People are more Important than Books

And I couldn't agree more. Perhaps a surprising thing to say for someone who has often been accused of being anti-social--preferring to stay at home to read a book than to join friends on another night of clubbing at the latest nightspot in town. People would naturally think that I value books more than people.

But I want to reiterate my view that people are more important than books. Why? Because people make more interesting "reading".

You see, people are like books--only vastly more interesting ones. I value all my friends and acquaintances as living sources of knowledge and experience. They are like plots that are constantly unfolding--books that are still in the process of being written. And there's always so much to read between the lines. Furthermore, people unlike books, are interactive in nature: "reading" them is a multimedia experience that allows one to act both as observer and participator.

Some people are open books; some require massive amounts of cross-referencing and careful perusal of footnotes before one could gain a glimmer of their insights; some cannot be read because they are written in an alien language.

I get to learn so much from my friends in Jakarta: Just yesterday over a cup of kopi tubruk with Edwin (whose father is Javanese and mother Ambonese and he himself recently married a girl from Manado), I learnt that there's an ancient Javanese poet and seer called Ronggowarsito, who can be considered to be the Nostradamus of Java.

I also learnt a lot about the differences between the Javanese and the Sundanese people from my many hours of conversations with Ibu Titi whose husband is Sundanese. I also found out from her how much Sukarno is still revered by the older generation.

And while waiting for our flight home from Makassar on a business trip with my colleague Dharmanto, I learnt from him about the importance of sperm mobility in the process of insemination: Dharmanto's wife only successfully conceived a child after years of undergoing various types of treatment in countless fertility clinics.

I ocassionally would also probe our secretary June for information about her family who has settled down in Jakarta for 13 generations. Her family home in the old Chinatown area is considered a historical heritage. One of her ancestors was also the Chinese Kapitan of Batavia. Entering her quaint Chinese house, I half-expected a sword-wielding Zhang Ziyi to leap over the roof into its open courtyard--where now a huge satellite dish is planted, in jarring anachronism.

And then there's Aan, a Chinese who originated from Bagan Si Api-Api, a small island in the Riau archipelago. The Chinese there are supposed to have been descended from survivors of a shipwreck and an annual ceremony is still held there today to commemorate the event.

And there's more:

Pretty 17-year-old Rosi told me about her experience working in the onion fields of her hometown, Brebes in Central Java; Wijaya recounted his arduous one-week journey on the back of a lorry from Medan to Jakarta down the island of Sumatra; Setiawan from Semarang, married for 17 years, defended his theory that most people got married mainly because of sex; and most fascinating of all was the story by Hengky from Makassar who narrated to us how he was molested by a gay doctor while undergoing circumcision!

I have so much fun talking, probing and picking the background and opinion of my friends; these walking books never cease to fascinate me with their endless anecdotes and snippets of wisdom.

With Jakarta having a population of more than 10 million people, I have a vast library of resources to tap into. Who said books are more important than people?

The Wisdom of Pak Pram

Last Tuesday night at the book launching event held at Taman Ismail Marzuki Arts Centre, we listened intently to the wisdom, humour and bitterness of a man who had spent 14 years of imprisonment and 10 years of forced labour on the penal island of Buru. Every word that Pramoedya Ananta Toer uttered was tinged with an emotionally depth and an intellectual intensity that reverberated in one's mind.

Commenting on the theme of women in his books, he said that he prefers the word "wanita" to "perempuan" because "perempuan" reminds him of "perampokan" which means "robbery" (in Malaysia we use "perompakan" which strangely is only used in Indonesia to refer specifically to acts of piracy at sea) whereas "wanita" reminds him of the word "berani", meaning "brave".

Bravery is a virtue which he learnt through the examples of two women whom he revered--his grandmother and mother. Despite the poverty and the hardship of living under colonial rule, these women always tried to fend for themselves and never sought help from anyone. He remembered when his grandmother fell sick, she did not want to trouble her children or grandchildren and insisted on going back to her kampung. She died on her way home.

Pramoedya's mother, which he also recounted so affectionately in his memoir, The Mute's Soliloquy, was a woman who always had high hopes for him, even at a time when they could hardly feed themselves. She told Pramoedya that one day he will go overseas to Holland to earn himself a degree.

Pramoedya himself never got a formal education beyond the equivalent of our lower secondary school. But he was proud to mention that he finally fulfilled his mother's wishes when he was honoured with a doctorate degree by the University of Michigan in the United States at the ripe old age of 74.

The example of both his grandmother and mother fortitied his character and had become the source of inspiration for many of his books. These women were both individualists in a society that until today still practises subservience and blind loyalty to authorities. He offered an advice to many of the young students who were gathered there that night: All successful people are essential self-taught. Formal education is not the key nor the necessary factor.

On a lighter note, Pak Pram said, even someone like Inul Daratista should he applauded for having the courage to stand up to her rights. Inul is the controversial dangdut singer and dancer who has been grabbing the headlines this year because of her sexy brand of hip-gyrating moves which drew the ire of many religious groups.

The tragedy of Indonesia is the adherence of its people to what he called "Javanisme"--the traditional Javanese culture of blind obedience to elders and authorities. It is this "Javanisme" that resulted in 2 million people being slaughtered for suspected involvement with the Communists in a nationwide killing frenzy after Suharto's so-called Orde Baru regime took over control from Sukarno in 1965.

Pramoedya's bitterness against the Suharto regime runs deep. His house was seized from him and his books and writings burnt during the cathartic events following the failed Communist coup of September 30, 1965. The Indonesians refer to the event by the sinister sounding term "Gestapu", which is a contraction of "Gerakan September Tiga Puluh".

Even though Pramoedya has been released from prison in 1979, his house has until today still not been returned to him. He said that he has been unfairly accused of being sympathetic to the Communists when all he was concerned about was the welfare of his fellow citizens. "Saya bukan Komunis atau Kapitalis. Saya Pram-is", referring to the belief in his own individual conscience--"Pram-is"

He also see the present Megawati government's handling of the Aceh situation high-handed. The Aceh people too have suffered many atrocities under the hands of the Indonesian army. He praised the Acehnese spirit as to be emulated and reminded everyone that Aceh was still standing proudly as an independent kingdom long after the rest of the Malay archipelago had fallen into the hands of Western colonialists.

When asked what he personally thought about President Megawati Sukarnoputri, he said, "Megawati bukan Sukarno". He still respects Indonesia's founding father as a brave man who had the courage to fight the Dutch and almost single-handedly united the 15,000 islands of the Malay archipelago into one single nation. Megawati, Pak Pram noted sadly, does not possess the qualities of her father, Sukarno.

Pramoedya also took many questions from the floor. His hearing problem prevented him from listening to his audience directly--he had to have the questions repeated loudly into his ear by the moderator or written down on paper.

It wasn't all a sombre and serious night filled with political exhortations. There were some lighter moments when one of his fellow writers asked why certain supposedly erotic passages in his books sounded rather weak and insipid.

Pak Pram sportingly answered: "Seks itu aneh bagi saya. Saya tidak punya kesempatan mempelajarinya". (Sex is still a strange thing to me because I never really had the opportunity to learn it). His childhood and youth was filled with the preoccupations of survival and overcoming poverty. Sex was a luxury.

That night I felt myself fortunate to have the opportunity to listen to this great soul. Pramoedya Ananta Toer is not only the living conscience of Indonesia but also a voice of sanity for a world that sometimes forgets that the simple virtues of hardwork, courage, kindness and humility are what makes a great man and ultimately, a great nation.

Meeting Pak Pram

Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who is 78 years of age this year, is Indonesia's grand old man of letters. Last night I had the opportunity to get close to the great man at his book launching event held at the Taman Ismail Marzuki Art Centre (TIM). It was actually a re-launching of his five women-themed books: Larasati, Panggil Aku Kartini Saja, Midah, Gadis Pantai and Calon Arang.

Imprisoned by Suharto's Orde Baru regime for 14 years for alleged involvement with the Communist movement, Pramoedya's books were also banned in his own country while the rest of the world collected, translated, analyzed and pored through every word that he has written. Today he is regarded as the Malay world's leading candidate for a Nobel Prize.

I mentioned in a previous blog entry that his novel Keluarga Gerilya was (I'm not sure if it still is) a mandatory text for arts stream students in Malaysian secondary schools. I was quite amused last year watching an episode of the Indonesian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" (a misnomer actually because the prize money is 1 billion and not 1 million rupiah) when a participant was asked to pick from a list of books by Pramoedya, which title was used as a textbook in Malaysian schools. He didn't get the answer right.

Arriving at TIM straight from the office, I managed to grab a quick dinner of soto ayam Lamongan at one of the warungs nearby before securing myself a good seat inside the Galeri Cipta II hall.

A thin but healthy Pak Pram (or Bung Pram as he is affectionately called here) arrived, wearing a cap and holding a walking stick, looking like an elderly man out to cheer his grandchildren on a Sunday afternoon game of soccer.

The literati of Jakarta was also present that night. A crowd of 300 people, mostly students, milled around the stage, some sitting cross-legged on the floor waiting in anticipation to hear the man speak. Their reverence for this man was clearly evident.

When Pak Pram spoke, everyone was spellbound. His voice was clear and spirited. He joked about his hard of hearing (he is deaf in one ear after being rifle-butted by a soldier during his arrest in 1965); and he evoked melancholy and defiance when he spoke about the women who had influenced him most in his life--his grandmother, mother and wife.

He praised their independence of spirit, kindness and bravery in the face of adversity. He also did not mince his words when asked to comment about the present government. Ocassionally he would also break into a mischievous laugh like a scoutmaster telling horror tales over a campfire.

I kicked myself for not having the presence of mind to bring along my video camera. Soon I found myself scribbling notes on whatever pieces of paper I could find in my wallet--credit card slips and ATM receipts. I will save those notes of mine as the subject of my blog entry tomorrow as I do not want to make today's entry too long.

After having to fight through hordes of fans and reporters, I am happy to say that at the end of the evening I managed to get six of my Pramoedya books autographed by the man himself--including my precious English and Bahasa versions of Tales from Djakarta.

I regretted having left my copy of The Mute's Soliloquy in KL. I must make sure that I bring it back with me to Jakarta on my next trip home. Who knows, I might get a chance to meet Pak Pram again.

Eating and Reading in Jakarta

I spend a lot time reading at eating places in Jakarta. These days I would even consider myself fortunate that I do not have a taste for expensive or Western food--I don't have to worry about eating at places that could be potential terrorist targets.

Though the best food in Jakarta can be found at many roadside hawker stalls, eating at these places could be a hassle as you are constantly harrassed by an endless stream of pengamins (street musicians) and asongans (street vendors peddling everything from locally-made Sutra condoms to English-Indonesian dictionaries to fake Mont Blanc pens).

This is especially so at Peconangan--a popular eating street near Kota (Chinatown) where one can find everything from sate babi to sup bak-kut to kodok goreng. One needs to have lots of 500 rupiah coins handy to feed and steer these persistent street serenaders away.

Whenever I'm eating alone and need to do some reading before and after my meal, I would choose a local restaurant that's not too crowded and have well-lighted tables. Bakmi Gang Kelinci at Jalan Sabang is one such place. Ocassionally I also eat and read at Ayam Goreng Priangan, often indulging myself in a good cup of kopi tubruk after a satisfying Sundanese meal.

My usual place for nasi padang is Sederhana which is arguably the most popular "chain" of nasi padang restaurants in Jakarta. Even though a typical nasi padang restaurant is usually very busy, I could still manage some reading there as they are quite comfortable and very well lighted; not to mention the fact that they also serve a very good glass of jus alpukat (avocado juice).

Sometimes I also read at Warung Si Boy, right in front of my hotel, while enjoying a good bowl of Indomie rebus with teh hangat tawar. Costs me only 3,500 rupiah. Sometimes Si Boy's pretty sister would strike up a friendly conversation with me (Dari mana? Jepang?). Fortunately, there are not many pengamins there but one occassionally encounters a scary-looking banci (transvestite or pondan) jingling noisily by your side with a tambourine made from bottle-caps. A 500 rupiah coin will shoo him/her away.

I am not a very good judge of food as I am usually too engrossed in the book that I'm reading (not a recommended habit as one might end up swallowing things that one shouldn't), but I find Laksmi Patmunjak's Jakarta: Good Food Guide, the best reference for street-side food in Jakarta.

People always question me whether Jakarta is a safe place to go to, let alone live in. All I can say is: I have good food, good books and good friends here for company--what more could one ask for?

Bon appetit!

The Intuitive Aspect of Science

The physical sciences and mathematics are often considered dull and unimaginative subjects; the discipline is filled with the rigours of solving complex mathematical equations, the tabulation of voluminous empirical data and the description of natural phenomena in dry technical jargons.

Being someone who has been drafted into the science stream since I was sixteen (Form 4), I consider an education in the sciences as the best thing that ever happened to me. Early on, I realised that there are certain people who have a natural aptitude for mathematic thinking and there are others who are just hopeless when it comes to dealing with symbols and numbers.

The exacting nature of the physical sciences requires a mind that is precise, logical and methodical to excel. But it does not mean that those who opt for the humanities do not possess nor require such abilities. Often the study of the arts and humanities require these faculties to be honed to an even more acute level given its very subjective nature.

Neither does the study of the sciences exclude the need for its students to be intuitive, imaginative or even "artistics". If the domain of science and mathematics is looked upon as nerdy, tedious and boring, it is because the teachers who are teaching these subjects are not approaching it in the correct way.

Often, a topic is introduced without relating it to its historical context or its practical application. Why for instance do we study analytical geometry? What is the actual significance of Newton's Laws of Motion? What do Maxwell's equations really mean, intuitively? Why do we need to spend hours learning how to manipulate algebraic symbols and solve differential equations? Who invented differential calculus?

The study of science can be history, engineering and philosophy rolled in one. It is an intellectual adventure that is unsurpassed, and at its most sublime it gives the student an experience of exhilaration that borders on the spiritual.

Both imagination and logical rigour is required to do well in science. Michael Faraday is an example of a scientist who reasoned in an intuitive manner. His postulation of the presence of electric and magnetic fields from where lines of force called "flux" act, is a triumph of the intuitive imagination.

It was left to the logical genius of James Clark Maxwell to put the mathematical meat behind Faraday's intuitive flux-field model, formulating it in four neat equations--Maxwell's Equations--which every electrical engineering student today know by heart.

Maxwell's equations describe completely the phenomena of electricity and magnetism, and their interrelationships--the Laws of Electromagnetism--without which our our cellular phones, television broadcasts and WiFi PDAs would not have become a possibility.

Without the creative imagination, new scientific theories and models will not arise. And without the logical precision of mathematics, all the engineering applications of science would not have been possible. A good scientist possesses both qualities.

The Games of Married Men (and Women)

My married friends these days far outnumber the unmarried ones. In Indonesia, it is rare to find someone still unmarried in his 30s. I can divide my married friends into two categories: Those who claim that being married is the best thing in their lives, and those who harbour regrets at having lost the freedom of their bachelorhood.

The former group would always look at me with some condescending kind of pity--they cannot understand why I am so "selfish" and choose to remain single. The second group would look at me with envy: "I wish I could still do as I wish like you, never having to worry about going home late, never having to constantly report to my other half".

Both sides have valid arguments, and I enjoy hearing them make their cases. Being male and single, I am privy to many of their infidelities too and I must say that they exist equally in both groups. Sometimes I wonder if women also have their secret worlds, totally hidden from their men.

I guess it is a game that men and women play against each other. Who could forget the duel of seduction between the characters played by John Malkovich and Glenn Close in Dangerous Liaisons? I have been watching Dangerous Liaisons over and over again since the late eighties and I am still not bored with it. There's so much fun and philosophy to be distilled from that movie.

Why do men and women indulge in these infidelity games? Is perhaps marriage part of that game too? Maybe the reason is, as Vicomte de Valmont (John Malkovich) expressed succinctly in the movie,

"It's beyond my control"

A Weekend with Pak Pram

Spent the whole morning poring over old maps at the National Library on Jalan Salemba Raya. Major sections of the Library was closed for a major revamp of its collections. But fortunately the map collection was open.

I'm happy that I finally managed to trace the exact location of Fromberg Park and Deca Park mentioned by Pramoedya Ananta Toer in his collection of short stories, Tales from Djakarta. It is a personal project of mine to trace the history of old Jakarta and I find Pramoedya's book very revealing about life in the city during the 1950s.

It is a pity that Pramoedya's works are more familiar to the rest of the world than to Indonesians themselves; Pramoedya himself was jailed by the Suharto regime for 14 years--alleged being involved in leftist movements prior to the September 30 coup of 1965. His books were subsequently banned.

Malaysians who studied in the arts stream are familiar with his book, Keluarga Gerilya, which is a mandatory text in our secondary schools. Only recently are Pramoedya's books being republished and sold in bookstores in Indonesia.

In fact there's going to be a launch of some new editions of Pramoedya's books at TIM (Taman Ismail Marzuki) this coming Tuesday. I hope to be able to attend the event scheduled at 7.00pm on that day.

As for today, I'll be rereading Tales from Djakarta and also the original Bahasa Indonesia version, Cerita dari Jakarta, which I happen to possess. It's going to be a good weekend.

On the Tedium of IT, the Meaning of Poetry and the Vagaries of Life

It has been a long week, sullied by the bombing of Marriott. I look forward to the weekend ahead to do some reading and research.

My work-related projects are also piling up. Looks like I will be kept pretty busy until the end of the year. The challenge for me working in the IT industry is maintaining sufficient interest in it to keep myself going. At times I find IT tedious and tiring; other times it is quite exhilarating.

When I'm working on an important IT project, I try to immerse myself in the subject matter and not veer my reading too much from subjects radically different from what I am doing.

It is often very difficult to pull oneself away from reading, say, The Sexual Perversions of The Marquis de Sade, to resuming work on that dull proposal for company XYZ on how to migrate their legacy software written in Cobol and VSAM, running on an MVS mainframe to one that runs on an open systems platform using a J2EE-based multitiered architecture and a SQL relational database.

I used to work on small proof-of-concept programming projects and they can be quite fun. But the fun vanishes after the concept has been proven and all that remains is the endless task of fixing bugs and adding yet another feature into the application.

I admire writers or artists who are able to keep a regular job and still produce great artistic works. The poet T.S. Elliot was working as a bank clerk when he was writing many of his poems. I have an audio recording of Elliot reading his most famous work, The Wasteland. Listening to the writer himself read his or her own works is often very illuminating.

I enjoy poetry mostly for its sound, rhythm and imagery. People always ask me what a particular piece of poetry means. I would reply by asking them if they know what a particular piece of song or music means. Music videos are essentially meaningless but we enjoy them nonetheless. Why? Sound, rhythm and imagery. I even think music video is an important art form--it is essentially visual poetry.

I have a college-mate who used to tell me that a computer program is like a poem: "Look at the code and see how we indent certain lines and group them into modules...they are like poetic verses and stanzas..."

I'm still in touch with this friend of mine. Nowadays he is more interested in starting up a charcoal and cooking oil business than writing "poetic" computer programs. Ah, the vagaries of life.

A Meditation on Pain

Reading reports of grieving families of the JW Marriott Hotel bombing tragedy in Jakarta got me into thinking how these people are going to overcome the pain of such a sudden loss.

Everyone one of us has and will inevitably encounter the pain of losing someone dear to us in the course of our lives. Death is never easy to accept, especially one that comes so unexpectedly and in such tragic manner. How does one overcome such pain? How does one pick up the pieces again and carry on with one's life? What is Pain?

We all understand and to a certain extent know how to deal with physical pain. Pain is but nature's early warning system--informing us of some breakdown in certain parts of our body which require our immediate attention, before it could possibly become fatal.

Touch a hot piece of iron, and neuronic impulses coursing through our body's nervous system would engage in a transaction of signals between brain and hand that results in its instant recoil from the source of the heat. Such is the exquisite efficiency of our body's pain response network.

But pain, of the emotional kind is not as easily comprehended. Is there even a biological need to feel emotional pain? Is there a survival value to it, in the Darwinian sense? Why does emotional pain often seem so senseless?

Emotional pain could also be seen as a trigger to our mind for some kind of transforming action. To the widow of one of the Silverbird taxi drivers who was killed in the blast, the loss of her husband would plunge her into a deep emotional and financial crisis. She has to find a way to pull herself out from this maelstrom of distress.

What is she to do? She would perhaps need to pick up a new skill. She will definitely be stretched and challenged in ways that she never thought she would. She will have to rise above herself.

The more religious among us would rationalise the entire experience as something that is put on our path to test our faith and to make us learn lessons that will ultimately transform our souls. Pain then becomes the catalyst for emotional and spiritual transformation.

We encounter emotional pain whenever we lose the things we consider dear: Whether it is lovers breaking up, executives being laid-off or our new BMW being scratched, pain always result from us being yanked away from a more ideal state of existence. Something precious is severed from us. And we bleed the loss of our emotional limb.

Buddhists would clinically but correctly surmise that life is essentially painful and that pain comes from our attachment to the world--which is ultimately futile given the impermanent nature of things. Nothing lasts forever: it is dictated by the Second Law of Thermodynamics that entropy shall always increase and thus the universe would ultimately breakdown and decay. Salvation and bliss can only be attained if we transcend our desires and attachments to the transient world of things material.

Many a times people have come to me and asked me how does one overcome pain? Why is it so hard to get rid of the thorn lodged in one's heart? Once the wife of a friend who found him cheating on her called me over the phone, crying: "How do I get rid of the pain and hurt inside?"

For a moment, I did not have an answer. I am hopeless with crying women. All I could say was, let time heal the pain. If the material world is impermanent, hopefully, so is pain.

All wounds--be it physical or emotional--- need time to heal. Nature is self-healing if we let it do its job. We can aid or impede Nature in this task. The emotional support of friends, a kind word, a generous gesture--all these provide the suffering party with emotional balm for the healing process to begin.

Sometimes unwisely, our response to pain is to further impede this onset of healing. We rehash our painful experiences over and over again; we plunge into anger and wallow in self-pity; wounds are reopened and the bleeding continues.

At times the experience of pain could even make us question our fundamental beliefs including our faith in the Almighty, as Christian writer, C.S. Lewis observed in his heart-wrenching book A Grief Observed, written after the death of his wife to cancer. (Their tender love story was made into a movie, Shadowlands, directed by Richard Attenborough, starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger).

We could go on and on philosophizing about pain but nothing will take away the feeling of abject terror, and the utter sense of loneliness of one staring into an infinite abyss of despair. As Catholic monk Thomas Merton wrote in The Seven Storey Mountain on overcoming the death of his father: In the end, one has to take the pain "like an animal".

We only hope that, in the paroxysm of pain, in the climax of catharsis, some transformation ultimately takes place, slowly easing one onto a path forward---a path one hopes would still provide some worthwhile glimmer of a hope, for us to resume this journey of life.

Last night, I watched the widow of the Silverbird taxi driver crying on TV: it was the wail of one whose soul has been emptied, it was the helpless cry of a wounded lamb in the dead of night.

Requiem

How does one even begin to console families who have lost loved ones at the Marriott bombing? Many who died are from the ordinary working class: Silverbird taxi drivers, Satpams (security guards) and hotel workers; often sole income earners of their families.

The Indonesian TV channels, in typical professional nosiness, have shown wailing family members of victims at their homes; homes filled with snotty-faced children, crying; homes with mouths waiting to be fed. Gory images of charred remains of victims are shown on prime-time TV: the slow unzipping of the orange body bags, the total abject horror on the faces of families as reality sunk in -- it is a sight that could break a thousand hearts.

Survivors speaking from hospical beds voiced disbelief at how someone could do such an evil thing: to explode a bomb during peak lunchtime hour right outside a packed hotel lobby and restaurant--it is cruelty that is beyond comprehension, it is humanity at its lowest.

Our prayers are with the souls of the victims and their grieving family members. Everyday we go about our daily lives with the given belief that we would end our day alive, fulfilled at having put in an honest day's work.

I believe those victims of the blast at Marriott started their day on August 5 no differently.

But yesterday, their day ended at lunchtime rudely and abruptly. And for the rest of us who live and work in this beloved city, our days would never feel the same again.

Will we end our day today, alive and fulfilled? And the day after?

Someone out there is bent on denying us this right. But we should not relent, we have to trudge on with the belief that another day awaits us tomorrow, ready to be filled with our hopes and dreams. We need to soldier on. We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the victims at Marriott.

The Second Wake-up Call

In my travels across the region, I've often marvelled at the impeccable quality of service given by the hotels in Indonesia. One feels enormously pampered the moment one steps into any one of the business class hotels here. The people are courteous and gentle, and there's a certain grace and charm in the way the locals move and speak, equalled perhaps only by the Thais.

The JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta where today's bomb blast occurred is no exception. Though I myself have never stayed there before--preferring the duller but more refined Regent Jakarta--friends who have raved about the service given. They liked the broadband service; they liked being greated by their names the moment they alight from their Silverbird taxi at the entrance of the hotel; and they liked the in-room massage.

Wake up calls in the morning are always personal-- non of that electronically programmed ones. Sometimes the sweetness of the voice at the other end induces you to continue indulging in your reverie for another ten minutes, often to disasterous consequences.

Which is why they will always enquire in their ever-polite manner: Do you need a second wake up call sir? Yes of course. And you slide deeper into your cool white sheets, happy that you are in such good hands.

Now it is clear that we have been sleeping long enough.

As reports of casualities and injuries from the latest bombing incident in Jakarta pour in, the magnitude of the tragedy is becoming more evident. This is not another one of those Tommy Suharto-linked fire-cracker-like explosions engineered to create mischieve and to scare people into not supporting the present government. This Marriott incident has the stamp of JI/Al-Qaeda written all over it.

For a while, we were lulled into a sense of false comfort because we had Amrozi, Muklas, Imam Samudra and Abu Bakar Baa'syir under custody and put on trial. Now it is clear that the terrorist groups are far from being crippled.

Bali was the first wake-up call. Marriott is the second. I don't think we need another one.

The City of Living Dangerously

We can hear sirens blaring from our office at Metropolitan I. From reports that are coming in from CNN and AP, It looks like the blast is worst than what we had earlier expected. At least 4 casualties involving foreigners have been reported.

JW Marriott is one of the more popular hotels in Jakarta. It is newer, trendier and well-located within the golden triangle of Sudirman, Gatot-Subroto and Rasuna Said. The Untitled Pub located at the hotel is a popular hangout for yuppies. In fact I have fond memories of watching last year's World Cup Final live telecast there.

But Jakartans are resilient: over the years there have been bomb blasts at the Jakarta Stock Exchange, Atrium Mall Senen, Eksotis Diskotek at Mangga Besar, the Soekarno-Hatta airport terminal, the UN Building and also one that went unnoticed by many people at the Parliament compound; not to mention the carnage during the riots of 1998.

Jakarta just celebrated its 476th anniversary last month. It is an old city. It has survived centuries of invasion and exploitation by foreign powers -- the Portuguese, the Dutch, the British, the Japanese and also a coup attempt by Communists during Sukarno's Year of Living Dangerously. It will certainly survive this ordeal and move on.

To me, Jakarta is still one of the most fascinating places to live in: It is a place with a soul; and an indomitable one at that.

Jakarta Post Report

Here's the latest about the blast at the JW Marriott Hotel from Jakarta Post.

Latest Bomb in Jakarta

Received distressing news about a bomb exploding at the basement of the JW Marriott Hotel here at Kuningan about ten minutes away from our office at Metropolitan. No news about casualties yet. But eye-witness accounts from my colleagues who happen to be working on-site at Excelcom opposite the hotel report smoke billowing out and guests in bathrobes being evacuated.

JW Marriott is a popular hotel for many of our colleagues from Malaysia and Singapore. It got a boost in business early last year when the Regent Jakarta had to be closed down because of damages caused by the floods. Many guests had to be evacuated to the Marriott.

Coincidentally, the Regent Jakarta just reopened yesterday. I suppose all the guests would have to be evacuated back to the Regent now.

Security at the Marriott has always been very tight. All guests entering the lobby are screened through metal detectors; the underside and trunk of cars entering the basement are also examined thoroughly by security guards. However it is still not surprising to see this happening. Terrorism, like prostitution and drugs, can never be totally eliminated.

There have been a lull in terrorist activities these past few months in Jakarta. The last bomb was one that exploded harmlessly behind the UN building, supposedly planted by GAM (Free Aceh Movement) supporters.

I guess it's back to business as usual in Jakarta.

Zen and the Art of Driving in Jakarta

I am lucky that my office is only a ten-minute taxi ride from where I'm staying. I also consider myself fortunate that I do not need to drive here in Jakarta -- I rely a hundred percent on the taxi service, which is cheap and efficient, and many times better than what we have in KL.

Typical of the Third World, the roads here are one big chaos of cars, taxis, motorcycles, bajajs, food pedlars, pedestrians and smoke-belching buses, all jostling and intermingling in a free-for-all, exacerbated further by a total disregard for traffic rules among its users.

Those of us who learned to drive the "proper way" often steer as if our cars are discrete components on a production line: You maintain a safe distance from the car in front of you and you move mechanically along your lane, conveyor-belt fashion, starting and stopping obediently at the dictates of the traffic lights, as if remotely controlled.

Driving this way is admirable and should earn you a license without having to resort to kopi-O money, but it will be the source of endless frustrations if actually practised on the gridlocked roads of Jakarta -- or KL for that matter. The trick to driving in Third World countries is to ignore lanes and just "go with the flow".

One needs to adopt a bit of De Bono's Water Logic to drive successfully here. The key is to keep a fluid style where one flows around obstacles, always exploring and squeezing into every possible crevice and opening, all the while maintaining a flexible and nimble attitude, adjusting, accomodating and letting the traffic find its own level.

The traffic is to be viewed as an organic continuum, oozing it ways through toll expressways, asphalt roads and gravel paths, ocassionally even flooding its banks, spilling onto pavements and grass embankments if necessary.

It is interesting to note that the Dutch first built a series of canals in Jakarta (then Batavia) as the main channel for transporting people and goods. The canals today have degenerated into smelly monsoon drains, but I suspect, the old aquatic habits of drifting and dribbling have persisted and have simply been transposed onto the modern eight-lane highways of Jalan Sudirman.

Unlike their Malaysian counterparts, drivers in Jakarta maintain a Zen-like state of calmness in the face of this daily traffic madness: It is probably a combination of the Javanese virtues of patience and courtesy and a general nonchalant attitude towards traffic violation. One rarely encounters despicably self-righteous drivers who would latch on to every tiny transgression that you make and chastise you with mighty blares of the horn.

The old Javanese adage, alon-alon asal kelakon, loosely translated as "slowly, as long as one gets results", is the underlying motto here. And everyday,on the fume-choked roads of Jakarta, I see the exquisite Javanese mind at work, and I tell myself how glad I am that I am not in KL.

Thoughts at a Wedding Dinner

The typical middleclass Indonesian wedding dinner -- especially one that's held in a five-star hotel -- is a strange affair to me: Guests come in their suits and ties and the women are decked like Christmas trees in their best jewelleries and gowns. Such was my colleague's Edwin wedding dinner last night at the Dharmawangsa Hotel.

I had wanted to start a new casual trend by going there in my short-sleeves and khakis; but I don't think I managed to win any converts at the end of the night. In Malaysia, if you had gone to a wedding dinner in a suit and tie, you would have been mistaken for the bridegroom.

If one expects the rousing yamseng affair of a typical Malaysian Chinese wedding, one would be thoroughly disappointed indeed. It is not customary for Indonesians to serve liqour on wedding feasts; in fact, "feast" is a bit of a misnomer, for the usual Indonesian wedding at the hotel is a buffet-style, standing affair.

Though the wedding was an expensive one, band, singer and ballet dancers and all, the whole affair, at least to me, with everyone dressed rather comically in suits, had the atmosphere of a corporate event. Even the food was of your typical product-launch-seminar lunch-break fare. Sorry no sharks-fin soup.

But overall it was a happy and dazzling affair: Young and old, ibu-ibus and bapak-bapaks sportingly participated in communal poco-poco dance.

As usual I got sucked into the well-intentioned but tiresome when-is-your-turn conversation with my married colleagues. "There are so many beautiful girls in Indonesia". That I agree, but what I can't comprehend is why so many of my friends would want to get married only to continue leading the licentious life they led as bachelors.

Fidelity is a rare virtue in deed, especially in Jakarta. That night at Dharmawangsa, I looked around me and saw everywhere, the secret deceits of men hovering behind the coiffured heads of their jewel-bedecked partners.

The Prettiest Town in the East

It is Saturday and I'm surfing from the Internet cafe. I try to blog on slightly "lighter" topics on weekends: things I'm going to do, movies I'm planning to watch and even what I am going to eat.

I have a wedding dinner to attend tonight: My colleague Edwin is getting married to Debby, a pretty girl from Manado. But I'm a bit disappointed that it is not going to be a colourful Javanese wedding (Edwin is Javanese) but a Western one instead. I expect to see all my colleagues there tonight.

Manado, like Bandung is well-known for her pretty girls. The women are mostly Catholic, fair-skinned and friendly. The frequent night-clubbers will tell you that Manado girls also make the best striptease dancers.

I myself have never set foot on Manado before, even though I have been to Makassar in Sulawesi -- Manado is located on the northern tip of the Sulawesi island. The great biologist Alfred Russel Wallace wrote in his seminal work, The Malay Archipelago, that Manado is "the prettiest town in the East".

My Indonesian friends tell me otherwise. They say Manado is a very dirty place today. But I am still keen to visit it anyhow before I leave Indonesia (if I do leave Indonesia). The resort of Bunaken near Manado is a very popular diving site.

Alfred Russel Wallace discovered the theory of evolution independently of Charles Darwin at almost exactly the same time. Though Darwin did acknowledge Wallace's contribution, history has given more recognition to Darwin, probably because Wallace was a low-profile and shy person who preferred to spend his time collecting animal specimens in the remote tropical rain forests of South East Asia.

As this is a weekend entry, I'll save the story of Alfred Russel Wallace for some future weekday posting. As for today, I plan to relax, eat my favourite soto sulung later and enjoy myself at Edwin's wedding dinner. I'm sure he will be feeling like he is marrying the "prettiest girl in the East" tonight.

Child on a Pavement

Yesterday, after having my dinner at Jalan Sabang, I decided to walk over to the Hero supermarket at Sarinah to buy my weekly supply of apples. Crossing the busy Sabang-Wahid Hasyim junction, I weaved my way past buzzing bajajs and Kopaja buses packed with sweaty bodies, all the time trying hard not to breathe too much of that heady mixture of fumes, satay and kretek.

I had to carefully watch my steps too as I trudged on the uneven pavement, almost playing hopscotch with the broken brick tiles and spittle that littered the way. Squeezing through the throng of pedestrians and pedlars, I was stopped short, right on my path, by a child, lying peacefully asleep on the pavement.

She could not have been more than two years old -- I could tell it was a girl because of the delicate, almost angelic features on her face -- and she was wrapped in a dirty shawl, lying there all alone, oblivious of the faceless mass that ebbed and flowed along busy Jalan Wahid Hasyim.

Female beggars, often with suckling babies, are a common sight everywhere in Jakarta. I see them all the time along Jalan Wahid Hasyim, arms out-stretched with plastic containers hoping to catch a few drops of generosity from passers-by.

But right here at my feet was a child so innocently beautiful, as if dropped from heaven -- an infant Moses swept down the river of humanity -- with a tenderness on her face that could warm the coldest of hearts, wrapped in her own oasis of bliss. I instantly felt like holding her in my arms. Where was her mother? Could she even be an abandoned child?

As I stood there wondering, there were also a few other concerned people milling around the child. Her beggar mother must have gone off for a while to ease herself behind some alley corner (another common sight here in Jakarta), everyone thought. It was also the first conclusion that came into my mind.

As there were already people tending to her, I proceeded to the supermarket to shop for my groceries and made a mental note to come back immediately after. When I returned to the same spot some ten minutes later, to my relief, I saw that her mother was back -- the child still sleeping quietly beside her.

I remember reading reports about beggars and the organized syndicates behind them: Some of the syndicates even rent out babies and children to the beggars, to help elicit more sympathy from the public. The sight of maimed, limbless beggars is a common one across many Third World countries. It is also one that is always heartbreaking.

One feels a tinge of guilt whenever one brushes away another annoying dirty-looking street beggar pestering for money -- especially when he or she shows signs of deformity, sickness or injury. But there are so many of them -- what could one do?

As I observed the figure of the child and her forlorn-looking mother -- the Madonna and Child of the slums -- I recalled a scene from Christopher's Koch's book, The Year of Living Dangerously, set in the turbulent Jakarta of 1960s: The character Billy Kwan, a photographer (played by Linda Hunt in the movie version) and Australian correspondent Guy Hamilton (played by a dashing Mel Gibson) were debating whether one should give money to the beggars.

Hamilton dismissed it as useless, for it would just be a drop in the ocean. The philosophical Kwan disagreed: one must do whatever one can within one's immediate surrounding -- contribute one's light to the sum of light -- and not worry about the larger picture.

As I emptied all the coins in my pocket - 100s and 500s - into the mother's plastic cup, I quietly hoped that Billy Kwan was right.

I wanted to believe that those minuscule drops of mine into that ocean of poverty would in some insignificant way contribute a tiny ray of light - no matter how faint -- into the dark life facing this cherub of a child: A child with a future yet to be discovered; a child sleeping blissful and contented that Thursday evening, on the sun-baked pavement of Jalan Wahid Hasyim.

Of Creativity & Thinking "Out-of-the-Box"

I am intrigued whenever I hear people say in meetings that there is a need to think "out-of-the-box". This expression has become such a cliche in the corporate world that everytime someone uses it, I begin to suspect that his or her thinking could already be "boxed in" by certain preconceived notions about creativity.

I'm not exactly sure how this particular expression originated but I am reminded of a pyschology puzzle where the subject is asked to connect all the dots arranged within a rectangular matrix with a single continuous line -- without lifting the pen or pencil. Because these dots are within an invisible rectangle, most people tend to draw within the area designated by the dots, and finding the task of connecting the dots with a single continuous line impossible.

The rules never said that we cannot venture beyond the rectangle of dots: and the only possible solution is one that requires a line zigzagging its way out of the self-imposed boundary suggested by the dots. Hence thinking "out-of-the-box" is an indication of "creativity" or being able to venture beyond the ordinary modes of thinking.

Creativity is a strange thing. Writers and artist sometimes believe that their ideas are somehow divinely inspired -- the Muses being the daughters of Zeus -- because often the act of creation is one that cannot be invoked with consistency and certainty. Some believe it is an almost mystical gift that only certain "creative" people possess. ("I see dead people").

There are also many gurus out there who make a fortune teaching corporations how to be creative. Edward De Bono is the most notable one. He believes that creativity is something that can be learned and there are specific tools and techniques that can be used by anyone to generate creative ideas. His lateral thinking is already a part of our corporate creativity lexicon. He is also the one who made executives all over the world put on their "Six Thinking Hats".

I have personally read many of De Bono's books and found them quite insightful, although he is very repetitive. His first book, The Mechanism of Mind is probably his best. De Bono not only expounds his thoughts very logically, he also exhibits his own personal creativity by accompanying his text with many diagrams -- a wonderful array of hand-drawn boxes, bubbles, arrows and spermatozoal shapes -- to illustrates his many concepts. To me this is the most interesting feature of his books.

I am not sure if one can successfully learn creativity from a book. It is also arrogant of us to believe that only certain privileged people are capable of being creative. We all have a right to be creative. The proof of creativity is in its execution. All the creativity in the world is worthless if brilliant ideas cannot be translated into action. The artist paints, the writer writes and the engineer builds.

To create means to bring something that has not existed before into being. The ability to create something out of nothing -- as opposed to copying or modifying -- is what matters.

Creativity, in the final analysis is, simply, the successful act of creation.

The Immortal Soul of Solo

Almost everyone in Malaysia and perhaps even Singapore is familiar with the Indonesian tune, Bengawan Solo. It was very popular in this region during the post-WW II period. With its breezy feel and nature-inspired lyrics, it evokes the nostalgic spirit of a bygone era - those heady and hopeful days of new-found independence and the promise of lasting peace among nations. Bengawan Solo is arguably the most popular keroncong tune of all time.

But who composed Bengawan Solo (literally, The River Solo)? Even many of my younger Indonesian friends do not know the answer. But if you peruse the keroncong section of any music store in Jakarta today, you will be greeted by CD after CD with covers bearing the picture of an old man with full lips and toothless grin: Album Mas Keroncong Gesang, Campursari Gesang and Asti Dewi Christiana, Gesang: Sebelum Aku Mati.....the list goes on.

Read the contents at the back of these CDs, you will find Bengawan Solo listed on most of them, and in small prints: "diciptakan oleh Gesang".

That was how I got to know Gesang early last year: while browsing at the CD store in Sarinah, Thamrin on a quiet Saturday morning. I've since then become quite a fan. His is the voice of a gentle old man crooning his grandchild to sleep with soft lullabies -- a guttural voice that evokes a certain rustic charm and blends beautifully with the slow soothing rhythms of the keroncong.

I took the trouble to do some research about Gesang through the Internet: He was born Sutardi, in a family of five brothers and sisters in Solo (Surakarta) on October 1st, 1917. He got his first break in his music career as a vocalist in a local cultural club.

Bengawan Solo was apparent composed by Gesang in 1940 while he was daydreaming beside the river Solo. The tune became a hit in the region and even found listeners as far as China; it helped to popularize Indonesian keroncong music throughout the world. For his contributions to Indonesian music, Gesang was rewarded with a house in Palur by the Central Java government.

Gesang has since performed in places as far as Shanghai, North Korea and Japan. Apart from Bengawan Solo, he has also composed other popular keroncong tunes now considered classics, like Saputangan and Jembatan Merah. Gesang - 86 years of age this year - still lives a quiet life in Palur, pursuing the favourite Javanese pastime of rearing singing birds.

These days whenever I get sick of listening to yet another bad rendition of Michael Learns to Rock from my friends at the karaoke, I'd grab the mike and take my revenge by crooning Gesang's Jembatan Merah or Saputangan. Well, they asked for it.

The Sacred Art of Writing Longhand

I admit to being old-fashioned: besides updating my blog daily, I also keep a handwritten journal. I have been jotting down my thoughts on diaries ever since I was a 13 year old teenager, destroying lots of trees in the process.

Even though it is an excruciatingly slow process, there are certain unique pleasures in writing longhand: The languid caress of a fountain pen on a sheet of crisp-clean paper, the luxuriant flow of ink slowly infusing life to words as they form magically under the rhythmic stroke of my wrist; to me it is a ritual steeped in deep mystical significance -- it is an act of meditation in itself.

A handwritten piece conveys a lot more than its printed version: words written by hand is at once a visual sketch and an exposition of once's thoughts. Everyone's handwriting is not surprisingly, unique. Handwritten words carry within their whorls and waves a frozen snapshot of the dynamic energies at work in the act of creation.

Writing is thinking in motion. Many of us write to clarify our thoughts and to be able to see things in a more objective manner. Writing, especially writing in longhand, can also be a cathartic experience: The drudgery of pushing one's pen over page after page of paper can leave one spent but surprisingly contented -- one feels like a spritually ecstatic Odissi dancer at the end of a flawless performance.

Modern word processors and web publishing tools have made the physical labour of writing easier and has enabled us to communicate our thoughts and ideas more efficiently. I have written a lot more using computers than I could ever write in longhand. But I will never cease to write my personal journal the old-fashioned way, with pen and paper. It is the sacred signature of my existence.

The Mutinous Mind

The small band of mutinous soldiers who seized the Glorietta Complex in Manila yesterday got me thinking again about the psychological impulse behind the act of mutiny.

I must confess to a certain fascination with this subject of mutiny: What is it that prompts someone to garner enough courage mixed with recklessness to take on the authority of an entire military and social system of which he or she is part of? What is it that triggers and tips of the mental balance of a mutineer to commit such a monumental act of defiance?

There is a point where the mutineer feels that enough is enough and he decides to cross over, never to return. The mutineer is often doomed from the start as he takes on a battle he cannot possibly win. There's something deeply primal about such an act: It is amok with a touch of finesse.

Mutinies have occurred frequently throughout history but the most famous and romanticized one of all is the one that happened on board the English ship, The Bounty in 1789. The Bounty was commanded by a Lieutenant William Bligh who was sent to Tahiti to collect breadfruit plants and to ship them to Jamaica where they will be planted as staple food for the slaves. My interest about this mutiny started more than fifteen years ago after I watched Roger Donaldson's 1984 film version of it: The Bounty. I subsequently read everything I could on the subject.

A bit of digression first. The movie, The Bounty is a forgotten gem; you can hardly find it in VCD or DVD stores today, even though it has been shown more than once on Malaysian TV (the copy I have is a VHS recording which I still keep until today). It has so many Oscar winners on its cast: imagine Anthony Hopkins as William Bligh and a young Mel Gibson as ship officer Fletcher Christian who ultimately led the mutiny on the ship. There are also Best Actor winners Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson as members of the Bounty's crew. Even the great Lawrence Olivier and Edward Fox had minor roles in the movie.

While there have been many screen versions of this famous mutiny before (five in total, one starring Marlon Brando as a very flamboyant Fletcher Christian), this 1984 production is the most historically accurate one and captures the psychological tension between William Bligh (Hopkins) and Fletcher Christian (Gibson) leading to the mutiny very well. This is also helped by a powerful electronic score by Vangelis. OK, end of digression.

Sailors working on board British ships during the 18th century when Britannia ruled the waves, were subjected to very harsh working and living conditions. To command a ship across vast stormy seas with the threat of hunger, thirst and scurvy lurking around the corner requires strict discipline. Captains run their ships with an iron fist: Small offences were often punished with lashing and the punishment for mutiny was death by hanging.

Imagine the sailors of the Bounty, after months of being cooped up on a ship landing on the golden palm-fringed shores of Tahiti, to be greeted by bare-breasted island beauties who were willing to offer sexual favours in return for pieces of iron nails from the ship. The Tahiti then is the Holy Grail sought by many backpackers today - an island completely cut off from civilisation - a paradise of sun, sky, sea with ultra-friendly native women.

After the breadfruit plants had been collected, the captain, William Bligh had a tough time gathering all his crew again to resume his voyage via the perilious Cape Horn to the Caribbean. Yanked away from their lovers and the sensual lives they led on Tahiti, the sailors grew extremely restless and resent being subjected to the brutal and regimented life within the dingy confines of the ship. Mutiny became an inevitability.

Fletcher Christian (portrayed poignantly by Mel Gibson in the climatic sequence from the movie), unable to stand the loneliness and the harsh discipline on board the ship anymore seized command of the Bounty and set his friend Bligh - who had trusted him all this while - adrift on a small open boat together with 18 crew and officials still loyal to the captain. Fletcher Christian sailed back to Tahiti leaving Bligh drifting at sea off the cannibal infested island of Tonga with little food and water.

What followed then became the stuff of legends. Fletcher Christian led the gang of mutineers back to Tahiti to be reunited with their women. But knowing that the British ships would be hunting for them, they decided to sail on together with their women and finally settled down on a little known island called Pitcairn Island, cutting all ties with their families and friends back in England forever. Their descendants are still living there today.

William Bligh, with hardly any navigational aids was able to steer his boat 3,600 miles to the Portuguese port of Cupang in Timor after sailing on his boat for seven weeks, his crew barely surviving thirst, hunger and dehydration. He was exonerated by the Navy for his conduct in the whole affair and was even commended for his masterful seamanship during the months of being adrift on the boat. He managed to publish his log detailing his experiences on the voyage which became the equivalent of our best-seller during his time.

The story of Fletcher Christian and William Bligh is in a way is the archetypal battle between the heart and the head. Fletcher Christian, romantic and rebellious, chose to pursue Rosseau's ideal of the Noble Savage whilst William Bligh epitomizes level-headedness, reason, responsibility and social obligation.

These are two opposing strains of impulses that are constantly lurking in the depths of our psyche. It is something we have to grapple with at different points in our lives. And everyday, I go to work with the dialogue of mutiny between Fletcher Christian and William Bligh still being played over and over again in my mind.

An Afternoon with the Terminatrix

I managed to catch Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines at the 21 Cineplex at Grand Wijaya Center yesterday. I am fond of trying out different cineplexes for different movies (not that they are any different, except for the price). However I have so far avoided the more trendy Plaza Senayan and Planet Hollywood cineplexes, preferring the anonymity and grubbiness of the lower middleclass theatres such as TIM, Atrium and Wijaya Center.

I had enjoyed James Cameron's first Terminator: it was like a well-made B-grade sci-fi noir with lots of fun and originality. T2 was a bit of a bore to me because it was more fun watching Arnie as the bad-guy Terminator instead of the cliched robot-with-a-heart, one-liner spewing, crowd-pleasing mime act of T2. Expecting more of the same, I wasn't exactly looking forward to T3 with great enthusiasm.

Luckily T3 has an interesting twist - there's a female Terminator - the T-X or affectionately nicknamed, Terminatrix. We have the statuesque Kristanna Loken as the killer cyborg with all the morphing abilities of Robert Patrick's T-1000 plus more. T-X proves more than a challenge to the obseleted T-800 Terminator played by Swarzenegger; to me she stole the entire show.

Director Jonathan Mostow tried hard to impress with big explosions and even bigger car chases but high-octane stunts have become such a big bore from Hollywood productions these days. In the age of CGI, everything is possible and nothing impresses us anymore.

Yawning over those parts, I quietly cheered everytime Loken's T-X appeared: Her ice-cool Nordic features, steely glare, sexy strut and inflatable boobs certainly helped. She literally have the killer looks and certainly deserved more than the #3 ranking that she got on the Maxim's 2003 Hot 100 List.

I'm not surprised to find out that in the current online poll that's being run by The Star's Entertainment section, Loken's Terminatrix is neck-to-neck with Arnie as everyone's favourite Terminator model, beating Robert Patrick's forgettable T-1000.

I wouldn't even bother to comment about the plot of T3, which didn't really rise above the mundane and as expected left enough materials for umpteenth sequels and probably even a TV series. Claire Danes as John Connor's (Nick Stahl) love interest was a nice addition to the cast though.

I certainly hope Kristanna Loken will make a comeback (though unlikely) in future sequels. I think she even deserves a spin-off of her own ala The Scorpion King. On that lazy Saturday afternoon at Kebayoran Baru, The Terminatrix certainly made my day.

Mexican food with the Betawi and Javanese

Titi bought us dinner for her birthday last night at the Amigos Cafe, a popular Mexican restaurant located opposite Sarinah. There were six of us: Ahmez, Maria, Shirley, Titi, Krisna and myself. Some of them, like Titi were past employees of Ibis Hotel, where I have been staying for over one-and-a-half years.

Ahmez was telling me that he is a pure Betawi - born and bred in Jakarta. We had an interesting conversation about the differences between the Betawi, Javanese and Sundanese (which I had touched upon in an ealier blog entry). He told me that Betawi people are rougher and more aggressive than the polite and class-conscious Javanese. Titi is a Christian Javanese but her husband is a Muslim Sundanese. Both of them still practice their own separate religions - something that is unheard of in Malaysia.

I ordered a large Baja Burrito even though I am not exactly very fond of Mexican food. Indonesians eat everything with rice - even the MacDonalds and KFCs here serve rice. They even eat instant noodles (Indomie) with rice. But last night Titi asked for the rice that comes with her Burrito to be replaced with french fries!

When the band started playing, I was engrossed in watching the Malaysia-Chelsea match in the FA Premier League Asia Cup that was being shown on the TV at the far corner of the stage. Even from quite a distance, I could see that the Malaysian team in yellow was being outplayed by their more illustrious London opponents. However the match report I read this morning showed the match to be quite even until half-time where the score was tied at 1-1. Only a late 20 minute blitz by Chelsea made the scoreline a lopsided 4-1 in their favour.

After the dinner ended at around 9.45pm, I walked back to my hotel. The night was just coming alive - I could see the crowd milling outside Hard Rock Cafe at Sarinah. Titi and friends were good company but the Mexican food wasn't satisfying enough. As I walked home, I promised myself a good Sundanese lunch the next day. Which is exactly what I'm planning to do after this - at Ayam Goreng Priangan.

Travelling with Theroux

I enjoy reading travel books and those by Paul Theroux I find most enjoyable. I was delighted to find an article about him in the Life section of Singapore's Straits Times today.

In the e-mail interview with the writer of the article, he was understandably a lot more diplomatic in his views about Singapore and Singaporeans than what I have read from his books. Theroux was a lecturer at the University of Singapore during the late sixties and he also wrote a fiction - Saint Jack - set in the Singapore of that era.

Having lived in Singapore before, Theroux is also familiar with Malaysia and has written interesting short articles and stories set in the Malaysia of the sixties and early seventies. His book, The Consul's File is a collection of related short stories about the adventures of an American consul based in - of all places - the town of Ayer Hitam in Johor! He also made some rather unflattering observations about the sultan (nicknamed "Buffles") of a particular Malaysian state. That article can be found in his book, Sunrise with Seamonsters.

In The Great Railway Bazaar, he wrote about his experiences travelling by train from his home then in England across Europe and the mainland of Asia, down to Singapore before hopping over to Japan and Russia for the Trans-Siberian Express home to the West again. That book made him well-known and established him as the leading travel writer of our time.

Diehard fans of Sir VS Naipaul will hate Theroux for his frank depiction of the Nobel prize winnning writer in his book Sir Vidia's Shadow which detailed their friendship over a period of 30 years, spanning five continents and how it finally came to a bitter end.

Having read so many of his books, I feel like I've known Theroux quite well: I've travelled together with him by train across China in Riding the Red Rooster, chugged along with him on The Old Patagonian Express in South America, hitchhiked around the British Isle in Kingdom by the Sea, island hopped on his kayak in The Happy Isles of Oceania and recently accompanied him on an inland journey down the African continent in Dark Star Safari.

His veiled semi-fictional autobiographies: My Secret History and My Other Life are also very engrossing reads. Strangely I am more attracted to his non-fiction books than some of his fictional ones - which are also highly acclaimed, like The Mosquito Coast (which was made into a successful movie starring Harrison Ford).

Paul Theroux is in his sixties now but I hope he continues travelling. He is indeed my favourite travel companion.

Bobos and Bums at Jalan Jaksa

I have known my friend Setiawan since I started coming to Jakarta in the mid-nineties. We had our best time before the Asian Financial Crisis and the riots of 98; we worked hard and played hard: busting our asses during the day and painting the town red at night. To paraphrase Dickens, the last eight years have been the best of times and the worst of times.

These days Setiawan and I meet ocassionally to catch up over a quiet nasi padang dinner and a couple of slow beers. And last night somehow we ended up drinking at a pub along Jalan Jaksa.

The Jalan Jaksa area is a backpacker's haven: Filled with cheap guest houses, hotels and restaurants, most of the budget bule (Mat Salleh) travellers would make a stop here, led by their trusty Lonely Planet Guide.

Sitting there watching the backpackers in their khaki shorts and worn-out T-shirts chatting up the local girls, I was filled with a sense of envy. How I wished I could bum around like them: hitch-hiking from one place to another on a shoe-string budget, without a single care in the world.

Instead we have become Bobos -- a termed coined by David Brooks in his riproaringly hilarious book, Bobos in Paradise - meaning Bourgeois Bohemians. We have become mediocre yuppies: cubicle creatures who have betrayed our youthful ideals to become willing slaves to big multi-national corporations.

Spoilt by corporate perks and entrenched in our new-found middleclass respectability, we try to bury our guilt by leading lifestyles that hint at superficial bohemian idealism: using environment-friendly Body Shop products, sending our kids to school in swanky four-wheelers, going to work in Timberland boots and khakis (pockets stuffed with the latest geek toys), and carrying our Sony laptops around in backpacks as if we are trekking across Tibet. Bourgeois Bohemians.

And there I was sitting with Setiawan, reflecting on all these things -- two Bobos guzzling Bintangs on a warm midweek night, among the bums and backpackers of Jalan Jaksa.

Riding Si Jagur

What is the connection between the fall of Malacca to the Dutch in 1641 and the fertility of women in Jakarta?

Apparently one of the cannons captured by the Dutch from the Portuguese in Malacca was shipped to Jakarta ( then known as Batavia). This bronze cannon, affectionately known as Si Jagur has since then been surrounded by legends, and is regarded as a bit of a sacred object by the locals. Childless women used to sit astride the cannon, in the hope of boosting their fertility.

The cannon is a peculiar thing: one of its ends is sculptured into the shape of a clenched fist with a defiant thumb sticking out between the index and the middle finger (picture here). It is probably the combination of the cannon's phallic symbollism and this sexually suggestive gesture - frozen in time - which contributed to its reputation as a fertility relic.

Father Adolf Heuken's book Historical Sights of Jakarta describes an amusing anecdote about how a hopeful woman once brought her two daughters to the cannon. A year later she returned furious: only one of her daughters was pregnant - the unmarried one.

I once spent a morning trying to locate the cannon at Taman Fatahillah, in the old city of Jakarta. Though Si Jagur is well-described in every tourist guide, locating it wasn't as easy as I thought. We are told that it is situated North of the Fatahillah Square, in front of Cafe Batavia; but when one arrives at the Square, the supposedly popular landmark is not obviously evident. Only when one approaches the ramshackled stalls beside the Cafe selling tourist kitsch does one see the cannon, almost hidden by the pedlars' goods, sitting neglected like a fire hydrant.

I was glad to read a press report end of last year that Si Jagur was finally moved into the Jakarta History Museum compound - a fitting home for an object linked to so much history and legend.

I'm not sure if women still go to Taman Fatahillah to perform symbollic copulation with this giant bronze phallus. But I do know, south of the Square, in the heart of Kota, men flock to the many nightspots there to find women who would be willing to perform such acts for slightly more than a hundred thousand rupiah - without the symbollic fuss.

Desecrating the Datacenter

This morning as I was making one of my many sojourns to the water dispenser, I caught a glimpse of our office communications equipment - router and switches - ignominiously stacked in a corner beside the pantry cabinets.

I can see that the equipments are running live, humming and panting hot-air, cables running riot like spaghetti in that forgotten corner of our office. That miserable-looking jumble of chassis and cables is in actual fact our lifeline and nervous system - the office LAN and the all-important connection to the Internet .

Because ours is still a very small office with about 50 people, there is no fulltime IT department or systems administrator to manage our internal IT needs. As offices grow bigger, usually a "computer room" with proper air-conditioning is designated for servers and communications equipments. And as companies grow even bigger and IT becomes a mission-critical part of their businesses, they will have to have their own proper datacenter (or an outsourced one, as is the trend these days).

I have spent a great portion of my IT career helping customers to architect and build datacenters. Datacenters are inhospitable places for human beings: its air-conditioning and humidity is controlled such that machines would hum along happily but not us. Within datacenters, the racks and stacks are altars to the server gods and are to be tended lovingly by us, the human beings.

Datacenters remind me of the Tabernacle of the biblical Jews - a tent-like structure where they kept their Holiest of Holies, The Ark of the Covenant. Through their wanderings in the desert the Jews carried the Tabernacle with them but only their very highest priests are allowed access into it. They are the ones who could tend to their holiest object. Datacenters should be like that.

I often advise my customers to treat the datacenter as sacred. No unauthorized person should enter a datacenter and entry should only be for reasons deemed absolutely necessary. No applications are to be installed in the datacenter unless they have gone through a rigorous production acceptance process. And once inside, everything should be controlled and monitored. How could one guarantee security and uptime if one allows his datacenter to be treated like a hacker's lab?

Whenever I get the opportunity I would always request to tour my customer's datacenter. I enjoy doing it because it is often very revealing about the company itself: The way cables are managed, the way the equipments are stacked in racks, and the way everything is labelled all leaves forensic evidence that reveals the mindset and the attitude of the people running the organization.

During the dot-com boom, I had the opportunity to visit many hosting datacenters throughout the world in the course of my work: names like Exodus (now acquired by Cable & Wireless) and Global Crossing (being acquired by ST Telemedia and Hutchinson Telecommunications) - the Internet datacenters which hosted so many of the high-flying dotcoms. Sadly most of them filed for Chapter 11 after the dot-com crash.

During their heydays these operations were models of datacenter perfection - the biometrics security, the endless array of racks and cages and the impressive lights-out management. One could see thousands of servers: electronic sentinels with lights blinking quietly in their racks, each holding a cyberworld of its own. Witnessing it is like the Chosen One finally seeing the Matrix for what it really is - rivulets of green blinking code.

The datacenter is the engine-room, the brain and the memory banks of an enteprise. The datacenter is an enterprise's Holiest of Holies. Sadly I still see many of my customers treating their datacenters in a cavalier manner. Often they use it like an extra storeroom for their broken equipment, old manuals and empty boxes. To me, it is an unpardonable act of desecration.

Revisiting 1984

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen"

With that famous first line, George Orwell began his novel about the bleak dystopia he had imagined the world in 1984 would be, back in 1949.

I read the book Nineteen Eighty-Four in 1985, having picked up a cheap commemorative paperback edition from PekanBuku at UM. It is available these days online on the Internet. Till now, it remains my favourite among the few Orwells that I have read, together with Down and Out in Paris and London, even though Animal Farm is generally considered one of the best books of the 20th century.

In the year 1984 they made a movie based on the book, starring John Hurt, Richard Burton and Suzanna Hamilton. I managed to catch it when it was shown on RTM (or it could have been TV3), a couple of years later. I think I still have a mouldy VHS recording of it stored somewhere under my bed back home in Subang Jaya.

The clocks were striking nineteen last night when I sat down at the QB World bookstore cafe in Kemang, Jakarta, sipping the remaining half of my Bintang beer, waiting for the curtains to roll for QB World's regular Sunday night art-movie treat: Nineteen Eighty-Four. It brought back a flood of memories.

First, the haunting soundtrack by Eurythmics. Strictly speaking, the album by Eurthymics bearing the same title shouldn't be called the movie's soundtrack as hardly any of the tracks were used in the movie - more like music and songs inspired by Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Some of you might remember the hit Sexcrime and the hypnotic Julia.

The casting for the movie is superb: who could have played a better Winston Smith than John Hurt? And having the great Sir Richard Burton as John Hurt's character's mentor-turned-torturer, O'Brien was a real coup. It was also Richard Burton's swansong - he passed away after completing the movie in 1984.

Big Brother, Ingsoc, Newspeak, Thoughtcrime - these are some of the intriguing elements of Orwell's vision of a totalitarian society where the state of Oceania is in perpetual war with either Eastasia or Eurasia in the tripolar world of 1984. Though the collapse of Communism in the 90s brought about a sense of optimism and temporarily erased our fears of an Orwellian future, the recent paranoia of governments towards terrorism has led to states enforcing Big Brother-like type of surveillance and policing of its citizen. Orwell's reminder still bears relevance today.

The movie, like the novel is an extremely bleak one. However its basic plot of an Adam, Winston Smith(John Hurt) and an Eve, Julia (Suzanna Hamilton) searching for an Eden away from a dehumanized society where one can be free to love and live like normal human beings is a theme that has been used many times by science-fiction writers. One is reminded of George Lucas' THX 1138 (starring Robert Duvall) and Logan's Run (starring Michael York).

Nineteen Eighty-Four, the movie, is a masterful adaptation of Orwell's book by director Michael Radford. I cannot see how Orwell's vision could have be filmed any differently. The sets, the cinematographic palette and the casting are spot-on. Even though the movie depicts a "futuristic" society, there's no Matrix sleekness here nor showy Star Trek-like vision of utopian worlds with gleaming corridors and beeping electronics; instead the sets and locations of Nineteen Eighty-Four are reminiscent of a war-ravaged Europe of the 1940s, with gadgetry that could have been inspired by relics from the Smithsonian Institution.

Movies, books and music are capsules of memories. Watching Nineteen Eighty-Four again brought everything back to me: the late eighties when I was a carefree student with no inkling of where my life would lead; not knowing that I too would someday find my Orwellian future in the cubicle catacombs of the corporate world, where any spark of individualism is akin to Thoughtcrime.

Pleasant Sunday Morning

The weather in Jakarta is much more comfortable than KL's. I came out from the hotel today at almost noon and the sun was at full blast. But somehow it felt pleasant: there was a mild breeze in the air, and despite the pollution, the atmosphere was soothingly balmy. (Is that the reason why women here seem to have better complexion too?)

I have not made a trip to Bandung for sometime and I kind of miss those relaxing train journeys there. Which also reminds me that I have not been travelling in Indonesia, (except for the one back to KL) since my trip to Makassar. Must peruse Lonely Planet and start planning again.

What shall I be doing today? Maybe read my book at the cafe and then hop over to QB World Kemang to revisit an old movie I have watched on RTM more than a decade ago......