the door, and was quickly ushered into one of the two salon chairs, my protestation that the people in the green seats should be served before me met with a gesture that made clear I wasn't taking anyone's spot.
"Nomor Tiga" I said, pointing at my hair and waving three fingers in the air to indicate the blade I wanted on the shaver. "Dan juga massage," I said, getting a nod of acknowledgement. So fairly swiftly he set to work, methodically cutting away the dark locks that had been irritating me for the previous few weeks, flicking them nonchalantly to the floor.
The TV in the corner hissed away, broadcasting an inane sinetron soap opera with lots of lingering shots of heavily permed actresses looking emotionally distraught, interspersed with advertisements for dishwashing liquid and instant noodles and energy drinks, touted by fun, uncomplicated 20-somethings reciting cheesy catchphrases.
The top of my head taken care of, my barber grabbed a single shaving blade and set to work on the back of my neck. Indonesians grow very little facial hair, and so their efforts to wield the blade usually don't involve shaving cream. After all, if your aim is to target individual hairs, it's easier if you can see them. So in smoothing the back of my neck, the barber opted for a dry shave, scraping the blade on my weathered skin, enough to catch the hairs but thankfully leaving the skin behind.
The haircut done, he lifted the smock theatrically, and shock its contents on the ground, folded it and put it aside. Then he doused his hands with a mix of oil and aftershave, and planted his hands on my short-haired scalp, as I sat with eager anticipation. He paused for a moment, the liquid gently dribbling down causing a slight burning sensation, then squeezed his fingers slightly to indicate the massage was to begin.
Soon he was kneading the flesh on my scalp mercilessly, pinching then releasing mounds of skin and lightly separating them from my skull. The fingers worked their way around my scalp, moving toward my face and yanking my forehead, lifting my eyebrows and leaving my eyelids little choice but to follow. My temples were forced together and released, the crown of my head pulled towards both ears at once. He lifted my head as much as my neck would allow, twisting it to both sides.
Then my pianist ventured for some lower notes, undoing the top two buttons of my shirt and working his way down my spine as a sat, transfixed. He pulled and poked at my shoulders, and ventured to just above where my clavicle gets close to the surface of the skin. He moved his hands in small concentric circles, zeroing in on a spot that was a mass of tightened tendons and muscle, the physical manifestation of the stress I had been feeling. Once he'd found the spot, he went hard, squeezing and releasing, pounding away with considerable force.
The impact prompted me to hunch forward slightly, too proud to admit to the barber that he was using too much force and should ease up a little. After a while he relented, and set to work on my arms, right first, then left. He pulled each arm sideways from my body, as far as they could comfortably go - then yanked a little more. Satisfied the arm was fully extended, he set to work on each finger, rotating it a few times before giving it a short, sharp tug. The cracking sound with each knuckle gave us both a jolt of satisfaction. Then he'd dig his fingers into my palm as if with enough effort he might make it out the other side, and continued the approach as he ventured up the arm toward the shoulder.
Then finally he worked his cruel magic on the back of my neck, his thumb and forefinger pinching a hunk of flesh until it hurt, then releasing. He worked his way either side of the spinal column, persisting through my occasional flinches as he made contact with the spots best known to people undertaking pressure-point training.
"Sudah," he said, making eye contact with me via the mirror as he gave me a firm pat on the head to tell me both our work was done. I took a few deep breaths and conducted a quick mental check of my body, noting where the stress had been relieved, and new aches and pains had potentially been created.
I handed my man 40,000 rupiah - about $4 - and headed back out to the main alley of the market, feeling more alive than I had in a while. Now that's a haircut.
It's not the haircut itself that I look forward to - although the buzz cut is a decent one - but the head and shoulder massage that comes with it. It's tough and rough and can leave a few marks, but it's also a fantastic form of stress relief.
Many foreigners and well-to-do Indonesians here like to indulge in a "cream bath", where for an hour or two they can be gently pampered, scrubbed and massaged, all while reading out-of-date women's magazines. My massage is not like that - it's like venturing into an S&M dungeon, being roughed around a bit, smiling and asking for more.
Lucky for me, this morning was haircut time. So down to the market I wandered, through the middle-aged ladies tending their fruit and vegetable stalls, past the carefully denuded coconuts, the raw animal parts hanging on hooks and the fresh fish display peppered with flies.
I reached my hairdresser, a small room off the main laneway, about the size of an en suite bathroom. The place is run by a couple of easy-going men in their 20s, brothers or cousins I think, who live with their family in the home directly above the ground-level shop. The two guys are lean and fit, with the ragged T-shirts and spiky haircuts that are in fashion among young Jakartan men who feel they've got something to prove.
There are a four plastic green chairs lined up by the door, and they're often occupied, but rarely by customers. This barber shop is a place for men, young and old, to hang out, spread gossip, read the Topskor sports newspaper and snooze. A haircut is one of many reasons a person might venture through the door.
But that's what I was there for. So I stuck my head in the door, and was quickly ushered into one of the two salon chairs, my protestation that the people in the green seats should be served before me met with a gesture that made clear I wasn't taking anyone's spot.
"Nomor Tiga" I said, pointing at my hair and waving three fingers in the air to indicate the blade I wanted on the shaver. "Dan juga massage," I said, getting a nod of acknowledgement. So fairly swiftly he set to work, methodically cutting away the dark locks that had been irritating me for the previous few weeks, flicking them nonchalantly to the floor.
The TV in the corner hissed away, broadcasting an inane sinetron soap opera with lots of lingering shots of heavily permed actresses looking emotionally distraught, interspersed with advertisements for dishwashing liquid and instant noodles and energy drinks, touted by fun, uncomplicated 20-somethings reciting cheesy catchphrases.
The top of my head taken care of, my barber grabbed a single shaving blade and set to work on the back of my neck. Indonesians grow very little facial hair, and so their efforts to wield the blade usually don't involve shaving cream. After all, if your aim is to target individual hairs, it's easier if you can see them. So in smoothing the back of my neck, the barber opted for a dry shave, scraping the blade on my weathered skin, enough to catch the hairs but thankfully leaving the skin behind.
The haircut done, he lifted the smock theatrically, and shock its contents on the ground, folded it and put it aside. Then he doused his hands with a mix of oil and aftershave, and planted his hands on my short-haired scalp, as I sat with eager anticipation. He paused for a moment, the liquid gently dribbling down causing a slight burning sensation, then squeezed his fingers slightly to indicate the massage was to begin.
Soon he was kneading the flesh on my scalp mercilessly, pinching then releasing mounds of skin and lightly separating them from my skull. The fingers worked their way around my scalp, moving toward my face and yanking my forehead, lifting my eyebrows and leaving my eyelids little choice but to follow. My temples were forced together and released, the crown of my head pulled towards both ears at once. He lifted my head as much as my neck would allow, twisting it to both sides.
Then my pianist ventured for some lower notes, undoing the top two buttons of my shirt and working his way down my spine as a sat, transfixed. He pulled and poked at my shoulders, and ventured to just above where my clavicle gets close to the surface of the skin. He moved his hands in small concentric circles, zeroing in on a spot that was a mass of tightened tendons and muscle, the physical manifestation of the stress I had been feeling. Once he'd found the spot, he went hard, squeezing and releasing, pounding away with considerable force.
The impact prompted me to hunch forward slightly, too proud to admit to the barber that he was using too much force and should ease up a little. After a while he relented, and set to work on my arms, right first, then left. He pulled each arm sideways from my body, as far as they could comfortably go - then yanked a little more. Satisfied the arm was fully extended, he set to work on each finger, rotating it a few times before giving it a short, sharp tug. The cracking sound with each knuckle gave us both a jolt of satisfaction. Then he'd dig his fingers into my palm as if with enough effort he might make it out the other side, and continued the approach as he ventured up the arm toward the shoulder.
Then finally he worked his cruel magic on the back of my neck, his thumb and forefinger pinching a hunk of flesh until it hurt, then releasing. He worked his way either side of the spinal column, persisting through my occasional flinches as he made contact with the spots best known to people undertaking pressure-point training.
"Sudah," he said, making eye contact with me via the mirror as he gave me a firm pat on the head to tell me both our work was done. I took a few deep breaths and conducted a quick mental check of my body, noting where the stress had been relieved, and new aches and pains had potentially been created.
I handed my man 40,000 rupiah - about $4 - and headed back out to the main alley of the market, feeling more alive than I had in a while. Now that's a haircut.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
A hike to the peak of Mount Salak
At home and abroad, I lead a fairly sedentary lifestyle, often balking at the chance to do really strenuous things. So when I do put myself to the test, the aches and pains linger long afterward. So it is that three days after undertaking perhaps the most physically demanding thing I've ever done, I'm still moving like an old man shuffling toward a bus. Here's how it happened.
Java Lava's a group of adventurous mountain and volcano climbers, mostly expats, that arranges hikes in different parts of Indonesia.
A few weeks back it started promoting a day hike up Mt Salak, about two hours out of Jakarta, near Bogor. The circular told us it was five hours up and three hours down, 1,400 metres vertical - from the 800m start to the 2,200m peak - and a price was provided for children. But it did warn "some parts are steep" and "if you don't know what climbing 1,400m means, perhaps this hike isn't for you". In retrospect, I should have heeded the warning.
Mt Salak has long been of interest to hikers, but hit the headlines a few months back as the site where a Russian Sukhoi plane crashed in May this year while on a demonstration flight for potential Indonesian buyers. At the time, it took a day or two for rescuers to get to the site, given its remoteness.
Anyhow, I flicked the information on the hike to people around the office, and attracted four others - three Americans and an Australian - to join me. We were five of about 35 people who were on the list of participants.
So we headed off from Jakarta at about 4:30am on Saturday, on the toll road for about an hour then navigating dilapidated streets between villages. It was becoming clear that we'd miss the 6am designated start time, so I had SMS contact with the organizer, who said they'd wait a little while for us. In the end, we got there at about 6:30am, and saw a few cars and drivers, who indicated that the hikers had already left.
We headed up the main path, and saw the scattered paper that Java Lava uses to mark its trail, so we knew we were heading the right way. The hike starts on a fairly shallow slope, although the path is little more than a thin trail, with lots of foliage either side and the occasional loose bit of earth. After half an hour or so we caught the next-last group of Java Lava hikers - three teachers from Britain working at the British International School and a German banker friend - who seemed of a similar fitness and attitude to us, so stuck with them for a while. We also happened to bump into a pair of well-equipped German couple in their 50s, who despite trekking poles and boots, were moving at a snail's pace.
After about two hours we passed a slightly ambiguous intersection, and opted to go down what looked to be the wider and more-established of the paths. That trail, though, became increasingly thinner and difficult to walk. Along the path we met two fit Australian hikers coming back the other way, and they explained that this was in fact the side path to a waterfall, and it we wanted the path to continue up the mountain, we needed to return to the intersection and head the other way. Given it was still early in the day, we decided to push on a bit further to try to get to the waterfall - which ultimately we couldn't because the path became too damp - and then returned to the main trail.
With plenty of sweat and mud on us, we continued heading up the mountain. The path become progressively steeper and within an hour or so seemed to slope at 20-30 degrees, with plenty of stones and trees. Essentially it meant that each step was a fair bit higher than the one that proceeded it, with little straight flat-ground walking. Our group was flagging a bit, and I was really struggling to keep pace. I'd only catch them when they periodically stopped for a rest. Then after we headed off again, I quickly fell behind. The walk was so strenuous that I had to stop to take big gasps of breath after each decent-size upward step - given how many their were, that made for slow climbing.
So up we went like this for several hours. By about 11:30am, we passed the first of the Java Lava hikers in the group heading down the mountain. One mentioned that they'd got word - via mobile phone, presumably, which worked intermittently on the mountain - that police were waiting at the start/end point of the climb, and were upset because the group didn't have the necessary permit the climb. Right.
We slowly pushed on, and met a couple of extremely fit Europeans with sophisticated trekking poles who were bounding down the mountain. They estimated that we were about 40 minutes from the top, which was reassuring. Then 20 minutes later we passed another Australian hiker, who estimated that we were - wait for it - about 40 minutes from the top.
We groaned in disbelief, but continued upward, slightly buoyed by the reassurance that the view at the top was impressive. We plodded on, a few steps forward, a large step up, and stopping to catch breath. At this point, my drinking water was going fast. I'd packed a 2 litre bottle for the trek up, and a 1 litre bottle for the return journey; I was close to finishing the first one but was reluctant to start on the second one so early. So I decided to just stay parched for a while.
As we plodded on, the path disappeared to almost nothing, forcing us to push aside branches and clamber up rocks. Then finally the dappled sunlight of the lower reaches turned into a hotter and more consistent shine as the trees become fewer and thinner. With great relief, we made it to the top, at about 1pm.
I was so drained of energy that I immediately slumped prone in the dirt and didn't move for about 20 minutes. Then when I did move, it was only to take some gulps from my second bottle of water and force myself to eat some of the fruit I'd packed. Despite not having eaten all day, I had no appetite - my major physiological focus was getting the air and breaks I needed.
So we took photos and wandered around the peak. Sadly, the haze had set in, so the view wasn't great. We could see the peak of one of the nearby mountains, and vague outlines of unclear things in other directions, but we were too late for the good stuff. At this stage the four-person British-German group were the only others there - the all-the-gear-no-idea German couple from earlier had clearly given up, and all the others had hit the top and turned back.
By about 1:50pm, we decided it was time to head down. Going downhill is not quite a tough as going uphill, but it's still pretty challenging when it's steep. For each step you need to think about whether the ground is firm enough to hold you, what you can hold onto the side, where you'll put your other foot if you feel unstable... it's mentally as well as physically draining. It didn't help that I was hiking without a stick or high-ankled boots, which meant that I was feeling the vibrating impact of each step ripple right through my body.
We stopped every 15 minutes of so for a brief rest, and then pushed on. It was arduous and repetitive, and completely exhausting. By mid-afternoon, we thought we had things under control, and started working out how we'd deal with the police waiting at the entrance, whose existence we had now been told about by a few hikers along the way. As foreigners, none of us particularly wanted to deal with Indonesian police at great length.
On the way down we did a fair bit of slipping and sliding, accumulating a large number of scratches, bruises and minor humiliations, but enjoyed the reassurance of thinking we were in the home stretch.
By about 5pm, the sun was sitting low in the sky and we were all tired and close to the end of our water supplies. We tried to quicken the pace slightly to get out before dark - none of us had torches (we didn't think we'd need them) and had only mobile phones as a source of light once the sun set. We also opted to forgo our quarter-hourly breaks.
But by about 6pm, it was dark and I was exhausted. We came together as a group, and decided we couldn't take it any more. So we slumped by the side of the path, and called for help. I called Yudi, our group's driver, and told him that we needed help - we were about a half-hour from the end and needed torches and cold drinks. I also spoke to one of the Java Lava organisers who had left the site, and he promised to relay the message to their person who was still at the base camp. So there we waited, the five in our group soon joined by the four in the British-German group. Three of the nine decided they would persevere to the end despite the darkness, using the light of their phones to guide the way, and then help with getting the rest of us out once they were in the clear.
So six of us waited on the side of the path as the temperature rapidly cooled. We shared whatever water we had left, and tried to keep morale up - talking about how things could have been worse, what we'd do once we were finally out of there - but we were sufficiently tired that rest seemed like a wise option. One of the Brits had brought a whistle with her, which she blew periodically to let the "rescuers" know where we were.
After about an hour, they arrived. David, a no-nonsense Australian from Java Lava ("Ari, you'll need to get off your arse...") and Yudi, our erstwhile driver who had jumped into action to come to save us. Drinks and torches were also in abundance. After gently chiding us for not bringing enough of either of those two clearly-precious commodities, David led the way along the path out of the mountain. The hour rest, and the reassurance that we were in the home stretch, made the final part of the walk easier than that that had come before it, even though we were doing it by torchlight, with a bit of help from the near-full moon.
David explained that the number of police had dwindled - they'd got sick of waiting for us - but there was still one officer there. It turns out that the mountain is supposed to be off-limits to climbers at the moment because parts of the crashed Sukhoi plane are still on the mountain, and the safety investigation is ongoing. I suspect the police are particularly worried about the Russians - or people acting on their behalf - trying to remove evidence, because the stakes are pretty high in the air safety investigation: if the plane is found to be at fault, it will be a major blow for the country's aircraft manufacturing.
So the police were right to be concerned, but absurdly the entrance we had used to the mountain, an established starting point for climbers, had no signage at all indicating to us that the site was off limits or that a permit was required. Not sure how we were supposed to know there was an issue.
An hour or so after we were met by the rescuers, we finally made it back to the base - it was now about 8pm - to be met by a couple of drivers, a member of the British group who'd dropped out hours earlier, a few Java Lava people, and a local police officer. The officer declared that he needed to take a group photo of us, and that we would need to provide identification so that photos could be taken of them. It's still not clear what's being done with that information, but I'm confident there won't be any further problems.
So we said our farewells, jumped in the car, and headed along the rickety road to the toll road headed to Jakarta. We stopped at a little stall on the side of the street for cold drinks and beer, drunk those and fell asleep.
Not sure that mountain climbing is really for me. But as the Japanese say of Mt Fuji, that anybody would be a fool not to climb it once, but a fool to do so twice, the Indonesians could well say of Mt Salak.
Java Lava's a group of adventurous mountain and volcano climbers, mostly expats, that arranges hikes in different parts of Indonesia.
A few weeks back it started promoting a day hike up Mt Salak, about two hours out of Jakarta, near Bogor. The circular told us it was five hours up and three hours down, 1,400 metres vertical - from the 800m start to the 2,200m peak - and a price was provided for children. But it did warn "some parts are steep" and "if you don't know what climbing 1,400m means, perhaps this hike isn't for you". In retrospect, I should have heeded the warning.
Mt Salak has long been of interest to hikers, but hit the headlines a few months back as the site where a Russian Sukhoi plane crashed in May this year while on a demonstration flight for potential Indonesian buyers. At the time, it took a day or two for rescuers to get to the site, given its remoteness.
Anyhow, I flicked the information on the hike to people around the office, and attracted four others - three Americans and an Australian - to join me. We were five of about 35 people who were on the list of participants.
So we headed off from Jakarta at about 4:30am on Saturday, on the toll road for about an hour then navigating dilapidated streets between villages. It was becoming clear that we'd miss the 6am designated start time, so I had SMS contact with the organizer, who said they'd wait a little while for us. In the end, we got there at about 6:30am, and saw a few cars and drivers, who indicated that the hikers had already left.
We headed up the main path, and saw the scattered paper that Java Lava uses to mark its trail, so we knew we were heading the right way. The hike starts on a fairly shallow slope, although the path is little more than a thin trail, with lots of foliage either side and the occasional loose bit of earth. After half an hour or so we caught the next-last group of Java Lava hikers - three teachers from Britain working at the British International School and a German banker friend - who seemed of a similar fitness and attitude to us, so stuck with them for a while. We also happened to bump into a pair of well-equipped German couple in their 50s, who despite trekking poles and boots, were moving at a snail's pace.
After about two hours we passed a slightly ambiguous intersection, and opted to go down what looked to be the wider and more-established of the paths. That trail, though, became increasingly thinner and difficult to walk. Along the path we met two fit Australian hikers coming back the other way, and they explained that this was in fact the side path to a waterfall, and it we wanted the path to continue up the mountain, we needed to return to the intersection and head the other way. Given it was still early in the day, we decided to push on a bit further to try to get to the waterfall - which ultimately we couldn't because the path became too damp - and then returned to the main trail.
With plenty of sweat and mud on us, we continued heading up the mountain. The path become progressively steeper and within an hour or so seemed to slope at 20-30 degrees, with plenty of stones and trees. Essentially it meant that each step was a fair bit higher than the one that proceeded it, with little straight flat-ground walking. Our group was flagging a bit, and I was really struggling to keep pace. I'd only catch them when they periodically stopped for a rest. Then after we headed off again, I quickly fell behind. The walk was so strenuous that I had to stop to take big gasps of breath after each decent-size upward step - given how many their were, that made for slow climbing.
So up we went like this for several hours. By about 11:30am, we passed the first of the Java Lava hikers in the group heading down the mountain. One mentioned that they'd got word - via mobile phone, presumably, which worked intermittently on the mountain - that police were waiting at the start/end point of the climb, and were upset because the group didn't have the necessary permit the climb. Right.
We slowly pushed on, and met a couple of extremely fit Europeans with sophisticated trekking poles who were bounding down the mountain. They estimated that we were about 40 minutes from the top, which was reassuring. Then 20 minutes later we passed another Australian hiker, who estimated that we were - wait for it - about 40 minutes from the top.
We groaned in disbelief, but continued upward, slightly buoyed by the reassurance that the view at the top was impressive. We plodded on, a few steps forward, a large step up, and stopping to catch breath. At this point, my drinking water was going fast. I'd packed a 2 litre bottle for the trek up, and a 1 litre bottle for the return journey; I was close to finishing the first one but was reluctant to start on the second one so early. So I decided to just stay parched for a while.
As we plodded on, the path disappeared to almost nothing, forcing us to push aside branches and clamber up rocks. Then finally the dappled sunlight of the lower reaches turned into a hotter and more consistent shine as the trees become fewer and thinner. With great relief, we made it to the top, at about 1pm.
I was so drained of energy that I immediately slumped prone in the dirt and didn't move for about 20 minutes. Then when I did move, it was only to take some gulps from my second bottle of water and force myself to eat some of the fruit I'd packed. Despite not having eaten all day, I had no appetite - my major physiological focus was getting the air and breaks I needed.
So we took photos and wandered around the peak. Sadly, the haze had set in, so the view wasn't great. We could see the peak of one of the nearby mountains, and vague outlines of unclear things in other directions, but we were too late for the good stuff. At this stage the four-person British-German group were the only others there - the all-the-gear-no-idea German couple from earlier had clearly given up, and all the others had hit the top and turned back.
By about 1:50pm, we decided it was time to head down. Going downhill is not quite a tough as going uphill, but it's still pretty challenging when it's steep. For each step you need to think about whether the ground is firm enough to hold you, what you can hold onto the side, where you'll put your other foot if you feel unstable... it's mentally as well as physically draining. It didn't help that I was hiking without a stick or high-ankled boots, which meant that I was feeling the vibrating impact of each step ripple right through my body.
We stopped every 15 minutes of so for a brief rest, and then pushed on. It was arduous and repetitive, and completely exhausting. By mid-afternoon, we thought we had things under control, and started working out how we'd deal with the police waiting at the entrance, whose existence we had now been told about by a few hikers along the way. As foreigners, none of us particularly wanted to deal with Indonesian police at great length.
On the way down we did a fair bit of slipping and sliding, accumulating a large number of scratches, bruises and minor humiliations, but enjoyed the reassurance of thinking we were in the home stretch.
By about 5pm, the sun was sitting low in the sky and we were all tired and close to the end of our water supplies. We tried to quicken the pace slightly to get out before dark - none of us had torches (we didn't think we'd need them) and had only mobile phones as a source of light once the sun set. We also opted to forgo our quarter-hourly breaks.
But by about 6pm, it was dark and I was exhausted. We came together as a group, and decided we couldn't take it any more. So we slumped by the side of the path, and called for help. I called Yudi, our group's driver, and told him that we needed help - we were about a half-hour from the end and needed torches and cold drinks. I also spoke to one of the Java Lava organisers who had left the site, and he promised to relay the message to their person who was still at the base camp. So there we waited, the five in our group soon joined by the four in the British-German group. Three of the nine decided they would persevere to the end despite the darkness, using the light of their phones to guide the way, and then help with getting the rest of us out once they were in the clear.
So six of us waited on the side of the path as the temperature rapidly cooled. We shared whatever water we had left, and tried to keep morale up - talking about how things could have been worse, what we'd do once we were finally out of there - but we were sufficiently tired that rest seemed like a wise option. One of the Brits had brought a whistle with her, which she blew periodically to let the "rescuers" know where we were.
After about an hour, they arrived. David, a no-nonsense Australian from Java Lava ("Ari, you'll need to get off your arse...") and Yudi, our erstwhile driver who had jumped into action to come to save us. Drinks and torches were also in abundance. After gently chiding us for not bringing enough of either of those two clearly-precious commodities, David led the way along the path out of the mountain. The hour rest, and the reassurance that we were in the home stretch, made the final part of the walk easier than that that had come before it, even though we were doing it by torchlight, with a bit of help from the near-full moon.
David explained that the number of police had dwindled - they'd got sick of waiting for us - but there was still one officer there. It turns out that the mountain is supposed to be off-limits to climbers at the moment because parts of the crashed Sukhoi plane are still on the mountain, and the safety investigation is ongoing. I suspect the police are particularly worried about the Russians - or people acting on their behalf - trying to remove evidence, because the stakes are pretty high in the air safety investigation: if the plane is found to be at fault, it will be a major blow for the country's aircraft manufacturing.
So the police were right to be concerned, but absurdly the entrance we had used to the mountain, an established starting point for climbers, had no signage at all indicating to us that the site was off limits or that a permit was required. Not sure how we were supposed to know there was an issue.
An hour or so after we were met by the rescuers, we finally made it back to the base - it was now about 8pm - to be met by a couple of drivers, a member of the British group who'd dropped out hours earlier, a few Java Lava people, and a local police officer. The officer declared that he needed to take a group photo of us, and that we would need to provide identification so that photos could be taken of them. It's still not clear what's being done with that information, but I'm confident there won't be any further problems.
So we said our farewells, jumped in the car, and headed along the rickety road to the toll road headed to Jakarta. We stopped at a little stall on the side of the street for cold drinks and beer, drunk those and fell asleep.
Not sure that mountain climbing is really for me. But as the Japanese say of Mt Fuji, that anybody would be a fool not to climb it once, but a fool to do so twice, the Indonesians could well say of Mt Salak.
Friday, May 25, 2012
The Jakarta Globe is seeking fellows
The Jakarta Globe is on the hunt for early-career journalists and journalism students to take up a year-long fellowship, starting later this year. I've been at the paper for a year and had a great time, and I can highly recommend it to anyone else keen to get some professional experience in the industry and watch Indonesia up close.
I'm happy to answer questions in comments or via email.
Here's the notification. Applications close in a week.
I'm happy to answer questions in comments or via email.
Here's the notification. Applications close in a week.
Be a Jakarta Globe Fellow!
Getting a foothold in the media has never been more challenging for young journalists. Here is an opportunity to work for a year in an exciting emerging market on a multi-award winning daily newspaper and Web site with professional editors.
The Jakarta Globe, an English daily in a multicultural environment, is looking for the best young talent it can find. Can you copy edit in flawless English, write and think creatively? Are you curious about the world and ready to work hard? We will help you learn and grow.
The Jakarta Globe, which launched in November 2008, has already won numerous local and international awards for our dynamic news coverage. We are recruiting young journalists to copy edit, write and learn the news business from the ground up in Indonesia.
Make your mark in the world’s most dynamic region in one of Asia’s fastest growing economies. We need people ready to start in August 2012. Candidates will be selected on the basis of a competitive editing examination and an essay. A stipend and housing will be provided. We are seeking a one-year commitment. Details on remuneration and job descriptions will be sent to interested and qualified candidates. Recent graduates are encouraged to apply.
Deadline for applications - June 1, 2012
On the web at http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/
Send your resume to: Recruitment[at]thejakartaglobe.com
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Jakartans’ business savvy shines through amid the gridlock
It's a rite-of-passage for foreign writers based in Jakarta to pen a piece on the horrid state of the traffic. My attempt, in which I merge it with a discussion on the entrepreneurial spirit of Indonesians, has appeared in The Weekend Australian this weekend and is available here.
Space crimped the effort a little, so I've decided to publish the full piece here:
Soon after you arrive at Jakarta’s international airport and head downtown, you become familiar with two of the city’s defining qualities: the entrepreneurship of its people, and the density of its traffic. With little new public transport infrastructure, the quantity of roads almost static and the number of vehicles steadily rising in line with a growing population and emerging affluence, experts say the Indonesian capital will reach a state of perpetual gridlock within a few years.
Stories abound among the city’s drivers about the quick fingers that many jockeys possess, with anything loose inside the vehicle at risk of mysteriously disappearing. But given the paucity of alternative ways to get home, many drivers still take the risk.
This leaves many people aboard the network of 20-seater minibuses offered by the Kopaja and Metromini companies. These rickety old things have been on the roads for decades, have their doors permanently open (locals call it “natural air-conditioning”), have a driver with a cigarette wedged between his lips and a conductor who spends his time hanging out the door or shuffling up and down the aisle collecting 2,000 rupiah (25 cent) fares off each passenger. One of the party tricks of conductors is, while the bus is moving, to ease himself onto the road out the front door and re-enter via the back door in a single, fluid movement. Impressive to watch.
Space crimped the effort a little, so I've decided to publish the full piece here:
Soon after you arrive at Jakarta’s international airport and head downtown, you become familiar with two of the city’s defining qualities: the entrepreneurship of its people, and the density of its traffic. With little new public transport infrastructure, the quantity of roads almost static and the number of vehicles steadily rising in line with a growing population and emerging affluence, experts say the Indonesian capital will reach a state of perpetual gridlock within a few years.
But these hours and hours that many commuters spend on the
road each day have given rise to niche business opportunities that Jakartans
have embraced with gusto.
During peak periods, some of the main streets are reserved
for motorcycles as well as vehicles with three or more occupants. This has
created a small army of “jockeys”, who linger on the side of streets near the
entry points to the main road, their thumb sticking out like a hitchhiker,
offering to help motorists reach the golden three. Mother-and-baby pairs are particularly
highly sought by solo drivers. Stories abound among the city’s drivers about the quick fingers that many jockeys possess, with anything loose inside the vehicle at risk of mysteriously disappearing. But given the paucity of alternative ways to get home, many drivers still take the risk.
Along the gridlocked streets are an army of mobile food cart
operators known as kaki lima (literally, five legs – three for the cart, two
for the proprietor) offering all manner of tasty local delights. Kaki lima push
their carts along the footpath or a raised embankment between lanes, and
drivers seeking to satisfy their cravings wind down their windows and place an
order. So fixed is the traffic that there’s plenty of time for the operator to
whip up some food – nasi goreng (fried rice) and steamed buns are the most
popular options – before the traffic moves far.
Part of the reason for the congestion is the lack of quality
public transport. The recent introduction of the TransJakarta bus service, with
a modern fleet and dedicated lanes, has been a watershed, but its network is
limited.This leaves many people aboard the network of 20-seater minibuses offered by the Kopaja and Metromini companies. These rickety old things have been on the roads for decades, have their doors permanently open (locals call it “natural air-conditioning”), have a driver with a cigarette wedged between his lips and a conductor who spends his time hanging out the door or shuffling up and down the aisle collecting 2,000 rupiah (25 cent) fares off each passenger. One of the party tricks of conductors is, while the bus is moving, to ease himself onto the road out the front door and re-enter via the back door in a single, fluid movement. Impressive to watch.
There are plenty of buskers who ply their wares on board,
often in rather tricky conditions. On a recent trip, a 20-something man with a
guitar jumped on partly filled Kopaja and started strumming and singing an
up-beat Indonesian folk song. Progressively the bus took on more and more
passengers, cramming into every nook and cranny. Throughout, the busker
continued without missing a note, contorting the neck of the guitar to all manner
of awkward angles to accommodate passengers and using his legs to cope with the
minimal suspension that become apparent as the vehicle lumbered across
Jakarta’s potholed roads. The tips he received were particularly generous, and
only some of it was for his music.
For sure, much of the creative opportunism on display is a
product of grinding poverty and the lack of a welfare system, but it also shows
an admirable determination to make the most of whatever one’s circumstances
happen to be. It certainly makes the city are more interesting place.Thursday, May 10, 2012
Farewell, Femi
It's been a little over a day since the Sukhoi Superjet-100 went missing over the skies of Bogor, and the news since then has been nothing but gloom. About 50 were on board, and it appears none survived as the Russian-made plane hit the side of Mount Salak.
Each of those lives taken was a life taken too soon. Good times never had. Old age never reached. Proper goodbyes never said.
There was one name on the list of passengers that was familiar to me. Femi Adi from Bloomberg News (listed as Femi, but it has been confirmed that it is her) was a young journalist I met last May while observing a prayer rally organised in Jakarta by the Islamic Defenders Front to mourn the death of Osama bin Laden.
It was a fairly tense affair, with nearly a thousand slightly-riled, white-robed men crammed into a mosque to listen to speakers stoking their anger over the death of bin Laden. Clustered outside the back of the hall were me and more than a dozen journalists, mostly Indonesians with a handful from overseas.
I must have appeared a little bewildered by what I saw, because Femi approached me and said hello. She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there, and I answered and asked her the same. She then offered to translate some of the firebrand speeches for me, helping me to make sense of what was going on.
After a brief lull in proceedings, there was an announcement. She tugged at my shirt and said, "Come on, they're going to hold a press conference." The idea of extremists holding a press conference seemed strange to me, but emboldened by her confidence I wandered forward with the other journalists.
A microphone was offered to the journalists, and most of us were reluctant to speak up. But not Femi. She happily grabbed it, introduced herself by name and by organisation (there would be few more identifiably American news brands than Bloomberg, so it was an especially bold move) and proceeded to ask a question. I'm not sure what she asked, but she was impressive in her bravado.
Afterwards we swapped contact details and exchanged a few emails, including one in which I asked if she knew of any job opportunities.
There was nothing especially poetic in what either of us wrote via email, but just rereading her words today it struck me that they capture some of the joie de vivre she demonstrated in person:
Hi Ari
---Your name looks so-Indonesian. :) ---
Its nice to meet you too in the FPI event, Ari. I quit shortly after things done. :)
I have read your blog. Its a nice blog with informal writings wrapping the great content. I like it. :) I also have a blog, femiadi.com, but it is not as good as your blog. It's just a daily-life-stories about corkscrew, travels, friendship, etc.
So, you leave ossie to stay with your partner and work in Indonesia? That's amazing! I will let you know if any media needs a journalist. I have been working in Jakarta since 2003 for Kontan newspaper. My hometown is in Yogyakarta. I moved to Bloomberg since last year.
Let me know if you have some time for having coffee or beer. I have to go out to the south jakarta court for abu bakar bashir trial.
//regards,
femi adi
Sadly I never did take up the offer of a coffee or beer, and now it seems the chance has gone forever.
Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, and so far no individuals have been confirmed as among the dead. So there's always a chance of a miracle.
I didn't know Femi well, but in this brief tribute online at Republika, she is described as gentle, kind and friendly. Sounds just like the person I'd met.
She was also very lively online, operating a blog at femiadi.com and being active on a swag of social media sites.
Farewell, Femi. The world's a poorer place without you.
Each of those lives taken was a life taken too soon. Good times never had. Old age never reached. Proper goodbyes never said.
There was one name on the list of passengers that was familiar to me. Femi Adi from Bloomberg News (listed as Femi, but it has been confirmed that it is her) was a young journalist I met last May while observing a prayer rally organised in Jakarta by the Islamic Defenders Front to mourn the death of Osama bin Laden.
It was a fairly tense affair, with nearly a thousand slightly-riled, white-robed men crammed into a mosque to listen to speakers stoking their anger over the death of bin Laden. Clustered outside the back of the hall were me and more than a dozen journalists, mostly Indonesians with a handful from overseas.
I must have appeared a little bewildered by what I saw, because Femi approached me and said hello. She asked me where I was from and what I was doing there, and I answered and asked her the same. She then offered to translate some of the firebrand speeches for me, helping me to make sense of what was going on.
After a brief lull in proceedings, there was an announcement. She tugged at my shirt and said, "Come on, they're going to hold a press conference." The idea of extremists holding a press conference seemed strange to me, but emboldened by her confidence I wandered forward with the other journalists.
A microphone was offered to the journalists, and most of us were reluctant to speak up. But not Femi. She happily grabbed it, introduced herself by name and by organisation (there would be few more identifiably American news brands than Bloomberg, so it was an especially bold move) and proceeded to ask a question. I'm not sure what she asked, but she was impressive in her bravado.
Afterwards we swapped contact details and exchanged a few emails, including one in which I asked if she knew of any job opportunities.
There was nothing especially poetic in what either of us wrote via email, but just rereading her words today it struck me that they capture some of the joie de vivre she demonstrated in person:
Hi Ari
---Your name looks so-Indonesian. :) ---
Its nice to meet you too in the FPI event, Ari. I quit shortly after things done. :)
I have read your blog. Its a nice blog with informal writings wrapping the great content. I like it. :) I also have a blog, femiadi.com, but it is not as good as your blog. It's just a daily-life-stories about corkscrew, travels, friendship, etc.
So, you leave ossie to stay with your partner and work in Indonesia? That's amazing! I will let you know if any media needs a journalist. I have been working in Jakarta since 2003 for Kontan newspaper. My hometown is in Yogyakarta. I moved to Bloomberg since last year.
Let me know if you have some time for having coffee or beer. I have to go out to the south jakarta court for abu bakar bashir trial.
//regards,
femi adi
Sadly I never did take up the offer of a coffee or beer, and now it seems the chance has gone forever.
Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, and so far no individuals have been confirmed as among the dead. So there's always a chance of a miracle.
I didn't know Femi well, but in this brief tribute online at Republika, she is described as gentle, kind and friendly. Sounds just like the person I'd met.
She was also very lively online, operating a blog at femiadi.com and being active on a swag of social media sites.
Farewell, Femi. The world's a poorer place without you.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
My '90 percent theory' tries to explain why perfection is elusive
I've always been fairly messy in managing my personal space at home. I'm happy to let all sorts of trivial items - bank statements, magazines, pill packets, slightly soiled tissues - accumulate on my bedside table before feeling a need to clean them. And when I do finally clean it, I sort through most of it and leave it in a much neater state. Not spotless, but vastly improved.
My partner Melanie is different. She's fastidious in her neatness, letting only a handful of items accumulate before feeling the need to sort through them and clear up the space. Once she's cleaned up her bedside table, it sits in a very high state of tidiness, substantially cleaner than my side even immediately after I've completed my "cleaning". It is not unknown for her to assess my side after I'd clean it, and make some smart suggestions ways to deal with the handful of items I've left sitting there.
What intrigued me was not so much the difference in the states of mess to which we would allow our respective sides to reach, but the fact that both of us would consider that we'd achieved "cleanliness" at very different points.
It lead be to a theory I'll call my "90 percent theory" in the absence of a better name: basically, in any given task in which people seek to improve something, they will be able to improve it 90 percent of the way between how they found it and perfection.
So, applying it to my and my partner's bedside tables, from the point at which each of us decide to clean our sides, we will improve it 90 percent compared to how it was. Because I start at a more advanced state of messiness, 90 percent improvement will not make it as neat as my partner's side.
Furthermore, when she approaches my tidy-but-not-perfect bedside table after I've cleaned it, she will be able to improve it a further 90 percent on how she's found it, bringing it to 99 percent cleanliness compared to its initial state. Theoretically, were a third person to come along and seek to clean it again from the state that my partner had left it in, they would be able to improve 90 percent of what they see, bringing it up to 99.9 percent. But given the difference between 99 percent and 99.9 percent is so minimal when the entirety of the task is cleaning my bedside table, there is probably too little to notice.
It's worth noting, however, that by this rule perfection is impossible. Improvement is, in a mathematical sense, asymptotic. Each attempt gets us ever closer, but we can never reach it.
Human psychology is the main factor behind the theory. When we approach a given task, we generally assess the quality of the outcome relative to the quality of the starting point. It keeps us sane by preventing us from obsessing over every minor imperfection, but does also make us occasionally complacent and willing to forgo the pursuit of excellence.
I've noticed this theory playing out in another context, in my work as a copy editor at a newspaper. In the role, we take the stories filed by reporters and have responsibility for checking facts and spelling where possible, ensuring the expression is smooth and professional and making sure that the story is neat and logical. The task has an extra degree of difficulty because most of the reporters do not have English as their first language, and so the quality of the written expression is quite varied.
On the copy desk, the first person, usually but not always someone with less experience, will perform a copy edit; then they will pass it through to a check editor, who will give it further scrutiny; then finally a page editor will look at the page as a whole, keeping an eye out for anything that has been missed.
I've performed all three roles at one time or another, and can see that the quality of one's output is in part a product of the quality of one's input. So a copy editor dealing with a particularly poorly written story will work hard to improve expression, spelling, etc, but is likely to unconsciously let through some less-than-ideal parts because their focus is diverted to the more blatant imperfections. That same copy editor, however, working with "clean" copy in the first place, will notice and hopefully rectify much more minor issues that become more apparent because of the quality of the work around those issues.
Though I have the experience to work as a check editor, when in the role of copy editor I find myself overlooking errors that I know I should have picked up and suspect I would have were I to be a fresh pair of eyes reading it as a check editor. Improving beyond the 90 percent is remarkably difficult to achieve. (This also demonstrates my asymptote theory - despite three pairs of eyes picking up theoretically 99.9 percent of errors compared to the original story submitted by a reporter, errors still make it into print.)
You can even see the theory in action in a political context. Take traffic, or smog, or corruption, three issues that afflict Jakarta particularly badly. A government that commits to rectifying these ills will generally seek to rectify them by a proportion of the initial problem rather than to reach an absolute number. (Of course, few governments would be so bold as to seek to reduce any of these measures by 90 percent; instead they are seeking to reduce the discretionary component that may be responsive to change by 90 percent. An unchangeable hard-core will remain, and they are generally not the focus of public-policy efforts.) A government campaign to rectify any of these issues, if successful, might be able to alter 90 percent of the discretionary causes of the problem. But then it hits a wall, struggling to take it any further. Then only a new idea, often generated by a new cohort of politicians, can improve performance further.
So what does all this mean? I think it's significant for a few reasons. It means that the less severe a problem is when we first encounter it, the closer to perfection we can expect the end result to be. It means that we should judge our performance against the extent of the initial problem rather than some absolute measure. It means that one actor is not able to achieve the best result on their own, and is better working in coordination with others with the aim of improving upon each other's improvements. And it means that we should accept that perfection is impossible and we shouldn't be too hard on those who fail to achieve it.
This theory is borne exclusively from my own observations. It's possible there are some exceptional circumstances or people that confound it, but they would be few. It's also possible that the 90 percent figure is off the mark. I think of it as an average among people; some will be higher, others lower. It is also influenced by circumstances; time pressure or psychological pressure are likely to lower the figure. But for the most part, I think it explains plenty about why things are as they are.
My partner Melanie is different. She's fastidious in her neatness, letting only a handful of items accumulate before feeling the need to sort through them and clear up the space. Once she's cleaned up her bedside table, it sits in a very high state of tidiness, substantially cleaner than my side even immediately after I've completed my "cleaning". It is not unknown for her to assess my side after I'd clean it, and make some smart suggestions ways to deal with the handful of items I've left sitting there.
What intrigued me was not so much the difference in the states of mess to which we would allow our respective sides to reach, but the fact that both of us would consider that we'd achieved "cleanliness" at very different points.
It lead be to a theory I'll call my "90 percent theory" in the absence of a better name: basically, in any given task in which people seek to improve something, they will be able to improve it 90 percent of the way between how they found it and perfection.
So, applying it to my and my partner's bedside tables, from the point at which each of us decide to clean our sides, we will improve it 90 percent compared to how it was. Because I start at a more advanced state of messiness, 90 percent improvement will not make it as neat as my partner's side.
Furthermore, when she approaches my tidy-but-not-perfect bedside table after I've cleaned it, she will be able to improve it a further 90 percent on how she's found it, bringing it to 99 percent cleanliness compared to its initial state. Theoretically, were a third person to come along and seek to clean it again from the state that my partner had left it in, they would be able to improve 90 percent of what they see, bringing it up to 99.9 percent. But given the difference between 99 percent and 99.9 percent is so minimal when the entirety of the task is cleaning my bedside table, there is probably too little to notice.
It's worth noting, however, that by this rule perfection is impossible. Improvement is, in a mathematical sense, asymptotic. Each attempt gets us ever closer, but we can never reach it.
Human psychology is the main factor behind the theory. When we approach a given task, we generally assess the quality of the outcome relative to the quality of the starting point. It keeps us sane by preventing us from obsessing over every minor imperfection, but does also make us occasionally complacent and willing to forgo the pursuit of excellence.
I've noticed this theory playing out in another context, in my work as a copy editor at a newspaper. In the role, we take the stories filed by reporters and have responsibility for checking facts and spelling where possible, ensuring the expression is smooth and professional and making sure that the story is neat and logical. The task has an extra degree of difficulty because most of the reporters do not have English as their first language, and so the quality of the written expression is quite varied.
On the copy desk, the first person, usually but not always someone with less experience, will perform a copy edit; then they will pass it through to a check editor, who will give it further scrutiny; then finally a page editor will look at the page as a whole, keeping an eye out for anything that has been missed.
I've performed all three roles at one time or another, and can see that the quality of one's output is in part a product of the quality of one's input. So a copy editor dealing with a particularly poorly written story will work hard to improve expression, spelling, etc, but is likely to unconsciously let through some less-than-ideal parts because their focus is diverted to the more blatant imperfections. That same copy editor, however, working with "clean" copy in the first place, will notice and hopefully rectify much more minor issues that become more apparent because of the quality of the work around those issues.
Though I have the experience to work as a check editor, when in the role of copy editor I find myself overlooking errors that I know I should have picked up and suspect I would have were I to be a fresh pair of eyes reading it as a check editor. Improving beyond the 90 percent is remarkably difficult to achieve. (This also demonstrates my asymptote theory - despite three pairs of eyes picking up theoretically 99.9 percent of errors compared to the original story submitted by a reporter, errors still make it into print.)
You can even see the theory in action in a political context. Take traffic, or smog, or corruption, three issues that afflict Jakarta particularly badly. A government that commits to rectifying these ills will generally seek to rectify them by a proportion of the initial problem rather than to reach an absolute number. (Of course, few governments would be so bold as to seek to reduce any of these measures by 90 percent; instead they are seeking to reduce the discretionary component that may be responsive to change by 90 percent. An unchangeable hard-core will remain, and they are generally not the focus of public-policy efforts.) A government campaign to rectify any of these issues, if successful, might be able to alter 90 percent of the discretionary causes of the problem. But then it hits a wall, struggling to take it any further. Then only a new idea, often generated by a new cohort of politicians, can improve performance further.
So what does all this mean? I think it's significant for a few reasons. It means that the less severe a problem is when we first encounter it, the closer to perfection we can expect the end result to be. It means that we should judge our performance against the extent of the initial problem rather than some absolute measure. It means that one actor is not able to achieve the best result on their own, and is better working in coordination with others with the aim of improving upon each other's improvements. And it means that we should accept that perfection is impossible and we shouldn't be too hard on those who fail to achieve it.
This theory is borne exclusively from my own observations. It's possible there are some exceptional circumstances or people that confound it, but they would be few. It's also possible that the 90 percent figure is off the mark. I think of it as an average among people; some will be higher, others lower. It is also influenced by circumstances; time pressure or psychological pressure are likely to lower the figure. But for the most part, I think it explains plenty about why things are as they are.
Thursday, April 05, 2012
Why I'm ditching mindjunk and reading classics
Back in my days as a journalist at a daily broadsheet in Australia, each day I'd head into the office and be confronted with half a dozen newspapers whose content I needed to be on top of. I'd log onto Twitter and scroll through the pithy contributions of the wise, the egocentric and the influential. I'd scan government reports, corporate propaganda and activist press releases. I'd come home and flick through magazines and hunt down quirky stuff on the internet. I might make some progress on a book on contemporary politics, business or culture before bed. And then I'd get up and do the same thing the next day.
In short, my literary diet was a poor one, filled with constant snacking on food of only moderate nutritional value. Largely out of a sense of "missing out" on something pertinent to my job, I was filling my stomach with things that seemed tasty at the time, but were unlikely to be remembered years, weeks, days or sometimes even minutes after they were consumed.
True, things could have been worse: I could have been among those who are constantly craving a literary sugar high, and satisfy their craving with swift and lurid morsels from the internet. Constantly raiding the snack machine for digital Kit Kats and Burger Rings, as it were.
But even if I'd dodged that fate, I sensed I was lacking literary carbohydrates and the occasional fine meal.
(Here endeth the metaphor.)
My own definition of a cultured, intelligent person is one who has a broad knowledge not just of his or her own time and place, but of others. Inherent in that is a familiarity with the major cultural objects of those times and places, which in many cases are the works of literature that helped to define them.
A familiarity with "the classics" was something I respected and admired. A person who could quote from Chaucer, Eyre or Rand with authority and conviction didn't just carry a veneer of intellect, but usually the wisdom and insight that comes with such knowledge.
I, however, was falling well short of my own definition. I'd read a handful of classics at school, and in a reflection of both myself and a modern university education, had no exposure to them during my time as an undergraduate arts and commerce student. Then as a working journalist I felt I didn't have the time or energy to spend on something without a clear, speedy benefit.
Moving to Indonesia and taking on a new job with a newspaper in Jakarta was the perfect opportunity for me to do something about it. True, I'd still have a daily paper or two to get my head around, and face the constant lure of interesting things from home and abroad online, but I felt content to remain out of the loop on the happenings I previously felt obliged to be intimately familiar with.
This was my chance to move closer to my idealised well-read person: Homo culturae, if you'll excuse my pseudo-Latin. I made it my mission to read the works of literature that have stood the test of time and helped shape the world. A daunting prospect, I know, but a richly rewarding one, as well.
I knew that in my lifetime, let alone just my few years planned here, I would barely scratch the surface in reading great things. My choices of books would be a little odd at times, driven by a desire to mix up the heavy with the light and the mainstream with the obscure. It would also be driven by the more pragmatic issue of what I happened to stumble across in Jakarta's eclectic sources of English-language literature.
First up was Heart of Darkness, the 1903 novella by Joseph Conrad that captures the folly of King Leopold II of Belgium's colonial efforts in the Congo and is perhaps most famous as an inspiration for Apocalypse Now. There's something about Heart of Darkness that resonates as a westerner living in a developing country, effectively the situation that Conrad's protagonists finds themselves in. One can only hope they avoid the madness and amorality that awaits Kurtz. This one I picked up at Drive Books, Not Cars, a fantastic second-hand book fundraiser.
Next up was Ayn Rand's 1957 tome Atlas Shrugged, an 1100-page epic considered a sacred text by libertarians and capitalists but derided by many others. I expected a treatise on economics and political freedom, and that I got. But what I didn't expect was the rollicking story filled with captivating characters and tremendous drama. It's a breathtaking piece of storytelling, ambitious in its scope but hugely satisfying in its execution. Rand's also remarkably persuasive in advocating her Objectivist philosophy not only in the political realm, but in the personal, demonstrating the need for a rational approach to sex as well as business. This one I picked up from Borders in Singapore.
Then it was to the Freedom Library in Menteng, where I found a copy of Mary Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, a gripping and self-assured book all the more remarkable for the fact its author was just 21 when she wrote it in 1918. Then I picked up A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf's witty and caustic 1929 extended essay on the question of whether a sister of Shakespeare who possessed the Bard's innate talents would have had a chance to succeed.
Right now I'm wrestling with Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 book. This Russian one's tough to like, filled with characters that are tough to distinguish, a plot that seems to move nowhere fast, and prose so thick with fog that it's difficult to know what you're looking at. I'm half way through, so perhaps the payoff is still to come.
Trudging through Crime and Punishment does bring into sharp relief one down side of my personal endeavour: reading this stuff is not always fun. If I were reading strictly for enjoyment, I would have dismissed this one many chapters earlier. But I'm keen to understand the world view of the author and the time and place in which the work is set. And perhaps most of all, why this work has been revered for more than a century. It's possible that its place in the cultural canon is the product of high-minded literary masochism by generations of scholars, but more likely there's something at the heart of it that makes it worth celebrating. The challenge of the reader is to find that something.
Waiting ahead for me on the bookshelf is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, an American classic that doesn't seem to resonate as much in the rest of the world, and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a work almost eclipsed by the film based on it. And then there's the content of the Freedom Library, whose shelves are heaving with tempting morsels.
Reading long and challenging books has become a lot tougher in the era of ubiquitous internet. Social media creates the opportunity for continuous social contact, meaning that when users log off there is a frequent, gnawing fear that they're missing out on something. And the nature of the writing on the internet has shortened attention spans, harming people's ability to stay focused on a task that lacks swift gratification.
But the rewards of reading classic works are great. There's something satisfying in knowing that the book you're reading has had its quality recognised across time and culture, and that the subjects at its heart are universal such that a reader living in a vastly different world to the writer can identify with the experience. It's awe-inspiring to know that the work you're reading has changed people's view of the world, perhaps even shaped history, and may yet shape the future. And when done well, it's a heck of a lot of fun to be guided by an author around a world that exists only in their mind - and soon yours.
Long after the newspaper article, vain autobiography or indulgent blog post has disappeared from memory, a great work of literature will stay in the reader's mind and shape their character. That alone makes the endeavour of reading from the canon a worthwhile one.
In short, my literary diet was a poor one, filled with constant snacking on food of only moderate nutritional value. Largely out of a sense of "missing out" on something pertinent to my job, I was filling my stomach with things that seemed tasty at the time, but were unlikely to be remembered years, weeks, days or sometimes even minutes after they were consumed.
True, things could have been worse: I could have been among those who are constantly craving a literary sugar high, and satisfy their craving with swift and lurid morsels from the internet. Constantly raiding the snack machine for digital Kit Kats and Burger Rings, as it were.
But even if I'd dodged that fate, I sensed I was lacking literary carbohydrates and the occasional fine meal.
(Here endeth the metaphor.)
My own definition of a cultured, intelligent person is one who has a broad knowledge not just of his or her own time and place, but of others. Inherent in that is a familiarity with the major cultural objects of those times and places, which in many cases are the works of literature that helped to define them.
A familiarity with "the classics" was something I respected and admired. A person who could quote from Chaucer, Eyre or Rand with authority and conviction didn't just carry a veneer of intellect, but usually the wisdom and insight that comes with such knowledge.
I, however, was falling well short of my own definition. I'd read a handful of classics at school, and in a reflection of both myself and a modern university education, had no exposure to them during my time as an undergraduate arts and commerce student. Then as a working journalist I felt I didn't have the time or energy to spend on something without a clear, speedy benefit.
Moving to Indonesia and taking on a new job with a newspaper in Jakarta was the perfect opportunity for me to do something about it. True, I'd still have a daily paper or two to get my head around, and face the constant lure of interesting things from home and abroad online, but I felt content to remain out of the loop on the happenings I previously felt obliged to be intimately familiar with.
This was my chance to move closer to my idealised well-read person: Homo culturae, if you'll excuse my pseudo-Latin. I made it my mission to read the works of literature that have stood the test of time and helped shape the world. A daunting prospect, I know, but a richly rewarding one, as well.
I knew that in my lifetime, let alone just my few years planned here, I would barely scratch the surface in reading great things. My choices of books would be a little odd at times, driven by a desire to mix up the heavy with the light and the mainstream with the obscure. It would also be driven by the more pragmatic issue of what I happened to stumble across in Jakarta's eclectic sources of English-language literature.
First up was Heart of Darkness, the 1903 novella by Joseph Conrad that captures the folly of King Leopold II of Belgium's colonial efforts in the Congo and is perhaps most famous as an inspiration for Apocalypse Now. There's something about Heart of Darkness that resonates as a westerner living in a developing country, effectively the situation that Conrad's protagonists finds themselves in. One can only hope they avoid the madness and amorality that awaits Kurtz. This one I picked up at Drive Books, Not Cars, a fantastic second-hand book fundraiser.
Next up was Ayn Rand's 1957 tome Atlas Shrugged, an 1100-page epic considered a sacred text by libertarians and capitalists but derided by many others. I expected a treatise on economics and political freedom, and that I got. But what I didn't expect was the rollicking story filled with captivating characters and tremendous drama. It's a breathtaking piece of storytelling, ambitious in its scope but hugely satisfying in its execution. Rand's also remarkably persuasive in advocating her Objectivist philosophy not only in the political realm, but in the personal, demonstrating the need for a rational approach to sex as well as business. This one I picked up from Borders in Singapore.
Then it was to the Freedom Library in Menteng, where I found a copy of Mary Shelley's Gothic novel Frankenstein, a gripping and self-assured book all the more remarkable for the fact its author was just 21 when she wrote it in 1918. Then I picked up A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf's witty and caustic 1929 extended essay on the question of whether a sister of Shakespeare who possessed the Bard's innate talents would have had a chance to succeed.
Right now I'm wrestling with Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 1866 book. This Russian one's tough to like, filled with characters that are tough to distinguish, a plot that seems to move nowhere fast, and prose so thick with fog that it's difficult to know what you're looking at. I'm half way through, so perhaps the payoff is still to come.
Trudging through Crime and Punishment does bring into sharp relief one down side of my personal endeavour: reading this stuff is not always fun. If I were reading strictly for enjoyment, I would have dismissed this one many chapters earlier. But I'm keen to understand the world view of the author and the time and place in which the work is set. And perhaps most of all, why this work has been revered for more than a century. It's possible that its place in the cultural canon is the product of high-minded literary masochism by generations of scholars, but more likely there's something at the heart of it that makes it worth celebrating. The challenge of the reader is to find that something.
Waiting ahead for me on the bookshelf is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, an American classic that doesn't seem to resonate as much in the rest of the world, and Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a work almost eclipsed by the film based on it. And then there's the content of the Freedom Library, whose shelves are heaving with tempting morsels.
Reading long and challenging books has become a lot tougher in the era of ubiquitous internet. Social media creates the opportunity for continuous social contact, meaning that when users log off there is a frequent, gnawing fear that they're missing out on something. And the nature of the writing on the internet has shortened attention spans, harming people's ability to stay focused on a task that lacks swift gratification.
But the rewards of reading classic works are great. There's something satisfying in knowing that the book you're reading has had its quality recognised across time and culture, and that the subjects at its heart are universal such that a reader living in a vastly different world to the writer can identify with the experience. It's awe-inspiring to know that the work you're reading has changed people's view of the world, perhaps even shaped history, and may yet shape the future. And when done well, it's a heck of a lot of fun to be guided by an author around a world that exists only in their mind - and soon yours.
Long after the newspaper article, vain autobiography or indulgent blog post has disappeared from memory, a great work of literature will stay in the reader's mind and shape their character. That alone makes the endeavour of reading from the canon a worthwhile one.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Interesting things happen when cars disappear
Every second Sunday morning, the fume-spewing metallic gridlock that permanently occupies Central Jakarta’s Jalan Thamrin and Jalan Sudirman disappears to make way for bikes, pedestrians, joggers, street performers and the occasional bookstore.
Car-free day has in recent years become an institution in the Indonesian capital, and in a city starved of open space, clear paths and fresh air, it’s little wonder that people have embraced the oasis of peace.
Jakarta is, in many ways, the Los Angeles of Southeast Asia. It’s a city built around cars, with those using other modes of transport a mere afterthought. The major thoroughfares accommodate several lanes of vehicle traffic, but are hostile to bicycles and in many instances offer not an inch of footpath for perambulators.
Cars are the physical embodiment of the city’s anti-social aggression; their presence, with their noise and pollution and hint of danger has a chilling effect on people who traverse the city on foot. Trying walking shoulder to shoulder with a chain of Avanzas and Xenias and Kijangs to understand why.
But on car-free day, those vehicles are pushed aside. What emerges is impressive.
Wandering the street on car-free day in late January, there were a steady stream of families strolling down the six-lane expanse, well-dressed parents de-stressing from their office drudgery while young children darted about unpredictably. Alongside them were hipsters who had embraced the retro appeal of “fixie” fixed-gear bicycles, simple and elegant machines that do away with every non-essential part of a bike, brakes included.
A group of cyclists with a keen interest in historic old bikes gathered in matching T-shirts to chat, ride, and admire each other’s facial hair. A group of Star Wars enthusiasts donned home-made costumes of their favourite characters, wielding light sabres in playful jousts.
A little further up the road was the “Drive Books, Not Cars” fair. The community fundraiser spends weeks gathering second-hard books, both in English and Bahasa Indonesia, and then sells them on picnic rugs and trestle tables just off the street. In the midst of a classic phase, I picked up a copy of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and a well-thumbed copy of Melville’s “Moby-Dick”.
A group of hippies claimed a stretch of open space to conduct demonstrate their fire eating, their meal punctuated with some playful slapstick in the proud tradition of street theatre. Middle-class families look on appreciatively, and the hat being passed around swiftly filled with 2,000 and 5,000 rupiah notes.
To understand the significance of such subversive activity, you need to appreciate the power that the street holds in the functioning of the city. Jalan Thamrin, as it is known in its northern stretch, and Jalan Sudirman, as it becomes further south, is a main artery of the thriving metropolis. Its four lanes of traffic in either direction are bumper-to-bumper at most hours of the day, and only a recently-established exclusive bus lane hosts vehicles that move through smoothly.
It acts as a microcosm for the city’s class divisions: its wealthy elite ride in cars (almost always as passengers rather than drivers), the middle-class weave in and out of the cars on ojek motorcycles, while the poor are on foot on the sidelines, begging, busking or vending whatever they can find.
The boulevard passes through the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, an enormous water fountain next to the city’s first international hotel that has become a gathering point for youth whiling away the hours. In the middle of the pond stands the socialist-realist Welcome Statue, a young boy and girl (known to some as Hansel and Gretel) striving forward with unseemly vigour and enthusiasm.
A little further south stands the dignified statue of General Sudirman, the Indonesian military hero who commanded forces against the Dutch colonials during the battle for independence in the 1940s. The figure of the fighter, who died aged just 34, stares down, appearing to be in awe of the bustling parade before him. Continue to the southern end of the street and you reach another statue, officially the Youth Monument Statue but better known as Flaming Pizza Man because of its pose, which completely lacks Sudirman’s dignity.
The street has also borne witness to some of the city’s dark chapters. In the heady days of 1998, military snipers positioned themselves on building around the Semanggi cloverleaf, created by the elaborate intersection with Jalan Gatot Subroto. As student protests grew restive, police and soldiers fired into the crowd, killing a dozen people and staining the street with blood.
Come Sundays, through, the signs of state power are far more benign. Members of the city’s Inline Skate Police squad roll through the streets on their sleek footwear, looking about as threatening as a miniature schnauzer.
Officers in training even use the car-free space as an opportunity to practice their marching, with units trundling down the street in near-perfect formation to the chant of “kiri… kiri… kiri, kanan, kiri…”. Young’uns race up to march beside them for a stretch, while people flock to take photos of the scene.
Cars act as a metaphor for the city as a whole. In many ways the city is an aggressive one, with corruption, incompetence and crassness matching the mood of its streets. So dominant in that mind-set that it is difficult for anyone to cope without yielding to it, no matter how honest or compassionate they might be.
For a morning a fortnight, we can take the cars off the streets and see community and creativity and healthy vitality arise. It’s hard not to wonder whether the same values might thrive if only we could do the same thing to the city as a whole – an arsehole-free day, perhaps – and see what emerges.
Car-free day has in recent years become an institution in the Indonesian capital, and in a city starved of open space, clear paths and fresh air, it’s little wonder that people have embraced the oasis of peace.
Jakarta is, in many ways, the Los Angeles of Southeast Asia. It’s a city built around cars, with those using other modes of transport a mere afterthought. The major thoroughfares accommodate several lanes of vehicle traffic, but are hostile to bicycles and in many instances offer not an inch of footpath for perambulators.
Cars are the physical embodiment of the city’s anti-social aggression; their presence, with their noise and pollution and hint of danger has a chilling effect on people who traverse the city on foot. Trying walking shoulder to shoulder with a chain of Avanzas and Xenias and Kijangs to understand why.
But on car-free day, those vehicles are pushed aside. What emerges is impressive.
Wandering the street on car-free day in late January, there were a steady stream of families strolling down the six-lane expanse, well-dressed parents de-stressing from their office drudgery while young children darted about unpredictably. Alongside them were hipsters who had embraced the retro appeal of “fixie” fixed-gear bicycles, simple and elegant machines that do away with every non-essential part of a bike, brakes included.
A group of cyclists with a keen interest in historic old bikes gathered in matching T-shirts to chat, ride, and admire each other’s facial hair. A group of Star Wars enthusiasts donned home-made costumes of their favourite characters, wielding light sabres in playful jousts.
A little further up the road was the “Drive Books, Not Cars” fair. The community fundraiser spends weeks gathering second-hard books, both in English and Bahasa Indonesia, and then sells them on picnic rugs and trestle tables just off the street. In the midst of a classic phase, I picked up a copy of Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” and a well-thumbed copy of Melville’s “Moby-Dick”.
A group of hippies claimed a stretch of open space to conduct demonstrate their fire eating, their meal punctuated with some playful slapstick in the proud tradition of street theatre. Middle-class families look on appreciatively, and the hat being passed around swiftly filled with 2,000 and 5,000 rupiah notes.
To understand the significance of such subversive activity, you need to appreciate the power that the street holds in the functioning of the city. Jalan Thamrin, as it is known in its northern stretch, and Jalan Sudirman, as it becomes further south, is a main artery of the thriving metropolis. Its four lanes of traffic in either direction are bumper-to-bumper at most hours of the day, and only a recently-established exclusive bus lane hosts vehicles that move through smoothly.
It acts as a microcosm for the city’s class divisions: its wealthy elite ride in cars (almost always as passengers rather than drivers), the middle-class weave in and out of the cars on ojek motorcycles, while the poor are on foot on the sidelines, begging, busking or vending whatever they can find.
The boulevard passes through the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, an enormous water fountain next to the city’s first international hotel that has become a gathering point for youth whiling away the hours. In the middle of the pond stands the socialist-realist Welcome Statue, a young boy and girl (known to some as Hansel and Gretel) striving forward with unseemly vigour and enthusiasm.
A little further south stands the dignified statue of General Sudirman, the Indonesian military hero who commanded forces against the Dutch colonials during the battle for independence in the 1940s. The figure of the fighter, who died aged just 34, stares down, appearing to be in awe of the bustling parade before him. Continue to the southern end of the street and you reach another statue, officially the Youth Monument Statue but better known as Flaming Pizza Man because of its pose, which completely lacks Sudirman’s dignity.
The street has also borne witness to some of the city’s dark chapters. In the heady days of 1998, military snipers positioned themselves on building around the Semanggi cloverleaf, created by the elaborate intersection with Jalan Gatot Subroto. As student protests grew restive, police and soldiers fired into the crowd, killing a dozen people and staining the street with blood.
Come Sundays, through, the signs of state power are far more benign. Members of the city’s Inline Skate Police squad roll through the streets on their sleek footwear, looking about as threatening as a miniature schnauzer.
Officers in training even use the car-free space as an opportunity to practice their marching, with units trundling down the street in near-perfect formation to the chant of “kiri… kiri… kiri, kanan, kiri…”. Young’uns race up to march beside them for a stretch, while people flock to take photos of the scene.
Cars act as a metaphor for the city as a whole. In many ways the city is an aggressive one, with corruption, incompetence and crassness matching the mood of its streets. So dominant in that mind-set that it is difficult for anyone to cope without yielding to it, no matter how honest or compassionate they might be.
For a morning a fortnight, we can take the cars off the streets and see community and creativity and healthy vitality arise. It’s hard not to wonder whether the same values might thrive if only we could do the same thing to the city as a whole – an arsehole-free day, perhaps – and see what emerges.
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