JAKARTA TRAFFIC, let's advise the traffic controllers

This is my idea. It specifically involves the readers in Jakarta, or those with recent getting around in Jakarta experience, or just traffic and traffic flow specialists.

Let's compile specific cases of flawed traffic flow due to inadequate traffic rules and regulations. And then of course add advice on how the situation could be improved. Wow, I can see it taking shape. Each location on a separate page with a site map included for clarification.

Such as: the flow from Rasuna Said to Gatot Subroto is allowed to turn left or go straight. A right turn onto Gatot Subroto is not allowed!

Similarly, traffic from Buncit Raya / Tendean north-east is not allowed to turn tight on Gatot Subroto.

Traffic in either direction on Gatot Subroto is, however, allowed to turn right.

The intersection has perfect traffic lights, even showing how many seconds remain on red or green. The inclusion of the missing right-turns would require a relatively minor adjustment and avoid massive needless doubling of traffic on parts of the roads.

If you have a case drop it into the comments linked to this post. Don't worry about maps, unless you are one of my GIS-mapping friends who do it so much better than my scan and paste.

And any other suggestion on how to improve the traffic situation in Jakarta —the nearly 24/7 gridlock, that is—do not hesitate to include those as well.

Koko, how about you!

JAKARTA TRAFFIC, out on a lunch date

I had a lunch appointment in Menteng with an old friend and colleague. Hadn't been in that part of Jakarta for quite some time and I estimated that I would reach my destination in just over 30 minutes. It took me 50, as from home in South Jakarta to the Central Jakarta restaurant I met nothing but traffic jams.

We arranged to meet in Pisa Restaurant, behind St. Theresia church, had a very pleasant lunch and had much to talk about as we hadn't met for over a year. Talking and eating—I had a surprisingly good pizza al funghi—and finishing with a very nice strong black coffee, took about one and half hour…

It is now just after 4 PM and I spent two hours driving—crawling, that is—home. From the high point on the bridge at the Menteng side of Rasuna Said I saw the four lanes in my direction solidly packed with stationary cars, and so were the four oncoming lanes! What a pity I didn't think of recording it on my mobile.

Over the past ten years the number of vehicles has increased by an average of 10% per year. The total length of roads in Jakarta has, however, increased by less than a percentage point. No wonder therefore that traffic has become the major bottleneck it now is.

I do believe that even under these adverse conditions traffic flows could be improved. Indonesia, like its neighbours Singapore and Malaysia, drives on the left, as decreed by Lieutenant-Governor Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles, 1811-1815, who abhorred the chaotic traffic and obvious lack of rules he observed on arrival.

Present day traffic regulators do appear to suffer from an inane aversion to right-turns.

Cars and motorcycles are directed to continue till they come to a place (often quite far) where a U-turn is allowed. All those who want turn right are thus kept on the road considerably longer than needed, adding to traffic volume.

The limitation in road kilometres is further aggravated by cars parked on the road, or sellers setting up "shop" on the side of the road and claiming at least one lane.

Maybe Raffle's four years were insufficient to instill a regulated traffic sense. And the returning Dutch colonial government does not seem to have tried very hard.

ANOTHER STORY ABOUT THE SHAMELESSLY MISERLY

This story was related to me by my French brother-in-law.

Back to the late 60s, Congo Brazzaville. A water resources development project staffed by a mixed French-Dutch team of experts. Located in Dolisie, which, although the third town in the country, had fairly little to offer in terms of entertainment for expats, they decided to start a club for social intercourse and drinking.

The French Cub Secretary suggested after a month or so to ease the administrative burden and only charge for beer, whiskey, rum and gin, but at slightly increased prices, the soft drinks would be free.

From that moment the Dutch only drank Coca Cola and tonic and soda…!

The French at first couldn't believe it, then got mightily pissed off and finally told the Dutch that they were no longer welcome.

REMINISCING

This is the late 70s—previous century—and the location: Jakarta. I hadn't turned 40 yet and had been contracted as regional-rural planner for a Dutch Technical Assistance Project. If I remember correctly the code was LTA-33. Duty station was a district on the north coast of West Java, but working visits to Jakarta—the Ministry of Public Works (the Executing Agency) and the Netherlands Embassy, had to be made frequently.

In those days there was Hotel Indonesia, and on the same side but a few hundred metres up Sudirman, Hotel Kartika Plaza. Hotel Indonesia's old building was declared a historic landmark site and was incorporated physically and business-wise into Hotel Kempinsky. Kartika Plaza was torn down and replaced by an office tower.

The Dutch contingent of experts stayed in the Kartika Plaza and it was there that I stayed on my visits to the capital. Rooms were big and comfortable, food nothing particular, but the main attraction was the Happy Hour—pay one, get two—from 5 to 7 pm. Every day there was a large group of deskundigen happily drinking, the tables never empty of full glasses of beer.

And then, at 7, when the bill was being presented the crowd thinned noticeably and steadfastly, among the remaining few, there would be one or two who, without batting an eyelid, asserted that they had only drunk the second glass of an order! Inevitably it would be me and team mate Paul paying the largest share of the bill…

Paul, my good friend, I hope that in the part of heaven you are now residing, those sods are not allowed to enter. Have one on me!

LAMB'S LIVER IN MUSHROOM-CREAM SAUCE

Today another recipe. It is based on my favourite Zürcher Fleisch which uses calf's meat.

Ingredients:
400 gram lamb's liver, slice into 1 cm thick strips after trimming the membrane
125-150 gram mushrooms, sliced
1 onion, sliced thinly
2-3 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped (I use more but that is my personal taste)
4 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 level tablespoon of plain flour
1 teaspoon marine salt
125 ml cooking cream, or sour cream
black pepper to taste
chopped parsley—if fresh parsley not available then the dried

Start with the mushrooms.
Sauté the sliced mushrooms in slightly less than half the olive oil (extra virgin) till ready

Set aside

Combine the flour, salt and pepper in a large bowl, mix well. Add the strips of lamb's liver and stir (best with your hands) till the liver is well coated with the flour/salt/pepper mixture.

In a large pan, on medium heat, sauté the onion in the remaining olive oil till soft and transparent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Scoop onion-garlic mix from the pan and set aside.

Raise the heat and stir in the flour-coated liver. Stir fry for a couple of minutes then add the onion-garlic mix. Now add the cream stirring vigorously till boiling bubbles form. Cook for a further minute and transfer to a serving dish. Sprinkle the parsley on top.

Serve this with mashed potatoes, or noodles, or rösti, and a mixed garden salad. Enjoy.

Let me know whether you like it.

AND ON TO PULAU SAWU

Apart from Kefamenanu we also visited Pulau Sawu, an island some 180 km west of Kupang. To get there we managed to get seats on a Missionary Air Service operated Piper Cup-like aircraft. About an hour later we landed at the dirt strip on the island, after making a few overpasses to get a few cows off the runway.

Captain Cook visited the island too, on his 1768-1771 voyage, if I remember correctly an inscribed boulder refers to the visit. It was then an isolated part of the world the Endeavour could have easily missed, although Cook had more accurate updates of the map produced almost 200 year earlier.

  
Eastern hemisphere of Mercator's world map, 1587.
                                       

                                           

Dry dusty heat is what I remember. And palms… everywhere palm trees. Lontar palms (Borassus flabellifer) they are. We later learn that they are tapped and the sap thus obtained is, especially during the dry season when not much else grows, the main food of the population. The slow growing lontar does not only provide the food, but is truly multi- purpose, as nearly all parts are used. The trunk for building houses and bridges, the leaves for roofing, baskets, hats, mats, bags, water buckets, musical instruments, and its fibre is turned into rope.

The evening of our arrival the district head had organised a welcoming party for us where we were introduced to the traditional dances, the local food and the products of the looms, as nearly everybody was dressed in ikat. 

At that party we came up with the idea to do a photo shoot of models wearing ikat. The models were selected at the party and we asked our host for help conveying the idea to the community, especially of course the families of the models.

The next afternoon with the sun already casting fairly long shadows, our models arrived. Now imagine this: the girls, from a very isolated region where the only car was a government operated Toyota Kijang—another one stood on blocks next to our guesthouse waiting for spare parts—were asked to strike poses evocative of a fashion world not only thousands of miles away, but virtually in a different dimension.

After a while they were getting stroppy. And then finally they had had enough. This is it, they said, we are going home, we have to help preparing the evening meal… And off they were.

Later, from Jakarta, we sent several complete sets of the pictures we had taken of the traditional dancing, the food and the photo shoot to the district head with the request to distribute them to those shown in the photographs. I hope it did appease the girls a bit… no longer girls now, mothers and probably grandmothers.

FROM INDRAMAYU TO KUPANG

That wool project plus a spot of clever promotion at a handicraft fair got us an invitation to Kupang, the capital of the province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT). The provincial Agency for Industries wanted a survey done on the potential to diversify their cotton-based weaving home industries.

NTT is the eastern part of the islands that stretch from Bali to Flores and Timor and on to Yamdena. The whole string of islands is well known for their ikat weaving—a technique whereby the warp (the lengthwise yarn in a loom) is dyed in a process similar to tie-and-dye, and sometimes the pattern is applied to both the warp and the weft.

We, ie, Mochtar Apin, a well-known Indonesian painter and Dean of the Arts Department at ITB, Yazir Marzuki, photographer, film director and Borobudur expert, Hans Rolloos, a colleague consultant and appropriate technology specialist, and myself, set  out from Bali flying to Kupang. I immediately fell asleep after takeoff and when I was awakened to prepare for landing I looked out of the window and thought, how remarkably similar to Bali… And it was Bali! We had returned there as the landing gear was stuck and we would have to make a belly landing, at Kupang there would not be sufficient medical and aircraft repair facilities. As it turned out the landing gear had come out and only the indicator light had malfunctioned. But still, landing with a convoy of fire engines racing along on both sides, is quite an experience.

In Kupang we were bundled into an old open Landrover, together with numerous crates of beer as good guests do not arrive empty-handed. After a long and winding and dusty trip we finally arrived at Oelolok Kefamenanu. And even while we were a full day plus several hours late, our welcome was incredible… gongs and drums were beaten, the whole process from spinning to dyeing and weaving was on display, the beer was flowing, and with the evening approaching we started to dance.

Even then, some 30 years ago, the hand-spun, natural-colour ikat was getting rare. Factory produced yarn bought at the market was becoming the norm, together with the use of chemical dyes. But for those willing to pay a fairly high price the old ones are still available at reputable outlets in Jakarta and Bali.

Hand spinning with a spindle

               .Natural dyes from roots and bark of certain , and  other organic material

         










Tying the warp.

                                Weaving on a back-strap loom

SHEEP SHEARING IN INDRAMAYU

Several years ago, no, it's more than that, it's more than three decennia ago, I was working in Indramayu, a district on the north coast of West Java, on a regional and rural development project. Struck by the large number of sheep grazing on any available patch of grass, I decided to investigate whether we could develop a wool project. That is, shearing, spinning and weaving of decorative wall hangings—tapestry, or kelims, would be too exalted a word.

The weaving of decorative little carpets was taken care of through the involvement of the Arts Department at the Bandung Technical University (ITB). They would assist in getting the simple looms required for the purpose, train operators and produce designs. Spinning was to be a home industry for which a spinning wheel that we discovered in the attic of the main hospital in Bandung, was copied and distributed—it had been used for occupational therapy and the instructor was willing to teach our home workers.

That left the shearing. It had to be with hand-shears, electricity not being available at the venues the shearing would take place. So I turned to a friend who worked for an Australian engineering firm building a dam in the region. Several weeks later he called saying that they had located a shearer who was willing to come and train our group of aspiring shearers. Quite a mixed lot they were: farmers and farm labourers, trishaw pullers, a night guard and some unemployed youngsters, but they had come forward answering our search (spread by word of mouth).

The Bupati (District Head) was to officially open the training programme, a three week effort that would take us to every sub-district of Indramayu. For its first demonstration sheep owners had been prepared to bring their animals, and banners advertising the event  had been hung on the road leading to the location.

While waiting for the Bupati, the Australian shearer/instructor—at six-foot-six he stood out among the Indramayu crowd—looked around and asked, where are the sheep?
I pointed at some 20 to 30 animals assembled on the field and said, there, there and there.
No, he answered, those are goats! And why is that bloke washing his animal?
Probably to honour you, the foreign instructor, as the animal is quite dirty, I answered.
Doesn't he know about wet shearing? It's strictly prohibited. It causes a nasty disease that massively swells your balls. Tiny pieces of the wet wool penetrate the skin and somehow that's the cause of it
Oh my, I didn’t know, I'm sorry, I'll tell the participants to take the wet animals out.
Never mind, he said, I'm not fussy.

Now as you can see from the photo below the size of the shearer and the size of the sheep were not exactly compatible. And when it came to the shearing position shown in the photograph, the owners would cringe and hold their breath hoping that their animal would not be damaged. Later we heard that some of them had complained: not only were the ribs of their animal nearly crushed, but after being shorn their animals looked skinny and their market value had drastically dropped.

When several months later I checked the performance of the shearers, I found that they had adopted a new technique: they hypnotised the animals (or maybe it was some sort of magic) to make them lie down quietly; thus no crushing or tiring shearing-positions bent over the sheep, just squatting and leisurely cutting the wool off.

BOROBUDUR, THE HIDDEN FOOT—05

One more time Borobudur. A few panels for you to interpret.

Whatever the poor man did wrong, his due punishment is being beaten up by an old hag.

For easier interpretation we need to know what the headdress signifies and who is wearing it.
Also notice the structure. Is it the artist's rendering of a temple, or a palace?

The next one I have dubbed resisting temptation. Fill it in yourself.

I put this one up to show the leg-strap. Try it out, it is extremely comfortable as the leg in the strap can really relax.

BOROBUDUR, THE HIDDEN FOOT—04

Some more panels! But first an important correction of my faulty comment answering Selma, and an addendum to Cephas.

I have not come across a reference to Kassian Cephas in any of the books or documents dealing with the hidden foot, except in Borobudur, by Yazir Marzuki, Toeti Heraty. After having been squeezed out of twp-thirds of the budget for photographing the hidden foot by the colonial administration, he is now ignored as the one who gave us the photographs. Anyway, now you know.

Now a few panels that, according to me, are fairly understandable.

Don't sit and talk assuming that your food baskets (below the platform) will fill automatically, while the rats are running wild in your fields (maize/corn). The result is fat rats and hungry people.

Fighting and slaughtering animals will get you your head split open.

War and incarcerating the vanquished will get you worse later in life or in hell.

Beating, stamping into the ground and raising your hand against your elders (?) gets you a burning place in hell—note the flames.

Again,  the panels are read from RIGHT to LEFT
Sorry for the mistake in my comment on post BOROUDUR 02

BOROBUDUR, THE HIDDEN FOOT—03

Yes, not easy, not easy at all. We don't know the mindset of the architects or artistic directors who gave the carvers the instructions, and we don't know which karmic laws (Tibet, Japan, Thailand, other) they intended to display.

And as I myself am still utterly confused when it comes to interpreting the panels, I was hoping that this could become a sort of crowd sourcing exercise. Some ten years ago, before crowd sourcing became a recognised way of collecting data, the idea to use the internet to publish the photographs of the 160 panels and ask readers/viewers for their opinion on their meaning, was put forward by my good friend Yazir Marzuki, who unfortunately passed away before putting it into practice. Maybe, I thought, we could now start on a small scale among the small group of readers of this blog… and who knows, maybe it would snowball.

But before posting more photographs of the panels I want to give you more information on the photographer who recorded all 160 panels, Kassian Cephas, 1845-1912.

He was the first professional Javanese photographer and was appointed court photographer in 1871. In that function he was asked to do portrait photography for members of the royal family, but also worked for the Dutch Archaeological Union (Archaeologische Vereeniging). He became a member of the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies, and in 1901 was presented with an honorary gold medal of the Order of Orange-Nassau.

Cephas worked together with, and was succeeded by, his son Sem Cephas. Interestingly, a photographer with the name Cephas, that would be a great-grandson, is now working in the Borobudur area. Yazir Marzuki, who lived very near the temple, got to know him there.

When in 1890 the base was briefly uncovered, Sultan Hamengkubuwono VII requested that Cephas would be contracted. It was calculated that it would take 300 photographs to complete the project. But as Cephas was given only one-third of the original budget, he could not do more than the 160 panels plus four photographs providing a general overview of the situation.

The biography of Cephas, entitled Cephas, Yogyakarta: Photography in the Service of the Sultan, by Gerrit Knaap, publishers the Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde (KITLV), Leiden, 1999, presents a selection of 98 pictures—portraits of the royal family, court dances, town views and of course the Borobudur.

The book is available at Amazon, not cheap unfortunately. I regret that I did not pick it up in the second hand and stock-lots bookshop de Slegte in The Hague several years ago.

BOROBUDUR, THE HIDDEN FOOT—02

I got a comment that the pictures were too big making the blog difficult to read. So I reduced their size. Took me some time as they kept on disappearing from where I wanted them. But here is.

That first panel, yesterday, was fairly easy to interpret, wasn't it.

The three on the right are interceding in the fight, and their reward is honour and an elevated place in the community. Anyway, that's what I make of it.

Now I'll show you a few more and ask again what you make of it. 

It is believed that most of the panels show good behaviour resulting in rewards. Some of the panels, however, appear to be illustrations without a reference to karmic law. An example of the latter is shown here.

The next panel today is definitely karmic and I would say that the depicted result is bad: a sick or dead child. But why the result, is not clear to me .What are the chaps on the right doing?   Preparing the fish, middle under the table, would not be considered good behaviour.

When the gallery containing these panels was turned into an encasement not all panels had been completed. One of these unfinished panels is shown below.

Another bad-behaviour-bad-result: fighting resulting in retribution, inflicted on the next generation. Looks to me like the group on the right are potential civilian victims; or are the two fighters on the rigt defending them?

And the last panel today… I don't have a clue apart from that it seems to be in the category do-good-receive-reward. But what is the "do-good" bit on the right? Preaching to the masses?

So, do your homework and let's hear your interpretations. Ask your friends for their opinions, and don't be lazy or timid… there are no wrong answers!

BOROBUDUR, THE HIDDEN FOOT—01

Borobudur. Located in Central Java some 40 km NW of Yogyakarta. Constructed around 800 AD, abandoned some 200 years later—probably because the capital of the Medang Kingdom was moved from central to east Java. Discovered in 1814 by H. C. Cornelius, a Dutch officer in the Engineering Corps, and Surveyor and Superintendent of Buildings in Semarang, who was sent by Lieutenant Governor-General Thomas Stamford Raffles to investigate the information the latter had received about a big monument on a hill in the jungle near the village of Bumisegoro.

Restorations were carried from the beginning, the biggest sponsored by UNESCO, took place between 1975 and 1982. UNESCO listed Borobudur as a World Heritage Site in 1991.

Borobudur is divided into three divisions that symbolise the three spheres of Buddhist cosmology: Kamadhatu (the world of desires), Rupadhatu (the world of forms), and finally Arupadhatu (the formless world). Ordinary people live on the lowest level, the world of desires. Those who are able to leave the world of desires live in the world of forms (they see forms but are not drawn to them). The full Buddhas go beyond form to the formless level where there is no suffering or desire, and no sense of self.

The complex contains 1,460 individual narrative bas reliefs, 160 of which in the hidden foot.

This hidden foot was accidentally discovered in 1885 when part of the stone casing that surrounds the entire complex was removed to repair walls and floors of the second gallery. One theory about why this hidden foot is hidden is, that during construction the monument's foundation had to be strengthened to prevent the whole structure from subsiding into the hill. The original first platform thus became an encasement base. But as no written records exist from the time of Borobudur's construction, this is only one of several theories.

From 1890 to 1891 the hidden foot was temporarily uncovered and at the request of Sultan Hamangkubuwono VII the Javanese photographer Kassian Cephas (1845-1912) was contracted to photograph the 160 panels. The resulting photographs are the only visual records of the panels.

The theme of the panels is loosely based on the Mahakarmavibhangga—the Sanskrit Buddhist text describing the workings of the laws of karma. According to Buddhism, every cause has its effect: good action generates good effects, while bad effects are caused by bad actions. Though the effects might not be immediately felt, karma will eventually play out, if not on the instigator then on his or her descendants.

Ton the panels cause and effect reads from right to left. Many opinions on their meaning circulate, but a final interpretation has not yet been formulated.

The photograph below is a sample of the 160 panels. The reddish background colour has been added by me for contrast. In coming blogs more photographs will be reproduced.

Why not provide your interpretation of their meaning in a comment.

QUITE A STORY

Batavia, 1920. A girl arrives from Holland. She has completed her pharmaceutical studies and wants to work in Nederlandsch Indië. She is assigned to the CBZ hospital where she meets the young Indonesian doctor M and falls in love with him.

Now this is 1920! And things like that are quickly noticed—well, even today they are—and so the director of CBZ sends a letter to her father.

Dear Mr…, I feel compelled to inform you that your daughter does not behave in a respectable manner. She associates with a native, and as everybody knows, natives cannot be trusted.
A few more sentences followed, but this was the gist.

The reply by the father was short and to the point.

Dear Doctor …, I have received your letter. I am highly amazed that you meddle in the affairs of my daughter. I believe she is old enough to follow her own path. Yours sincerely,

That same year they got married and to punish the impudent young doctor he was transferred to a small rural hospital in the outer regions of the archipelago, in fact the last island before you reach Singapore. When the girl died in childbirth of her third baby, the young doctor wrote to Holland that in the  traditional culture of his ethnic group it was customary for a sister of the deceased wife and mother to take her place. The sister was sent under the condition that if she were not to like what she saw, she would return to Holland. The young doctor came to meet her in Singapore, where shortly thereafter they married.

BOOK REVIEWS (China)

This blog presents a selection of Chinese literature, and I want to introduce the writer Han Jin.

Currently a professor of English at Boston University, he started his career writing propaganda during China's Cultural Revolution as a soldier in the Red Army. He is the third non-native English speaker to win the National Book Award for Fiction in the United States in 1999. He is best known for his novels Waiting and War Trash.

Ha Jin's latest work of historical fiction, Nanjing Requiem, recounts the brutality of the Japanese occupation of China's former capital city in 1937. In 1937, with the Japanese poised to invade Nanjing, Minnie Vautrin—an American missionary and the dean of Jinling Women’s College—decides to remain at the school, convinced that her American citizenship will help her safeguard the school and the welfare of the Chinese men and women who work there. She is painfully mistaken. In the aftermath of the invasion, the school becomes a refugee camp for nearly 10,000 homeless women and children, and Vautrin must struggle, day after day, to intercede on behalf of the hapless victims. Even when order and civility are restored, Vautrin remains deeply embattled, and she is haunted by the lives she could not save

Ha Jin shares five favourite novels that tell the story of his homeland.

Monkey by Wu Cheng'en, translated by Arthur Waley
Waley's condensed translation is a very readable version. The novel is extremely popular in Asia and has shaped many people's imaginations. For an unabridged, multivolume version of this classic, titled Journey to the West, read the translations by W.J.F. Jenner and Anthony Yu.

Rickshaw Boy by She Lao
A novel of social realism set in old Beijing (in late 1920s). It is a story of a small man's struggle to find a place in a society that has no space for his success. All his efforts end only in new losses. As a result, his personality deteriorates, and he becomes a villain of sorts. The novel is populated with lively characters and suffused with compassion and pathos.

Selected Stories by Lu Hsun
Lu Hsun is regarded as the founder of modern Chinese literature. He is also a great essayist, and naturally his fiction often appears essayistic. In this volume there are some great short stories, such as 'A Madman's Diary,' 'An Incident,' 'Village Opera,' 'The New Year's Sacrifice,' and others. These stories embody a great spirit and intelligence that often make the reader uneasy, but they shed light on the underside of humanity.

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant by Yu Hua
This contemporary novel is already a masterpiece, widely read in China. Yu Hua has a marvellous eye for details that reveal the quality of the characters' daily existence. The novel shows how common Chinese at the bottom of society lived in the tumultuous years of the political upheavals. The hardship, the violence, the poverty, the wretchedness, nothing could reduce their humanity.

Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
This novel was published in the 1980s and started the author's brilliant career. Mo Yan is a passionate and visceral writer. His fiction is full of fresh, earthy, and sensual details. The narrator of this novel tells his grandparents' story, which is highly imaginative and at times mysterious, lyrical, and brutal. It celebrates vitality, heroism, sexuality, and even death. Since its publication, it has become a landmark book in contemporary Chinese fiction.

Reference:  goodreads  (http://www.goodreads.com/)

MALAWI, a story

Yesterday's reference to colonial history reminded me of my first experience with colonialism and some of the extreme forms it, sometimes in certain cases, took. I arrived in Malawi (my first overseas posting) only a few months before it was officially granted its Independence.

Located in southern central Africa, south of Tanzania, it was known as the Nyasaland Protectorate. The name change to Malawi took place in 1964, followed two year later by Independence.

But that was not the 'colonial' experience I was referring to above. Before departing for Malawi I lived in Amsterdam on one of the canals and frequently went to a pub around the corner. When the publican heard that I was to leave for Malawi he said that he knew Malawi.

It used to be called Nyasaland, he continued. I went there once when my ship was docked in Beira for repairs. The second mate and myself had nothing to do and took a train trip to Nyasaland. We went to Blantyre and Zomba and as far as Fort Johnston (nowadays called Mangochi) where we were received and put up by the District Commissioner. This was in the 20s and district commissioners in those isolated posts would not have many white visitors. So he was glad for the distraction we offered and our stories of life on a tramp cargo ship. When at the end of the evening he told us to join him the next day for his morning swim we were aghast and asked how safe that was in view of crocodiles. No problem, he replied, just join me tomorrow morning at six and you'll see.

That morning we joined him, a bit nervous about the undertaking, but our apprehension turned to utter disbelief when we arrived at the stretch of the Shire River where we were going to swim. Forming a semi-circle some 50 or maybe even 100 Africans were standing waist-deep in the river and the District Commissioner, after having taken off his bathrobe, jumped into this safe area.

When in Malawi I asked some of the colonial officers who had stayed on to assist the new Republic in its administration about this story. Oh yes, they replied, that bugger was a character, but of course fairly bonkers…!

HELLA HAASSE

Hella (Hélène Serafia) Haasse passed away on 29 September 2011. The Grand Old Lady of Dutch literature was born in Batavia (the present day Jakarta), and as she lived there for the first 20 years of her life, many of her novels are set in the Dutch East Indies. Oeroeg, her debut in 1948, deals with the friendship between a Dutch and an Indonesian boy, a topic she returns to in her novel Sleuteloog (2000).

Oeroeg holds a special memory for me and my family as it was being filmed in Jakarta when we lived there. My son was enrolled in the Netherlands International School and his grade was to supply the schoolboy-extras. But with too large a frame and hair many shades darker than blond, he could neither be fitted in on the Indonesian nor on the Dutch side. Mike, if you ever need a psychiatrist, don't forget to relate this affront.

But for those interested in colonial history Krassen op een Rots (1970) is a must-read. It relates Ms Haasse's impressions after revisiting  Indonesia, meeting her old school friends, observing the changes that took place since Independence, and realising that 350 years of colonial rule had left not even scratches on a rock (Krassen op een Rots).

Reference:  Wikipedia

BOOKS and BOOK REVIEWS

At regular intervals I want to blog about books. The idea is to include books I recommend. These recommendations will reflect my personal taste, or be based on recommendations of people whose taste I share, and possibly on book reviews in knowledgeable newspapers.

Let me give you an idea about my preferences. My profile mentions Roddy Doyle's trilogy The Last Roundup ( A Star Called Henry / Oh, Play that Thing / The Dead Republic); Reif Larsen,  The Selected Works of T.S.Spivet; and Paul Torday,  Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.

To which I now add: T.C. Boyle, Stephen Fry, Stieg Larsson, George MacDonald Fraser. The Flashman Papers of the latter are truly hilarious but set in a historically correct time and place. I once discussed the Crimean Charge of the Light Brigade with an expert on military history and did not sound a complete nitwit as I had just finished Flashman at the Charge. Great fun.

But don't be surprised if I also recommend Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine, or Adam Schwarz, A Nation in Waiting: Indonesia's Search for Stability, or Simon Winchester, The River at the Centre of the World, and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan.

So, I'll let you know what I'm reading, and I'll trawl reviews and announcements from publishers for information.

One more thing, I hope to get the new Kindle next month. It will have to be brought by my next confirmed visitor as I understand from Amazon that it cannot be delivered yet to Indonesia. I will let you know how electronic paper feels. I am an old-fashioned book-lover and have never even looked at all the possible pads and tablets on offer. But then, to be able to carry 1400 books in your little reader, and also buy books at an average price of a few dollars only, is quite tempting…

I will keep you informed.