think!archipelago human interest I cityscape I landscape I architecture I art

V8 NOV 2014

BRAVE THE WORLD

We thank

these terrific people

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P1 Contents

EDITORS

NOTE

Writers and

Photographers

QUARTERLY

REVIEW

The maritime axis power

Not just a market

Fa Zhu Gong parade

ARCHIPELAGO

SECTION

Brave the world

Diana Ria

East and west collaboration

WORLD

SECTION

A haunting vision

Go south

THE ROAD

LEAST TRAVELED

Hidden tea hills

Purnadi Phan Editor

As I walked across the blocks outside

the Beijing fourth ring road, the

freezing winds on the winter swept over

my face. It made a painfully burning

sensation on my hands, to which I

quickly put on a pair gloves in a panic

attempt to restore them from

excruciating numbness. At a particular

time, the rampant televised news about

pollution in the capital and on the

rest of the urban areas in China to the

extent that it caused hazy days during

spring to summer seemed overblown.

Unlike what is seen on tv, in winter

the clear air does not stifle as

feared. The tormenting gush of wind

seemed to blow away the emission.

However, the situation in the

atmosphere says a contradicting

assumption. The smokes coming out

relentlessly from the chimneys of

China’s old era went to every

direction. The air up in the bright sky

is blanketed in white. Regardless the

wind direction or the currents, the

pollution coming from industrial output

stays up there. The chimneys present a

contrast view among the new zoning

system in Beijing. It can only serve

the grand vision of the past nation

founders. Now it is a problem. And

solving it takes more than just

shutdown or relocation.

Mikhail Surjadi is a food

traveler, photography

enthusiast, gadget freak,

he is known for his love

towards these things.

Follow his tweets on

@mikhailsurjadi

Yenny Wongso is a bachelor

of Chinese Language in

Beijing who now pursues

another degree in English

Education. In her recent

tour to Western Europe

and Italy, she captured

many remarkable pictures.

She now works and studies

in Jakarta.

P2 Quarterly review

AUG SEP OCT The maritime axis power Not just a market Fa Zhu Gong parade

With over 1.3 million people

working in automotive industry,

Indonesia has after a steady

growth in recent years

simultaneously become a

lucrative market for world

automakers and a labor-intensive

country in the region in which

production facilities and the

wide range of its peripheral

indutries flourish. To these

importance, the annual Indonesia

International Motor Show tells

how big and fast this prime

sector is developing.

Celebrating the National

Independence Day at sea, which

makes up over two thirds of 5.1

million square kilometers of

Indonesia’s total area, was an

awe in silence. The national

flag waived through the strong

wind currents on the ship’s

tail, suggesting that this

country has sovereignty in the

mostly uninhabitated area for

humans. But the natural

recources deep under the waters

is what makes its people rich,

more than enough for the next

generations, if well-sustained.

Not only us humans, gods have

birthdays too. True, Chinese

deities have birthdays to

celebrate annually. And not

only humans who attended the

party, but also the gods and

their heavenly followers.

Read the full story with more

pictures on think archipelago

website. Click here.

Text and

photography I Mikhail Surjadi

INDONESIA JAZZ REVIEW

Album and artist

Click to enter

P5 Archipelago section

BRAVE THE WORLD

Reviving Indonesia’s past glory as the

world’s biggest archipelagic state,

then called Nusantara in pre-colonial

era, is the newly elected Indonesian

President Joko Widodo’s keynote in

terms of economic development. In what

his administration touted as the

maritime axis power, Indonesia is going

to build its economy with much larger

proportion coming from the waters.

Pushing renewable resources would mean

a boost in fishing output, and the

vision to increase sea trade would

translate into an ambitious plan of

ports building. To this extent, the

government has a huge task of making a

headstart. Some analysts said the

country is not by any means close to

the bold terms of the maritime axis

power, and the vision far-flung. Like

in this lagging port infrastructure in

Bojonegara, Banten, the decade-old

vision to transform this shore into

a port in West Java that will overtake

Tanjung Priok in Jakarta as the hub

for Sumatra-Java sea trade, let alone

an important regional port on par with

Singapore lacks every indication. The

service boat operated by Kadiman,

among other small number of crews as

seen on this page clearly suggests

that Bojonegara has a long way to go.

Its inability to handle large vessels

is the reason Kadiman still works

there. He and his small boat carries

passengers and goods from and to the

ships anchoring off the waters.

Since Bojonegara is close to the

Merak, one of the busiest ports in

Indonesia, it has seen heavy traffic

of cargos, tankers, and other large

utility vessels such as dredging

ships. Some shipping companies have

made Bojonegara their home port. But

Kadiman does not get a lot of money

there. The absence of infrastructure,

especially the docks, is now certainly

something he is grateful of, and also

to some dozen other boat crews.

Bojonegara remains trapped in

visionary rhetorics, and it has not

transformed into reality. Maritime

power is not only limited to trades,

but also the sovereignty over waters.

The newly appointed Foreign Affair

Minister Retno Marsudi underlines her

agenda settling disputed claims with

neighboring countries, and bolstering

cooperation. The Joko Widodo-led new

administration marks a dawn where

Indonesia braves the world.

7,900,000 The number of Indonesian people

as of 2013 who lives in coastal

areas with less than USD2

of earnings per day

Location Related article See it online

Bojonegara Intl. Port Sunda Kelapa Port The photoessay Brave the world is

Serang regency See it on Flickr available on think archipelago special

Banten province Click here black and white photography medium MONOMAT

P10 Archipelago section

Photography I Erwin Supandii

DIANA RIA

Diana Ria, the traveling

group of temporary funfairs

stopped at Solo as part of

their regular tour across

cities in Java. The setup in

the city square took only

several days to complete, and

it opened for one full month.

Despite the outdated and

makeshift devices, tours like

Diana Ria still wins people’s

heart, as is the case for the

majority who are budget-wise.

For a meager price of a

little more than one dollar

in admission ticket, visitors

get to see everything Diana

Ria could offer, excluding

some main attractions that

would cost another dollar

each. Diana Ria and other

groups of similar amusement

rides business showed that it

is not always the race for

fanciful innovation or the

spectacular size that lead to

survival. There is always

enough demand in the market

for something simple

mechanism, albeit

compromising the standards.

Yet the safety standard

affects less to the visitors

and more to the operators.

Their devices were fully

mechanical moved manually by

manpower. It is astonishing

to see some type of rides

carrying over 20 people such

as the Pendulum Rides were

operated by a handful crews.

Location More articles by Erwin Supandi More photos

Alun-Alun Utara Borobudur See more Erwin Supandi’s

Solo/Surakarta Betaria photo works on his Flickr account

Central Java www.thinkarchipelago.com https://www.flickr.com/photos/erwinsupandi/

P14 Archipelago section

EAST & WEST COLLABORATION

Goethe Haus Jakarta’s regular agenda

of setting up international jazz

musicians under the now familiar

event Serambi Jazz continued to

please the audience whom mostly long

for an experimental type of music out

of the industrialized music on the

market. The play on Thursday, 16

October, not only showing the fresh

compositions made by each side, the

European represented by Benny Lacker

and the band, the French Karim, and

the Indonesian guitarist who had

appeared several times in Goethe

Haus, Johanes Radianto, but they also

brought a mixture of songs in their

list from different places of origin.

In their own twists, tunes such as

Jimy Hendrix’s From 6 to 9 to

Indonesian folk song Gundul Pacul

were surprising enough that by the

end they were applauded by standing

audience across the auditorium.

Location See online More jazz review

Goethe Haus Jakarta East & west collaboration on Indonesia Jazz Review

Jl. Sam Ratulangi 9-15 in exclusive layout only on Album & artist catalogue

Menteng, Jakarta Be Bright. www.be-bright.me Click here

As the third time of such anticipated music

project, the involved musicians have more

confidence to introduce new forms and

possibilities which are non-existent in mainstream

music. Some instances were the screeches of string

bass that created the sense of slowly receding

creepiness in one of the trio’s composition, or

the creation of sounds from Karim’s keyboard that

played out well with his composition.

P17 World section

A HAUNTING VISION

sk

The cold of winter in Beijing gets

harsher as it is usually followed by

persistent windblows night and day.

The undulating smokes coming out of old

chimneys on a freezing noon is an

evidence of the windswept cosmopolitant

area. The sky is bright, but not clear.

This suggests heavy air pollution.

Regardless the wind currents or to

which direction it blows, the constant

smokes from numerous industrial

chimneys scattered across the capital—

the founder of People’s Republic of

China Mao Zedong’s criterium of

economic prowess in early 50s—have

never got away anywhere outside the

city. Mao’s vision of the future strong

China has transformed into a haunting

amount of carbon dioxide and dust that

linger up there in the sky through

changing seasons. There have been

systematic attempts to drive the

industrial output away from the

capital, long marred by pollution

issue. Since the enactment, the

relocation decree of dirty industry to

neighboring cities such as Hebei have

made the chimneys dissappeared from

city skyline. Ageing factories,

commonly steel and chemical processing

facilities were forced to move out of

the high density zones into some other

sattelite cities in-the-making. Over

the years, the Beijing municipalities

clean-air act have worked as planned,

except that the ultimate goal of

improving the air quality have yet to

materialize. Now a third of Beijing

emission record comes from outside

Beijing. This issue challenges urban

population in China about how they

perceived the air they breathe. Will

farther industrial zone relocation

solve the problem? Or should the

Chinese nation come to terms with their

mind that it is a necessity to accept

environmental compromise in exchange

for prosperous economic growth?

Currently, perhaps it is both.

500 The number of factories closed

in Beijing by the end of 2014 as a

result of relocation decree.

Location Related article from China See online slideshow

Various districts in NCPA Beijing See Beijing Urban Planning slideshow

Beijing, China WTC Shanghai on purnadiphanphotography website

Go to website Click here

P21 World section

Photography I Yenny Wongso

GO SOUTH

The clear blue sky as the backdrop of the

chains of mountain—part of the giant

Southern Alps—welcomed the plane when it

landed on the south island of New Zealand.

The Queenstown International Airport was

flanked by a fraction of 50 volcanic

mountains in the country. White clouds

blanketed most of its long summit, a

beautiful scenery to begin the journey on

this resort destination. For Asian tourists

coming from the typical densely populated

home city, the south island would have

certainly made them dumbfounded with the

least appearance of humans. It is one of

the less inhabitated lands on earth in

comparison with the modern world that is

crowded by over 6 billion people.

The ultimate stop on the visit to the

south island of New Zealand is

Christchurch, the third most populous

city in the country after Auckland and

Wellington in the north island, with just

over 340,000 inhabitants. Over 30 per

cent of the south island population lived

in Christchurch. As the history of the

European settlement in New Zealand

started in the south island during the

goldrush that culminated in the 19th

century, Christchurch is the country’s

first established city. Frequent series

of earthquakes over two years since 2010

had changed its outlook into even more

vibrant and new. Rapid and thorough

restoration that took place in the past

two years made the traces of destructive

impact of earthquakes dissapeared.

32 years since the last earthquake

occured in south island in 1968

Location See online

Queensland, Christchurch Yenny Wongso’s article

South Island in Switzerland Elevation

New Zealand Go to website

New Zealand was one of the last stops

of human migration in the prehistoric

era. Its indigeneous Eastern Polynesian

people, the Maoris, settled long before

the Dutch and British voyagers found

the island in the 17th century, calling

it Autearoa, meaning the land of the

long white cloud. The country’s name

refers to the Abel Tasman-led Dutch

explorers who called it upon discovery

in 1642 Nova Zeelandia. The British

explorers anglicised the name to New

Zealand, and unanimously agreed by

consesus for use until today.

P25 The road least traveled

HIDDEN TEA HILLS

There are 11 major tea-producing

provinces in Indonesia that contribute

to the country’s seventh place in the

world’s biggest tea exporters. At the

top spot of these provinces is West

Java with nearly ten thousand hectares

of lands in total for tea plantations.

The province’s green scenery dominated

by plantation in relatively high

altitude is a correct assumption. But

some are off-limits to the public, as

they belonged to a privately-invested

lands. But given its large size, it is

quite impossible to hide it from

travellers sight. This one, for

instance, is situated on the outskirts

of the province’s capital city,

Bandung. It hides behind Setu

Patenggang, a natural spot popular for

its sulfuric lake on a white crater at

the top of an inactive volcanic

mountain, Mount Patuha. By continuing

the uphill tracks beyond the crowded

meeting point at the entrance of the

sightseeing place, the stony path leads

to the remainings of what used to be a

lush West Java forest, before it

shrinks to its current condition to

make way for expanding population and

the living space. Beyond these trees is

an abrupt change of scenery.

65% export percentage out of

Indonesia’s total 150,000 tons

of tea production each year

An unhindered vista of flat and

green tea leafs blanketing the

surrounding hills was worth half

an hour lonely walks from what was

initially supposed to be a typical

tourist visit to the white crater.

With a little sense of intuition,

an adventure-seeking traveler is

more likely to get what he/she

wishes for, more than just seeing

a crowded places on guidebooks.

But this gem could have been more

available to public when the

demand is as popular a commodity

as it is in Britain, for example.

With a population four times less

than Indonesia, the per capita tea

consumption is ten times more.

Although Indonesia is traditio-

nally among the top ten tea

producers globally, its national

consumption ranked 46. Given the

topographical suitability to plant

tea leaves and the enormous size

of land, West Java has a far way

to get anywhere near its full

potential, but the downside it

brings is apparent. Forest

diminishes in favor of plantation.

And as fast as the rate of

deforestation, people must be

aware of the price to be the first

in agricultural commodity.

Location Related article See online pictures

Northwest of White Crater The White Crater See more related

Ciwidey, Bandung Available on website pictures in Flickr.

West Java Click here Click here

Eeriness crept as one took a walk down

the narrow path that only fitted one

body, and added by the mountain breeze

that brought cold air at noon. The thick

fog at the top of the mountains and the

gloomy weather made it seemingly hard to

tell the time. Heart raced when the

sound of approaching vehicle was heard

from the distance, for fear of being

caught by the patroling staff. This

piece of land, after all, serves for

business purpose, hence those who are

not employees are barred from entering.

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