Archive for November 5th, 2007
Brisbane (ANTARA News) - Some Australian investors are interested in doing business in Indonesia`s popular island resort of Bali where they can build an international hospital, a retirement village for Australian pensioners, and a luxurious cruiser pier, an Indonesian diplomat has said.
Some Australian investors hoped that they needed some 25 hectares of land on which to realize their project, Minister Counsellor at the Indonesian Consulate General Jahar Gustom said here Sunday.
According to Gultom, the investors of the retirement village were still negotiating their plan with the Karangasem district administration.
“Many Australian investors are waiting for an opportunity to do business in Bali, but they had problems in obtaining land,” he said.
The Australian entrepreneurs` hope grew after the Indonesian Consulate General held an annual Indonesian festival starting in 2005, he said. Bilateral trade between Indonesia and the Australian
State of Victoria also increased following the annual Indonesian trade exhibitions.
The bilateral trade value was recorded at 1.47 billion Australian dollars in 2006, an increase from 1.22 billion Australian dollars in 2005.
The Indonesian Consulate General in Melbourne is scheduled to hold a similar festival on November 9-11, focusing on Sulawesi potentials. The exhibitions which were held in 2005 and 2006 focused on Bali and Sumatra potentials respectively.
Provinces outside Sulawesi like Yogyakarta, Bali, West Sumatra, North Sumatra, West Java, DKI Jakarta, Central Kalimantan, Gorontalo, West Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, and Central Sulawesi will also participated in the trade festival.
Bank Indonesia, state banks like BRI and BNI as well as flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia will support the exhibition. (*)
Source: ANTARA News
November 5th, 2007
A fusion between a traditional wayang (shadow puppet) performance and modern technology impressed Jakartans during two shows at Graha Bhakti Budaya hall in the Taman Ismail Marzuki cultural center in Cikini, Central Jakarta.
The performance, called Wayang Listrik (electric puppet), amused the audience with its funny and critical dialogue presented by one of Bali’s most accomplished puppet masters, I Made Sidia.
Sidia presented a provocative show and proved to his audience that a traditional performance, which might usually be unappealing to youngsters, can be entertaining.
The 40-year-old puppeteer kept the audience laughing with his brilliant and innovative jokes in both English and Kawi, an ancient Javanese language.
In his Thursday performance at the hall, Sidia mocked Malaysia over its recent dispute with Indonesia over the use of the traditional Indonesian song Rasa Sayange in Malaysia’s tourism campaign.
In Sidia’s Tualen’s Journey story, Tualen, the main character, meets a wild tiger on his travels that he tries to tame by singing the Indonesian national anthem, Indonesia Raya.
However, the tiger in the story becomes angry upon hearing Tualen sing the anthem. Tualen then says: “You must be a Malaysian tiger then, huh?”
Sidia said he used jokes like this to deliver criticism about social and political issues in today’s world through artistic performances.
“The country is facing panca baya (five threats) — water, such as in floods; fire, which includes global warming; theft; enemies, both national and international; and, the most dangerous of all, the threat from within ourselves,” he said.
Tualen’s Journey, he said, is based on the Ramayana, in which Tualen is the loyal servant of Ayodya Kingdom’s crown prince Rama Dewa.
Tualen, who sacrificed his life to serve Rama, helped the prince on his journey to look for his beloved wife Dewi Sita, who was kidnapped by Rahwana, the king of Alengka. However, on the journey Tualen realized that he, too, was searching for his own love and respect.
Unlike traditional wayang performances, Sidia incorporates modern technology, such as the use of projectors and electric musical instruments, to bring his show to life.
The story even incorporates modern vehicles, such as a bulldozer, motorcycles and cars, which Tualen uses on his journey.
Sidia and five other puppeteers make use of skateboards in the performance to move their puppets around faster than the traditional wayang.
Sidia has gained international recognition for his work and has played in numerous countries, including Germany, Australia, the U.S., Switzerland, the Netherlands and Denmark.
“I usually perform the same story, but there are some changes here and there as time goes by and new issues arise,” he said. (adt)
Source: The Jakarta Post
November 5th, 2007
Home is more than a place where we spend much of our time. It is where we feel safe and comfortable, where we belong.
My great grandfather’s village is buried under lava in the belly of the ancient caldera of Mount Batur. Eight kilometers in diameter, the caldera houses an ever-changing lake and a mountain constantly developing new crater heads like a Hydra.
From my grandfather’s generation onwards, the three villages of Batur have clung onto the steep slopes on the western caldera. These three villages are still within eyesight of the many new craters that have sprung from the heart of Mount Batur, but safe enough from any pyroclastic harm.
Every year, at a particular lunar conjunction, those of us who can make it return to the site of our ancestral village and camp on top of the lava for three days.
Once there, we turn back the clock to our medieval times and prepare for temple festivities at Pura Jati (literally `true temple’).
A delegation climbs to the highest crater of Mount Batur and gathers condensed vapor from his billowing fumaroles to use as holy water. Yet another, paddles out to the lake and offers sacrifices to her depths.
According to oral history the mountain erupted many times, but the lava flow always stopped before reaching the temple gates at the village’s highest ground.
In between eruptions, during a temple ceremony many went into a trance state and warned the villagers of a great impending eruption. It is said that when the village was eventually covered by lava, everyone moved up safely to the surrounding caldera.
Mount Batur remains our ancestral home where we feel safe, despite regular eruptions. We have come to perceive the regular spreading of ash as a blessing that keeps our soil fertile.
Having returned to my father’s lakeside house after the village temple reunion one year, I found myself wide-awake at midnight.
I was 17, about to leave Bali to go to New Zealand for my university education. Perhaps I was restless about leaving, but now I know it was anxiety of what I would come back to.
I got up and watered the garden. The full moon beckoned. So, barefooted and wearing only a sarong and T-shirt, I began to walk across the road, through fields and forest, up the slopes towards the highest peak.
Despite the occasional cloud and thick trees, I knew the path well enough to make my way through the shadows. I walked through the forest, past the scattered clumps of trees and sat on a rocky outcrop.
Clouds were slowly descending into the valley like waves crashing in slow motion, hovering above the lake and wrapping around the mountain like a loose blanket.
I watched and internalized the vision of the moon’s silver light playing on the lake and clouds. For how long, I’m not sure. I hardly recall the walk back home, but the vision of mountain, lake and clouds under the moonlight stayed with me.
In my travels around the world, whenever I need sanctuary, I close my eyes and return to that view.
We Balinese are natural-born census takers, but I do get tired of asking the standard `What do you do?’ I prefer to ask, among other questions,do you choose to do with your time?’
After months of pondering my questions, a Sundanese friend based in Jakarta responded to me recently, “There’s only one question I cannot answer, `Where is home?’”
Today’s world is moving and changing so fast, that perhaps we can no longer find any reassuring constant in our villages or cities. Having returned from my studies and travels overseas I am constantly amazed at the pace at which we are building. Modern palaces are growing in the place of rice and coconuts, while migrant slums mushroom along riversides.
Reader Jack of Hawaii, who grew up in a little fishing village called Kihei and has made Bali home for the last 24 years responded to my rant on the lack of waste management last week with the following statement:
“The single most important issue Balinese face is not plastic bags or narkoba (drugs). It’s real estate scumbags.”
Jack doesn’t want Bali to turn into another Hawaii, where locals can no longer afford to live in their villages because the high cost of real estate.
As a Balinese, I tend to be more introspective about the evils of villa development. I believe the crux of the issue is how we Balinese can find a balance between our desires to join the modern world with its demands.
How do we reconcile our dependency upon TV, motor vehicles, mobile phones, etc, with our love for our culture and environment?
Sadly, it’s often during the month of June, when parents have to prepare the big lump sums for their children’s higher education that land gets sold or leased long term. But where else are poor farmers going to get the money to give their children a chance to compete in the international workplace? More kids are dropping out due to financial pressures than palatial `your own piece of paradise’ villas being erected.
Education is the key to our better future, but its cost is skyrocketing. Losing our land for it is a high price to pay. If this continues, home may have to become a distant memory cherished only in the heart.
Source: The Jakarta Post
November 5th, 2007