Barongan: A New Face of Reog Ponorogo

My third post on this blog is about "Dispute on Rasa Sayange" that comes up colouring the relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia lately. Again, this week, almost the same dispute comes up when one of the official website of Malaysian Govermental Agency releases a clip containing a video about a cultural show "Barongan" which is claimed as one of the Malaysian cultural heritage. However, the clip very much looks like a "Reog Ponorogo" which is widely known as an original cultural property and pride from the city of Ponorogo, East Java, Indonesia.

To most of us, the people of Indonesia, the claim is just like a cultural harrashment and an immoral action. Moreover, this claim is coming up after series of claims starting from claim on Rasa Sayange, batik, angklung, and even claim on Ambalat and some other ashaming claims. As a one and a same anchestor neighboring country, the claim is indeed very insulting. It's a kind of hard to believe if the Malaysian side doesn't know about this, even some speculate that the action is very possibly intended to provoke Indonesia. In the case of Barongan which very much looks like a Reog Ponorogo, even several Ponorogoan people admit that they can clearly identify that the main tools of Barongan (the giant musk) which is shown in the clip is very possibly also a product of Ponorogo. There are some specific characteristics on the musk that indicate that it is a product of Ponorogo. However, such a claim should also be well proven, rather than only-spoken. If this is true, then, the Malaysian claim becomes more and more insulting.

Fortunately, the government of Ponorogo (East Java Province) has officially patented their Reog. So, lawsuit procedures could be well processed further. However, again lesson can be well learned from this happening. The tremendous and huge number of cultural inheritance should not only be proud of, but need to be well and properly managed. There is no other way to appreciate our own culture and our anchestor who have derivated the precious culture from one generation to another, but a full attention and serious management. Unless, all the cultural inheritance will become a foreign culture in its own birth-land. Let's start from ourselves. I Love Indonesia.

A Joke: Simple Idea for Landing on the Sun

This is just a simple story, but little inspiring to see how simple and humble person think about his/her surrounding.

Once upon a time in little village in east Java, a Minister of Research and Technology was in his visit to the village to launch the use of a new bridge that connected two river-separated villages. Before the ceremony was started, the Minister was seriously involved in a discussion with some seniored person in the village. The discussion was mostly about the curiousity of the villagers on many technology-related things and issues. One of the attracting issues was about the villager's question on the possibility of human being's landing on the sun, since landing on the moon had already been made.

Responding to such a question, the Minister explained that it was undoubtfully impossible for human being to land on the sun because of the thousands of degrees of temperature on the sun's surface. Hearing such an explanation, then, the villagers got more curious and said "I totally agree with you that such landing would be impossible, it's too hot landing on the sun, even very-very hot".

However, another villager then say: "Minister, I know the best way how to make a landing on the sun, make it in the night, the sun is just hot during the day time, not in the night time".

The Minister, then, got mad-like laughing.... yes.. yes.. yes.. it's a genuine idea folk..! landing on the sun on the night, it will be cool and safe... ha. ha.. ha...... I've never thaught that way before.

Bus Way: 1st Test for Mr. Foke

The construction of Bus Way has encountered a serious problem lately, since it's first launch about two years ago. At the beginning, although many people were sceptical, slowly but surely many people in turn could accept the policy to bring the Bus Way in reality. However, the construction of some new corridors has significantly resulted in a serious traffic congestion, such as the corridor of Kp. Rambutan - Koja and the corridor of Lb. Bulus - Harmoni. This has invited various comments and concerns from a variety levels of the community. Even, Mr. President has also specially invited the newly elected Jakarta Governor Mr. Foke (a nick name for Mr. Fauzi Bowo) to discuss about the impact of the Bus Way construction and how to deal with it.

To what can be red from many newspapers, seemingly there is a calming down of the policy on the continuation of Bus Way construction. At least, it is indicated by the news that corridor XI through corridor XV which is previously planned to be consctructed in 2008 will be postponed till 2009, and targeted to be finished in 2010. Besides, the new policy that personal cars for some routes are permitted to use the Bus Way lines has also indicated that the policy has been, to some extent, shaking.

It is true that during the construction period, traffic congestion is unavoidable in almost all parts of Jakarta. However, it should be in kept in mind that the policy is just about 30% of the whole plan to be implemented. So, if judgement then is made in that situation, it will not make a sense. We need to give an opportunity to the government to implement the whole plan of the Bus Way policy. In this regard, I am not part of the policy maker, and I have no intension to campaign or what so ever to defend the policy.

Considering that the ratio between the number of cars in Jakarta and the available space and roads is not in a good balance, a breakthrough in mass-rapid transportation policy is a must. Among of which, Bus Way is the most realistic from several points of views (financial, security, etc.). In my personal views, there are at least two targets that the Bus Way policy would like to achieve: (i) improvement in public service especially in the city mass-rapid transportation; and (ii) changing the people views and behaviours on the use personal cars in daily activities. In the sense of the second target above, traffic congestion might be a good lesson and means to change the people views and behaviors on the use of personal cars. It will best if traffic congestion happens this days temporally rather than the traffic stuck in five or ten years later. This is the 1st test for Mr. Foke's administration. Go Bus Way.... We'll wait for your roles....! (Jakarta, 20/11/2007)

Tax Paying at a Samsat: My Bad Experience

This week-end is the due date for me to pay my motor cycle tax. It's a good news that a new Samsat Office has just been established in the area of my surrounding, which is close to my residence. A day before the due date, a friend of mine told and suggensted me to use a sort of 'broker' service for the purpose of the tax payment for a reason of simplicity and time efficiency. However, thinking that the office is newly established, I believe that the tax payers will not be as many as those at the old office. So, in my belief the queue will not be long, and it's better for me to be in the queue rather than using a brokerage service.

At the first step of entering the office area, I felt so happy because I saw no many people in the queue. Even, in the waiting area which is set outside I also found only a few people. This gave me a strong sign that I would get a fast service because no many people are in the need. First thing to do was queueing at the "stof maf" counter, paying for Rp 3.000,- for only a sheet of "stof maf" (which is in normal just costs Rp500,-). Second thing to do was queueing at the registration counter, paying for Rp 6.000,-, without any explanation what it was for. Then, the third thing to do was waiting for the turn of paying the tax bill. This unexpectedly took a unreasonably very long time, considering that only a few people were needing the service. I was totally wrong, in fact the people were coming and going. I started being curious, why I was always left by the others, even by those who queued after me. After paying serious attention, especially at the first counter (i.e. stof maf counter), most of the tax payers seemed to have a small talk, which I guessed to order a 'special' treatment in the process. I guessed so because those who had a small talk at the counter, at the final step were always called to take the processed documents at the counter, not at a counter specified for delivering the document. I didn't know how much each should pay for such a service. This, finally, led me to a conclusion that my friend had suggested me a 'right' thing to do which was using brokerage service for the sake of time efficency and simplicity.

Learning from the above-elaborated situation, I start thinking, whether such practices under the understanding of the government, or the government does not realize such practices. What I believe the government indeed knows and understands the situation well. But the question is why such practices which are known as bad and disgraceful are kept in practice. The government should see this from the point of view that the government is at the needy side rather than the tax payer. So, the logic will say that the tax payers should be given a number-one quality service, rather than putting them in the position of servicing the government officials. Indeed, I don't understand this. This is truly and really ackward.

If I were the person in charge of such services, of course I would improve the service quality by means of the following: (i) establishing the proper logic to all the officials involved that in the tax services it is government that need the tax payers, not the vice versa; (ii) establishing codes of conduct for tax payment services that guide employees what to do and what not to do; (iii) conducting routine supervision, and even in-cognito monitoring if needed, to see whether the codes of conduct has already been in place; (iv) implementing rewards and punishments policy to encourage the employees to do the rightious things and to perform best; and lastly (v) defining new innovative services by making maximum use and benefit of the IT. In my imagination, it not that difficult to enable tax payers paying their bill using ATM or if needed using premium sms. Technology has no impossibility to do so as long as there is willingness from users. Go Indonesia, I love You.

Jakarta, 20/11/2007

Developing a Speak-Up Generation

It is a kind of spontaneous that I suddenly remember a situation when I was studying abroad. The situation was very hard and became a sort of barrier. It was all about my difficulty in participating in the class discussion in the early three months of studying, because of both language aspect and cultural/behavioral aspect. As the class activities were mostly dominated by such a class discussion which seriously demanded the students participation, the situation was felt to be more and more serious to me.

At the beginning of the study, I frankly speaking admired most of my western classmates who are generally very speak-up in almost all the class discussions. The one that I admired was the way they conveyed their ideas and thoughts which were so elaborative and thorough. This had made me curious on searching the answer of why that kind of skills were owned by almost all the western (just to be specific: American) classmates. In my belief, there should be one reason why they could do so.

In the following months, I had a good chance to interract with an American family who was happened to be my neighbour. At the time I thought that it's a time to find out the answer of my hiden question. Indeed, this family fortunately was so helpful, and was more than happy to give me a chance for any discussion, and even to talk with their kids. One important point that I got was that proper approach in early-step education had played a critical role for developing both cognitive and psychomotoric skills, including speaking skills. Besides, the habit of involving children in a house-level discussion was also another contributor.

A good example of how children are taught with speaking skills is the routine assignment given to students to make-up a story during their week-end. The story should be a real one, and describe their week-end activities. Then, in every first day of the week, the student should tell the story to the rest of class. This is of course a kind of interesting task for the kids, and making them not being haunted by a serious-like task. The assignment is indeed felt as something fun. But, for sure this sort of easy and simple assignment has gradually formed a skill of good public speaking. Of course, in further development, they start learning the logics and arguments in every story they made.

I will not say that speaking skills is enough, but at least speaking skill is part of the competency that need to be mastered by our kids. Substance for no doubt needs to be given attention also, and even it's much more important. However, both speaking skill and substance should be developed proportionally so that a Speak-Up Generation can be reached. Ha.. ha.... why I write about this ya....? Hopefully benefit can be taken from it. Thanks. (Thohir Afandi)

Jakarta, 16/11/2007

Small Talk on Corruption

Several days ago, I coincidently met Mr. Bagus Rumbogo (The Main Inspector of Bappenas) when I was about to go out for a lunch. Although the meeting was just about two or three minutes, but a little discussion seemed to be very fruitful and gave strong impression on the discussed topic.

Mr. Rumbogo told me a story regarding his previous meeting with some of high level officials of Nahdlatul Ulama in East Java Province. He was interested in the way how Nahdliyyin (a call name for those who are members of Nahdlatul Ulama) conveyed their views/thoughts in a discussion. They tend to express their ideas indirectly, and commonly use an easily understandable analogy. Even, the use of a kind of metaphoric joke is mostly preferred by this community because of its effectiveness in communication.

One of the interesting topic of the discussion is about how people tend to be moderate in the degree of haramness (Ind: keharaman) of money resulted from corruptive practices in comparation with the haramness of eating, say, a meat of pig. He then exemplified with the following analogy: moslem people will obviously and strongly reject if you offer them with a free lunch of ham (pig), but they are very possibly welcome if you offer them with a free lunch of beef, which is halal food, although it is really bought with money from illegal practices such as corruption, even if you told them so. Substantially, both lunches are really haram: the first is haram because of the substance of the lunch itself, while the second is haram because of its "history" which is gained from a haram practices, i.e. corruption.

In other cases, unclear explanation on the corruption has often resulted in a wrong perception also. This sometimes is as reflected in a joke that say: corruption is different from stealing, corruption is ok and stealing is haram. This joke might be intended to criticize how the authority has failed in explaining the word and its meaning of "Corruption". For ordinary people, maybe the best way to explain about the corruption is by similarizing it with stealing. Stealing is corruption, and corruption is stealing as well. Both words are interchangeable and with the same meaning. Never use a long and wordy sentence to explain what corruption is. Make it simple and straight forward.

Although the analogy above seems to look like a joke, but indeed it reminds us very shockingly, that sometimes we need to make an extreme comparation to make people well understand on the basic concept, i.e. on the "haramness" of money from corruptive pratices. What is the different between eating a pig meat and spending some corruptive-originated money?. By that way, people will easily be reminded that it is no different between eating halal food from corrupted money and eating haram food (like a pig) from halal money. Indeed, it's a good analogy that I will always use as a reference. Thanks pak Bagus Rumbogo. (Thohir Afandi, 15/11/2007)

Jakarta, 15/11/2007

A Joke on Bus Way

This morning, a friend of mine made a joke about Bus Way. This might be because that lately the construction of Bus Way is widely blamed by most of Jakartanists as the main contributor to the traffic jam in Jakarta. The joke is just on the way he pronounced the word Bus Way which is heard as BAH WAE rather than as BAS WE.

The joke seems funny to me for two reason: (i) the pronounciation is very Javanese, and seems to impress that it is Javanes which means LET IT BE; (ii) the joke reflects a feeling of desperate, maybe for the seriousness of the traffic problem caused by the construction of the BAH WAE, sorry BUS WAY. :-) Keep smile... it makes you healthy. (Jakarta, 15/11/2007)