TKI

TKI

Indonesians often lament the fact that their country has now become an exporter of cheap labour to neighbouring countries like Malaysia. Once upon a time--during those halcyon years after Merdeka--Indonesian teachers were much sought after in Malaysia and Malaysian students used to study in their universities.

Now all they read about are the brutality of the Malaysian police against their TKI (pronounced, "tay-kah-ee", short for "Tenaga Kerja Indonesia"--Indonesian manpower or labour). Because life is hard for a lot of people in Indonesia, there's a general tolerance and sympathy for people who are just trying to earn a living, even if sometimes their means of livelihood--though not against the law--are a public nuisance. Pengamens, beggars, asongans and jokis come to mind. But some, like the ojek payung--people, often kids, who offer umbrellas whenever it rains--do offer a much appreciated service to the public.

Blue-collar workers, who do have a steady job, often have some means of earning side income too. The satpam (security guard) at the museum or some tourist spot, would offer to act as your guide, for a tip. The clerk at the National Library will ask if you would prefer "cheaper" photocopy services from him. One does not blame them for their "entrepreneurship" for these people work for a pittance. While we the educated middleclass, with our huge disposable income, would limit our number of children to two, these labouring massess--ask any one of them--they will tell you that they have a wife and four kids at home to support.

In Malaysia, the middleclass often blame Indonesian workers for crime in their neighbourhood. I have also heard a lot of horror stories about problems with Indonesian maids from my friends. To many Malaysians, Indonesian workers have become a "necessary evil". It is a pity that we often forget that for many of us, our forefathers who came to Malaysia were also cheap migrant labourers eager to eke out a living in a promised land rich with tin and rubber.

When our PM visited Jakarta recently, there were protests by certain groups against our brutality and inhumanity against Indonesian workers. They claimed that Malaysia owes their success to the sweat and tears of Indonesian workers. There would not have been the Petronas Twin Towers or the Sepang Formula One Circuit without TKI.

Malaysians often despise Singaporeans for behaving like a rich kid in a poor neighbourhood. If we do not address the poor PR that's filtering to the Indonesian media, then it is only a matter of time before we too are being perceived as the arrogant rich.

Migrant workers are an inevitability in any developed country today. Many of these migrants will eventually settle down here and become an integral part of our society. We Malaysians, have to learn to deal with Indonesian workers fairly and firmly. The reality is, we need them as much as they need us.

The Search for Meaning

The Search for Meaning

Except for a day or two when relatives drop by to visit, Chinese New Year is usually a relatively quiet affair for me. Sometimes the break is a good chance for me to catch up on my reading. I remember six years ago, I read a book by Viktor E. Frankl called Man's Search for Meaning over the Chinese New Year holidays. It proved to be one of the most important books I've ever read.

Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997) was an eminent psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust at Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps during World War II. The book is partly a memoir of his experiences at the concentration camps and partly an introduction to his groundbreaking school of psychology called logotherapy.

The story of his experiences in the brutal Nazi concentration camps is a heart-wrenching one: separated from his family members with no knowledge of their fate (his father, mother, brother and wife all died at the gas chambers), forced to endure daily hard labour on a starvation diet and threatened with the ever-present possibility of death anytime, it was a miracle indeed that he managed to survive those three years of incessant mental and physical torture.

Prisoners were literally stripped of everything that they had; they were herded everywhere like cattle and shoved into multi-tiered plank shelves that served as bed; they were brutalized, insulted and reduced to shrivelled husks of meaningless existence. Viktor Frankl saw how many of his fellow inmates just dropped dead not because they were too weak or too sick to carry on but because they reached a point where they simply "gave up" on life.

Those who survived were those who managed to find a some kind of meaning to their suffering. In Nietzsche's words: "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how".

To bear with the intolerable conditions of living in the camp, prisoners learned to "look forward" to the most trivial comforts as a great joy and blessing: like the discovery of a tiny piece of pea at the bottom of one's daily ration of watery soup or the rare opportunity to de-louse before going to bed.

Dr Frankl's experiences in the concentration camp helped him to formulate his psychological theory of logotherapy which rests on the belief the meaning that a person attaches to his life experiences is important for his emotional, pscyhological and physical well-being. One must find some kind meaning, even in suffering. It is this meaning that keeps one going.

The meaning that one attaches to one's life is a personal thing and could be different for everyone. For some, the meaning could be religious in nature; for others, it could be the realisation of an in-born talent in a particular field. It is an existential quest that we owe ourselves to pursue. Sometimes "meaning" is a journey and not a destination: it is the act pursuing meaning that gives life its meaning.

The "Orang-Utan" of the Malay Archipelago

The "Orang-Utan" of the Malay Archipelago

Alfred Russel Wallace, spent years wandering among the many Indonesian islands collecting zoological speciments to be sold to collectors back home in England. He travelled alone in some of the remotest regions of the world with only a couple of local helpers whome he hired. His expeditions were financed entirely from proceeds of his sale of specimens.

A shy and unassuming man with no formal academic qualification, he was a relative outsider to the scientific community when he wrote an article expounding his views on how the diversity of species in natural world came about. The article was written in a ramshackle hut somewhere in the spice islands of Maluku while he was struggling with his regular bouts of malaria fever in 1858.

He mailed a copy of this article to an eminent scientist who, unknown to Wallace, had been working on similar ideas about the origin of species for the past 20 years but had yet to publish them. On reading Wallace's article, Charles Darwin was stunned that this strange equatorial wanderer has come up with ideas almost identical as his.

When Darwin finally published his famous The Origin of Species, he acknowledged Wallace's independent discovery of the theory of natural selection for the evolution of species. Even though Darwin is the better known figure among the two as the founder of this controversial theory, Wallace's contribution to our understanding of the flora and fauna of the Indonesian archipelago has been an enduring one. Naturalists name the invisible boundary separating two distinct groups of flora and fauna--one that traces its origins from mainland Asia, the other from Australasia as the Wallace Line.

Despite being the legitimate co-founder of the theory of natural selection, he was happy to let Darwin grab all the limelight, even stating that the controversial theory needed someone eminent like Darwin to promote it. The two men became good friends, and the often self-deprecating Wallace held Darwin in the highest esteem.

When Wallace finally wrote his famous tome, The Malay Archipelago, describing his travels in the region, he dedicated the book to Darwin. Unlike Darwin's Origin of Species, reprints of the Malay Archipelago can be found in any bookstore in Malaysia and Indonesia today. And what a great read it is: it is a combination of travelogue and the meticulous observations of a scientist who explored a region which has some of richest diversity of flora and fauna in the world.

The Malay Archipelago has been a favourite book of mine over the years that I've been travelling to and later, living in Indonesia. Alfred Russel Wallace comes across as a gentle and likeable person from his writings. With his nerdy glasses, bushy beard and gangly frame he must have appeared a strange figure indeed to the locals then--many whom have not seen a white man before. They must have thought that this bird and insect catcher is the real orang-utan (jungle man).

I am ashamed to have only visited a fraction of all the places that Wallace had been to during his eight years of travels in the region. Reading his description of Manado as being the "prettiest town in the East" had made me want to go there ever since. Too bad I did not manage to find the opportunity to make such a trip during my two-year stay in Indonesia. But I will someday. At the meantime, I'll just content myself with reading the writings of this great Victorian jungle man.

The Season for Renewal

The Season for Renewal

In that dreamy state between sleep and wakefulness early this morning, for a moment I wasn't sure where I was. A surge of panic seized me: was I late for my morning lecture? Couldn't be--I'm already done with all my lectures for the week. Was I in some remote Javanese city? What time is my train departing for Jakarta? Was I late?

I woke up and realised that I was in someplace unfamiliar: home. I didn't know what I should be doing, for I don't have a regular routine yet. There's an uneasy feeling that I was somehow wasting time: Shouldn't I be at the Internet cafe, typing a report on my laptop, or just heading somewhere?

In actual fact there are a lot of things that I have to start doing. First I have to clean up my room and clear some space for all the junk that I have accumulated during my years away from home--those debris of past experience that I constantly mine for meaning.

It is tempting to take thing easy at home. One can easily sink into a stupor of sloth and languor if one is not careful. I need to maintain that austere discipline that I had kept all those years that I was away. I have to start building good habits.

It's Chinese New Year. Instead of treating it like a distraction like what I've always done in the past, perhaps I should make use of this auspicious occasion to embark on a new beginning. Spring is the season for renewal and regeneration. I must remind myself that I am Chinese and the Chinese are a very pragmatic and positive-thinking people. Sometimes I feel the Chinese already have all the virtues expouded by motivational gurus like Anthony Robbins embedded in their very culture.

The Chinese New Year celebration itself is nothing but a massive parade of positive thinking affirmations and symbolisms. Everyone participates in an exchange of well-wishes--for wealth, success, good fortune and prosperity. The din of lion dances, the gaudy display of reds everywhere coupled with the cacophony of of firecrackers help to break old patterns of thoughts and rouses the mind for greater achievements ahead.

So join in the revelry, savour its vigour, feel its vibrance, embrace its positive spirit--'tis the season for renewal. Gong Xi Fa Cai!

The Burden of Books

The Burden of Books

At 7.30am this morning I delivered my final lecture to my class and by 3.10pm, I was on board MH720 flying back to KL. I'm finally home for Imlek (Indonesian for the Chinese Lunar New Year) but will have to be back in Jakarta next week for a few more days for I still have unfinished business there.

I arrive home to find myself preceded by four boxes of books that had I sent through TNT last week from Jakarta. These are books I had kept in the office for two years--books I had acquired during my four years in Singapore and had travelled together with me to Jakarta. They have never been home before, but they finally are now. This is but just a portion of my mobile library--I still have a few big bags containing books stored temporarily at a friend's place in Pondok Indah.

Packing is a tedious task. Over the years I have tried my best to minimize my personal belongings, bringing unnecessary things back to KL whenever I can. But somehow things accumulate very easily: in my case, it is books--which makes it worst because they are among the heaviest objects that one could own. Until e-books become more practical and user-friendly, I suppose we'll still have to suffer the inconvenience of lugging pieces of dead tree with us. Knowledge is a huge burden.

Despite my strenuous attempts to control my book-buying sprees, it looks like I have not been that successful in curbing this chronic bibliophilia of mine. Well, I guess there's a price for everything: Now I have to suffer the tedious process of packing and shipping these books back to KL (not to mention the stiff cost involved); and when they arrive safely home, I have to figure out where to store them. I have long run out of bookshelves. Instead of lining up my books nicely so that they can be randomly accessed, I have to resort to archiving them in boxes and shoving them under my bed.

I vow not to buy any books for the next couple of months for I have enough reading materials with me to last me for a while. The good thing about being home for me is that my brain's "secondary storage" is no longer remote--I can now easily refer to particular passages that I sometimes want to quote in my blog but vaguely remember or reread subjects that happen to strike my fancy.

Since I arrived home, I was able to pull out Tim Severin's The Spice Islands Voyage to reread passages about Alfred Russel Wallace: I had on many occassions mentioned that I would blog about this eminent naturalist who co-discovered the theory of evolution and natural selection together with Darwin. Wallace did most of his research in the spice islands of Indonesia and his book The Malay Archipelago has been my regular travel companion over the years. But unfortunately my copy of The Malay Archipelago is still lying somewhere in my friend's garage in Pondok Indah right now.

Soon, all my books will be reunited in one location. And perhaps then, with my scattered memories restored in its proper place, I will finally feel like a complete person!

The Thief in the Night

The Thief in the Night

As we grow older most of us would find it more difficult to learn a new skill or to acquire knowledge in a different field. We prefer to stick to the familiar and claim that old dogs can't learn new tricks. It is common to see such people in any organization: they have found a niche spot in the organization and they luxuriate in the comforts of their own domain. Often the difficulty in learning comes about not because our minds have somehow degenerated over time but more from our general lack of interest and willpower. Things that used to fill us with so much enthusiasm when we were fresh employees now turn us off. We claim that we have been there and done that. In actual fact we fear going through the learning curve that is filled with much uncertainty, hardship and potential embarassment. We do not want to suffer the ignonimity of becoming novices again. Sometimes it is just plain laziness that deters us. We cannot find the reason and motivation to go the extra mile to tackle something that is not familiar to us. Our comfort zones are too cozy for us to budge from. The rewards are not strong enough for us to endure the hardship required. We choose not to enjoy those rewards. These are all impediments to learning and growing. Most of the time, we do not improve because we choose not to. But we ask: isn't it alright to be contented with what we have? Doesn't the man with limited wants lead a more peaceful life? The problem with remaining static is that decay sets in. The barriers that we seek not to overcome, enclose us even tighter. Everytime we choose to postpone facing a fear, it advances a step closer to us. Everywhere we turn, we see fear staring back at us. Soon our lives shrink into shrivelled cells of despair and desperation. Wasn't it Thoreau who said, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation? Where did that desperation come from? It comes from our decision to cling to our existing comforts, our reluctance to explore and embrace, our resistance to change. The existential choice facing us is cruel sometimes: if we choose not to swim, we sink. Even when the coast seems clear and there's nothing threatening evident on the horizon, be wary: Change, like a thief in the night, creeps in very quietly and stealthily.

Fuss over Busway

Fuss over Busway

I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to try the new public transportation system called the Transjakarta Busway, launched last Thursday when I left for my Semarang trip. The service is free for this coming two weeks but queues at the stations are long.

I wish the service had been launched earlier--it would have been convenient for me going to and from work between Thamrin and Sudirman. I could also easily catch the Busway to go to my favourite cineplex at Block M or go north to Kota for some Chinese food.

Most people I talk to doubt the new transportation system--which is basically an LRT on wheels-- will help alleviate the traffic congestion in Jakarta. But then these are people who usually drive--the Busway system has definitely inconvenienced them because the already congested Jalan Sudirman and Kota now have two lanes less for cars. It is yet unclear whether the system will be a success.

The project seemed rather hastily embarked upon. Lanes designated "Busway" have been painted since early last year but no activity had taken place until the last couple of months when there was a sheer frenzy of construction to meet the January 15 2004 dateline. Though initial reactions from the commuting public seemed enthusiastic (perhaps because it is still free), the project has been plagued with a myriad of problems including the lack of feeder bus services and rumours of the drivers themselves going on strike.

Well, I won't be around in Jakarta long enough to enjoy the service. I will be back in KL taking the Kommuter, Star, Putra and KL Monorail. Every city needs a good public transportation system. During colonial days, Jakarta had a good electric tram system criss-crossing the city (Singapore had one too but not KL). Though at times a nuisance, bajajs, becaks and ojeks have served the masses well as cheap forms of public transport. Time will tell whether the Busway will go a long way towards providing Jakartans with a more viable and comfortable alternative.

Reflections on a Forgotten City

Reflections on a Forgotten City

Last night I had dinner at Toko Oen, an old crumbling colonial building along Jalan Pemuda in Semarang. Inside, on its wood-paneled walls, hung old photos recalling grander times. It is a miracle that the place was still surviving: only the older Chinese middleclass families now gathered here for the occassional family celebration. That night some of them were obviously in a celebratory mood, seizing the mike from the singer and crooning passionate hits of bygone years.

I enjoyed the atmosphere there, nostalgic with its fading traces of colonial past--the ornate lamps, the slow-rotating celing fans and the rusting piano in the corner. I nursed my Bintang beer slowly and took the opportunity to rest my tired limbs that were aching from a whole day of wandering in the streets of Semarang.

Despite being an important port city on the north coast of Central Java, Semarang felt like a forgotten city. Its colonial heritage--the areas around the old city near the Tawang railway station--looked destitute and neglected, its canals stagnant and choked with foul-smelling refuse. The street population seemed to consist only of sweaty and swarthy labourers, carting goods, pedalling becaks and hawking petty goods in the streets. The rich middleclass huddled in the comforts of the hills in the south.

Simpang Lima, which is the new center of Semarang is but a monotony of malls: Ciputra, Ramayana and Matahari. But the people seem to prefer the kitsch consumerism of malls than the decaying monuments of the past. Despite its apparent bustle, Simpang Lima is just a tiresome distraction--the real soul of Semarang lies elsewhere, perhaps lost forever.

If Semarang still has a soul, it is borne by the labouring classes. This morning as I was having my brunch at the Warung Makan Barokah behind Pasar Johar, I observed the becak riders outside who were taking a respite from their morning exertions. A small piece of greasy cake and a glass of tea at the roadside warung is what most of them seemed to have for their afternoon meal. I had seen these roadside warungs in Solo, Jogja and now Semarang, with is selection of cakes and tiny packets of rice (laced with tiny bits of salty tempe or sambal). Now I knew who their consumers were. I felt slightly guilty at the gluttony of my nasi gudeg brunch.

But my appetite was voracious all the way back to Jakarta over the six-hour train journey. I had two meals on the train itself in between listening to my keroncong cassette and reading Colin Thubron. I arrived in Jakarta still longing for another bite.

As the bajaj swooped me past familiar Jalan Sabang back to my hotel, the bright lights of Jakarta seemed like such stark contrast to the bleakness of Semarang: for the first time, Jakarta felt like it was full of promise and hope. It is perhaps this promise and hope that lured many people from forgotten towns all over Indonesia to Jakarta--swelling its population to over 10 million--in search of a better life. I was happy to be back in Jakarta.

Icon of the Chinese Diaspora

Icon of the Chinese Diaspora

When I was in Yogjakarta last week, I went into an eating shop and saw eight calendars hanging on its walls. Immediately I knew the owner was Chinese. Only the Chinese have this obsessive preoccupation with dates and figures.

In Semarang, I had my lunch at a Chinese restaurant and saw 17 wall calendars hanging there! Even temples were not spared: I saw calendars with huge numerals at the Sam Poh Kong temple. This temple was built in honour of the great 15th century Chinese mariner, Zheng He (or better known in Malaysia as Admiral Cheng Ho) who made seven voyages to Java island.

This Muslim eunuch is greatly revered in Malacca where a similar temple stands in his honour. Zheng He's fleet even went as far as Madagascar and the Middle East. There are even theories that suggest Zheng He reached as far as America and should be credited as its discoverer instead of Columbus. Zheng He's voyages marked that great era when the Chinese ruled the waves and trade flourished between the Chinese, Arabs and the peoples of Nusantara.

The Sam Poh Kong temple in Semarang looked better maintained than the one in Malacca. Expansion and renovation works were going on feverishly, no doubt fueled by the enormous wealth of the local Chinese community. Giant red candles and joss-sticks cast a garish air to the place. The main altar was almost hidden inside a dark cave-like hall; there amidst the paraphernalia of worship, stood the images of Admiral Zheng He--silent icons of the Chinese diaspora.

The stamp of the Chinese people is everywhere in Semarang. I explored the narrow alleys near Pasar Johar and saw the fruits of their industry: trading shops, toko mas (goldsmiths) and toko obat (Chinese pharmacies). Peer into any one of these shops, you'd see the familiar sight of a towkay or towkay-soh, poring stern-faced over the account books or flipping the ever-present calendar on the wall: Nothing concerns the pragmatic Chinese more than the bottom line and a secure future. That is the secret of their success.

I also took the trouble to visit Semarang's harbour, Tanjung Mas as I am very fond of ships. (Of course Didi Kempot's song, Tanjung Mas Ninggal Janji was also a contributing factor). As I stood there watching the bustle of goods being loaded and unloaded, I secretly wished that someday I'd be able to come to Semarang through the sea, landing in Tanjung Mas--perhaps feeling a bit of the thrill that Admiral Zheng He experienced when he first set foot here more than six hundred years ago.

Sojourn to Semarang

Sojourn to Semarang

My education of Java would not be complete if I do not visit Semarang, so I took the Argo Bromo Anggerek this morning to the capital of Central Java. It was also the only suitable train journey that I could take given my time limitation this week. I plan to be back in Jakarta on Saturday.

It is usually a five-and-a-half hour journey by Argo Bromo Anggerek train to Semarang. The train goes all the way to Surabaya--Pekalongan and Semarang are the only two stops along the way. Today the train started on time at 9.20am and arrived an hour late: 3.50pm. Still there was sufficient time for me upon arrival to wander around the old city of Semarang and find a suitable Internet cafe.

Usually no tourist would visit Semarang as there's nothing much of interest here. Bali, Lombok, Lake Toba and Yogjakarta are the popular destinations for tourists. But Semarang is an important commercial port on the north coast of Central Java; it is also among the most Chinese cities in Indonesia. I have many Indonesian Chinese friends who come from Semarang. I am also told there are many old Dutch buildings here.

That was excuse enough for me to take the train journey to Semarang. The train ride itself was worth taking on its own. The stretch from Pekalongan to Semarang was especially picturesque: there the rail-tracks hugged the coastline and one could see through one's window, waves crashing into the rocks below. Elsewhere scenes of rice, corn and onion fields, felicitous under the noon-day sun, stretched out into the distance.

The train sliced through a few rivers on its approach to the sea where murky brown flows merged with the clear salt water of the sea. Seaside villagers waved to the passing train and when the train reached Semarang, I wished I could take the ride all the way to Surabaya.

But I have been to Surabaya a few of times before--Semarang is the remaining big city on Java island that I haven't visited. Upon arrival at the station, I took a becak (in Solo, most of the becaks are painted red but here they go for light blue) ride to a hotel on the edge of the old city of Semarang.

The new center of Semarang is in Simpang Lima, further south. Semarang doesn't have the Javanese charm of Solo or Yogjakarta but I am determined to penetrate its essence. There's much to do tomorrow and I intend to make the most of my brief sojourn to Semarang.

Jakarta Taxi Blues

Jakarta Taxi Blues

First-time visitors to Jakarta are often advised to take the Bluebird or the higher-end Silverbird executive taxis. They are considered safe. Taxis have been my main form transport here since I started visiting Jakarta in the mid-nineties. I must say, the service provided by the Bluebird cabs is nothing short of excellent: the drivers are always polite and conscientious; they never fail to use the meter and the taxis are very well maintained. They put the cab service in KL to shame.

In KL, you always have to ask the taxi driver whether he is willing to take you to your destination before entering the cab. You are at their mercy. This is especially bad during the rush-hour: It is a common sight in KL to see frustrated passengers jutting their heads into taxi after taxi, almost pleading the driver to take them to their destination. Our taxi service is still wallowing below Third World standards. Thank God we have the Putra, Star and monorail train services now.

There are bad cab drivers in Jakarta too. I have even encountered "drivers" who barely knew how to drive! I remember one having problems releasing the clutch, and dragged me all the way to my destination in first gear. If you stumble out late at night from nightspots such as Tanamur or JJ's and get into one of the cabs waiting outside, a usual 5K rupiah ride will cost you 50K instead. If it is raining, a short hop to the next building will sometimes cost you 10K rupiah.

For newcomers, communication could be a problem too. The taxi driver will never understand what you mean by "meter" (it's called argo). They will smile when you say "pusing" ("turn" in Malay)--to Indonesians that usually means "headache" (putar or belok is the right word).

You also have to learn to pronounce acronyms the Indonesian way: WTC is "way-tay-say", BCA is "bay-chay-ah". Most places with Western names are pronounced phonetically: Summit becomes "Soo-meet", Stadium becomes "Stah-di-ee-um" and Atrium, "Ah-tree-ium". Luckily Jakarta does not have a Renaissance Hotel.

I enjoy chatting with taxi drivers: they often come from different parts of the archipelago--a cab ride becomes a geography lesson for me. It is also a challenge for me to understand their thick provincial accents, but it is fun. I very rarely meet an unfriendly one.

The rarest sight though in Jakarta is a Chinese taxi driver. I spent years here asking my Indonesian friends if there's such a thing as a Chinese cab-driver in Jakarta. No one has encountered one before. Not in Jakarta, maybe in Pontianak, they'd say. Jakarta Chinese are supposed to be "rich".

This is not exactly true. I have encountered at least one Chinese Bluebird taxi driver before. It was during Lebaran when many of the drivers were back in their kampungs. I took the rare opportunity to grill the driver and asked him if Chinese taxi drivers were indeed that rare. He said, they are some Chinese drivers in Bluebird, but they are a small minority.

He seemed a bit uneasy when I asked him why he chose to become a taxi driver. I suddenly realised that it could be insensitive of me to do so: it was like I was questioning why he as a Chinese was so "useless", though that wasn't what I meant. It was just plain innocent curiosity on my part. I quickly changed the subject to the traffic instead.

Another pribumi (native) taxi driver I encountered used to be a bajaj driver; he told me how happy he was when he was accepted by the taxi company to be a driver--he even held a small celebration with his family and friends.

A taxi driver in Jakarta will usually pretend not to have small change. So I always make sure I have enough 1K, 5K and 10K notes in my wallet. My rides usually cost me not more than 10K. Good luck to you if you only have 50K notes!

Meme Generator

Meme Generator

I haven't had much time lately to do any maintenance on my blog. I think it is badly in need of a facelift. I have written so many entries and they are now buried somewhere in the archives; I wish I could classify and provide easier links to them. I myself sometimes have to use the search engine to dig out an earlier entry. The current website design is not scalable at all. But any changes will have to wait, as I have more urgent things in the in-tray of my mind.

Will I ever run out of subjects to blog? I hope not. Like what I've mentioned many times before (and I am lazy to find links to those past entries), blogging is like a daily prayer. I commit to blog everyday and I try to keep that commitment.

I know that when I'm finally back in KL, blogging will be a tougher thing to do. Life in KL is "noisier". Here in Jakarta, I feel blissful in my isolation. The mind expands, soars and dances in the exalted realms of the intellect. KL life is all action and exhaustion; time to think is minimal. Life slips by easily--which is what I seriously want to avoid. This brings me back to the whole point of blogging--it helps me arrest that slip. I try to reevaluate my life everyday and "reset" my mind. So blogging daily--though it will be much more difficult for me to do--is even more essential when I'm back in KL.

There are many subjects that I want to blog about but have not started to do so because I feel that at my present state of mind, I am not able to do them justice. And for the past few weeks, I have been blogging from Internet cafes, making the task even more challenging as I have to use my surfing time as efficiently as possible to minimize cost. At such times, you start appreciating the "free" internet connection that you get in the office.

Being able to blog daily gives me a sense of satisfaction: my day, no matter how mundane, did not disappear without a trace--I have my thoughts deposited in cyberspace to proof it. The significance of those thoughts is magnified when someone else reads them and voila, the virus has spread. A thought once introduced into the world, cannot be undone. Some reaction has occured in your mind the moment you read these words--the state of your mind has been altered forever.We are all meme generators, constantly infecting one another.

The memes or mind viruses that I am spewing out now are the results of a lifetime of infections from so many different people (both living and dead). They have mutated, recombined and synthesized into unrecognizable forms. For as long as I live, I will be a spreader of memes. When my mortal body is no longer around, perhaps my blog will continue to do so?

Endless Exams

Endless Exams

I can understand the anxiety of my students when they keep asking me about the topics that will be covered in their final exam. No one likes exams. I never liked it when I was a student. Why should our knowledge on a subject be measured by how well we perform in the sterile environment of the examination hall during that nerve-wracking two or three hours?

It was worst for us during our time in the university--there were hardly any coursework or assignments which would contribute to our total marks: our entire year's performance was determined by that one examination at the end of every year. During the exam period, we alternated between feeling suicidal and fearing for our sanity.

But thinking back, those stressful experiences of our youth in facing examinations were good character-building exercises. Life in a way is filled with examinations: An important job interview, is like an exam; so is a presentation in front of a tough audience; or a difficult situation that requires our immediate action. We are judged by how we perform on that very instant and occassion.

It may not be fair to us, but life is like that. We are often not given a second chance. During those monumental moments of decision and action, we have to dive deep into our store of experience and knowledge and react instantly. We are not given time to deliberate, analyze, evade or counter-question.

Exams may not be a good test of one's knowledge of a subject, but it is a good test of one's character. Knowledge can be acquired by anyone who is willing to persevere, but strength of character stems from one's inner core: It is shaped by one's upbringing, one's life's experiences and one's religious beliefs. We build character by taking challenges head-on, by plunging ourselves deep into the drama of life. Sometimes we falter, sometimes we excel but we always emerge a better person. Our character is strenghtened in the process.

We might think we are finally free from exams when we graduated from university. Far from it. One inevitably finds that life is, but an endless series of examinations.

Journeys to Nowhere

Journeys to Nowhere

I haven't stop working since I came back from my trip. My holiday to Central Java was a rejuvenating one but the amount of work that I had put off now comes back to haunt me. Now I'm not sure if I can embark on a similar trip again this coming week.

Sometimes just making a trip to nowhere is great fun. I remember once taking the Express Timuran train from Singapore all the way to the last stop: Tumpat in Kelantan, near the Thai border. I wanted to see both ends of the line.

The Malaysian railway line originating from Tanjung Pagar in Singapore splits into two at Gemas to avoid the Main Range. Senandung Malam takes you to the busy towns on the West Coast of Peninsula Malaysia all the way to KL while Express Timuran, also known as the "jungle train" takes up to the less accesible small towns on the east side.

The Timuran Express starts its daily journey from Singapore at 10.20pm and arrives in Tumpat at around 10am. I took it on a Friday night after work. I slept well on the train and woke up early to have a good mee goreng breakfast in the buffet coach at 5.00am. For some reason, my appetite is usually good whenever I go on train journeys.

It was an enjoyable night ride--the train snaked its way through dense rain forests; at certain points the foliage crept so close to the tracks that one could even stretch out a hand and touch them.

There is no train station at Kota Bahru; passengers going there normally alight at the Wakaf Baru station. But I went all the way to Tumpat and from there I took a bus to Kota Bahru. I liked Kota Bahru--it is a quiet and charming town with good hawker food. The air was so fresh and the sea at Pantai Cahaya Bulan (formerly Pantai Cinta Berahi) strikingly blue. Spent a happy weekend there. I took the return journey back to Singapore from Tumpat on Sunday night, arriving in time on Monday morning for my weekly conference call with my Australian boss.

It was a weekend well-spent. I wish I could make more trips like that. I've been checking PT Kereta Api's timetables a lot lately...

From Balapan to Gambir

From Balapan to Gambir

After an eight hour train journey from Stasiun Balapan in Solo, I'm back in Jakarta and blogging from my regular Internet cafe. There's work for me ahead--lectures to be prepared and exam questions to be set.

The weather was wet and gloomy through most of the journey but the dampness only accentuated the lushness of the countryside: There were endless vistas of fertile rice fields, broken every now and then by the savagery of rivers and rapids. The greenness enveloped me like a balm, making the train journey a rather untiring one, perhaps even rejuvenating.

I have a love for train stations and I had purposely wanted to make my return journey from the Balapan station in Solo: I know of Stasiun Balapan from a song by the same name composed by Didi Kempot. Like Bengawan Solo, it is another keroncong favourite.

There is a certain romance that I associate with places of departure--seaports, train stations and airports. I often try to go early for my journeys so that I can linger at the station and soak in the atmosphere of adventure and the promise of possibilities that such places exude.

As the Argo Lawu was transporting me slowly across the Javanese landscape from Solo to Jakarta, I journeyed into The Lost Heart of Asia with Colin Thubron. Whenever my eyes felt tired from reading, I would let my ears take over by switching to my audiobook, spending a delightful Year in Provence with Peter Mayle in the process. I arrived in Jakarta with a yearning for French wine, and my mind was partly in the Silk Road city of Bakhara with Colin Thubron.

But the din of bajajs and porters at Gambir station brought me back to reality. I was soon checked into the comforts of my temporary home. I look forward to a productive night of work, perhaps with a nice bottle of red wine to fuel it.

Going Solo

Going Solo

The Javanese people that I meet in Yogjakarta are very proud of their multi-religious roots, and rightly so. My guide at the Jogja kraton (palace), Ibu Titi, took great pains to explain to me the design of its pillars which have Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic influences. The driver I hired to bring me around, Mas Supryi--the humblest of Javanese--told me that all religions are but different paths to reach the same goal. Wise words indeed from a man who hardly makes 300K rupiah a month to support his family of a wife and three school-going kids.

I meet some of the nicest people in Jogja, even though the city has become a bit of a tourist place with becak drivers that will never leave you alone (becak! kraton! batik!).

After a day of loitering around Jogja town (where I finally managed to find some good Bung Karno posters from a roadside vendor) , I rose early to visit the Prambanan temple on the road to Solo. The Prambanan temple complex comprising of a number of shrines built to worship Shiva, Ganesha, Vishu and Durga among others, are as astounding to me as Borobudur.

These temples with lofty stone spires look a bit like half-submerged versions of the Petronas Twin Towers from a distance. They rise majestically from the surrounding greenery, sprouting spirituality from every stone.

It was another tiring trek for me, going up and town the temples with steep steps; reaching the top, one would automatically half-kneel at the feet of these Gods, both from awe and exhaustion.

I then continued my Javanese odyssey to Solo--that other center of Javanese culture, one-and-a-half hours by car from Jogja. Solo or Surakarta has its own Sultan and kraton too--even older than the one in Jogja.

I was also eager to visit Solo because I wanted to see Bengawan Solo--the River Solo that inspired that famous song composed by Gesang. Bengawan Solo is arguably the most famous keroncong song in the world--even the Japanese are fond of it. I have been told by friends before that the colour of the river is murky brown--so I wasn't surprised to find it looking a bit like the rivers that I'm familiar with back in my hometown. Standing there by the banks of Bengawan Solo, for a moment I was transported back to my rustic childhood days...

Tomorrow I'll have to end this solo pilgrimage of mine into the Javanese heartland. I plan to take a day train that will snake its way back to Jakarta, allowing me to savour the Javanese landscape along the way. Alone in Solo, I feel a certain spiritual peace--a contentment that only pilgrims would comprehend.

The Abode of the Buddhas

The Abode of the Buddhas

I decided to spend one free and easy day in Yogjakarta without any fixed plans. I wanted some time to wander around the city and absorb the soul of Jogja.

Yesterday was tiring because I had to trek up the Borobudur temple and also managed to squeeze in a visit to the kraton (not forgetting Taman Sari, or Water Castle).

Being a fan of Buddhism myself, I find the Borobudur a magnificent piece of structure. There are ten levels that make up this 3-D mandala construction, soaring from a base that measures almost 1 hectare to an apex filled with ponderous stupas staring into the lush-green hills and plains of Central Java.

Borobudur is certainly one of the treasures of the world, in the ranks of Angkor Wat and perhaps the Machu Pichu. It is a comic-book carved in stone: starting from events leading to the birth of Gautama Buddha, to his ultimate Enlightenment. I imagine the carvers who worked on the stone embarking on a spiritual quest of karma yoga themselves as they slowly trace the life of the Buddha all the way up the ten levels.

Its entire perimeter is lined with stone relief panels, each depicting an episode in the Buddha's life, punctuated by statues of serene-faced Buddhas in different meditative poses--some headless from the ravages of time and vandals. One cannot help but admire the enormous religious dedication of the people from this bygone era. Imagine the tons of stones that had to be laboriously hauled up the hill to be carved in majestic intricacy. It is a feat that defies imagination.

The weather yesterday was as hot as it could be with azure skies and a bright-hot sun which brought out the sculptures in their full glory. I paid for an official guide, a Pak Suyono, who has been doing this job for the past 30 years. He knew every stone panel like the back of his hand and showed me the best spots to take photos. He was worth every rupiah (30K) that I paid for his services.

The bell-like stupas at the top of the complex was beautiful in their regularity and simplicity--one feels like lingering there forever, among the stupendous beauty that is this symphony of stones.

When I finally descended from the temple, I was sunburned and exhausted. It had taken me a mere 13 hours starting from the Gambir train station in Jakarta to reach this Abode of the Buddhas, in the bosom of mystical Java. But the path towards Nirvana,symbolically represented by the clockwise trek up the structure, is an infinitely tougher one--one that will take perhaps many many more lifetimes.

Into the Heartland

Into the Heartland

It will be quite tough for me to blog these coming few days as I am on the road. Finding a good Internet cafe can be quite a challenge sometimes--they are either too slow or too expensive. But I'll try to blog a few lines whenever I can.

Last night I took the Argo Lawu train from Gambir to Yogjakarta ("Jogja"). The train departed at 8.55pm and was scheduled to arrive at 4.30am; it only managed to arrive at 5.30am, which was better, as dawn was breaking and it was already bright.

I had a friendly Javanese grandmother for company during my entire journey. She was returning to Solo after visiting her daughter's family in Jakarta. She has six children in total--all of them married except for one and they are scattered all over Indonesia--Jakarta, Bandung, Bengkulu among others.

Ibu was the embodiment of Javanese grace and courtesy. We spent more than two hours talking about the differences in culture between the Javanese and the Betawi (native Jakartan) people--one of her son-in-laws is Betawi. She said she had difficulty getting along with him initially because Betawi people are more aggressive and "rough" compared to the Javanese who are cultured and reserved. We also talked about food (nasi liwet, she told me, is native to Solo) and her many grandchildren. She worries about them as modern kids are not brought up anymore with the strict discipline that her generation was accustomed to.

I enjoyed my conversation with ibu and was flattered when she told me that my bahasa was halus; coming from a Javanese, that was a compliment that made my day. The seven-and-a-half hour journey didn't feel that long.

I'm finally in the Javanese heartland. I managed to catch a few winks on the train and I didn't waste a second upon arrival early in the morning. I checked into a budget hotel, freshened myself up and rested for an hour before making my pilgrimage to Borobudur. I will probably write more about it in my coming days. Now I'm trying to digest the excellent nasi gudeg dinner I had an hour ago at the lesehan along Jalan Malioboro.

Audiobibliophile

Audiobibliophile

The only place where one can find a good selection of audiobooks is Borders in Singapore. I used to be a regular customer there. In most other bookstores, at most you can only find some self-improvement tapes.

Audiobooks are great because you don't have to use your eyes to "read"--you can even do so in the dark. That's why they are such good companions to me whenever I need to go on a long journey by train or bus.

In Singapore, most people in the MRT subway have their ears plugged into their Walkman if not their cellphone anyway. Why not listen to an audiobook? You make better use of your input channels that way.

In Jakarta, I rarely get a chance to listen to audiobooks on the road, because my journeys are usually short ones by taxi. Audiobooks have instead become my bedtime "reading". I am often lulled to sleep by Vivekananda's Yoga aphorisms or Karen Armstrong's narration of Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Sometimes it'll be poetry by Yeats. You can listen to an audiobook that way for years and never get to reach the end of the book!

Many actors and actresses do readings of popular books; my favourite is Peter Coyote. His reading of the Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans make tears stream down my cheeks. I normally would not buy popular bestseller fiction like the Horse Whisperer, but in this case, I listened to the book, because it was read by Peter Coyote. It is also a joy sometimes when the author himself reads his own work. Karen Armstrong is a good example and I'm such a big fan of her British headmistress voice!

I am surprised why audiobooks are not as popular as they should be. Most people find reading books tiresome and boring. Try listening to one instead--it is a less strenuous task and can even be quite entertaining.

KL folks spend a lot of time on the road listening to the idle chatter of radio DJs and the constant repetition of silly Manglish commercials. To me that's wasted bandwidth. And we complain that we do not have enough time to read. Why not make better use of one's time by listening to a book while driving?

And for avid readers, one can easily double one's intake of books by using those bits and pieces of time while commuting or doing household chores by listening to audiobooks. Information, unlike food, can be absorbed through many different channels. So, teach your ears how to read too.

Nilam & Sukma

Nilam & Sukma

There are beggars everywhere in Jakarta but I am familiar with two particular ones who normally beg along Jalan Wahid Hasyim. These two middle-aged ladies know me by sight and would always call me Om (uncle), everytime I pass by. Actually I am fond of their kids, Nilam and Sukma--both girls, around two to three years old, who are always either sleeping or fiddling with pieces of junk food beside them.

Nilam and Sukma are sweet-faced cherubs who shouldn't belong to the streets. But their mothers are professional beggars: having their children there scrounging by their side, elicits greater sympathy from passers-by. One can never be sure if the beggars are really their mothers--I just take their word for it.

The beggars seem to have some kind of duty roster: Sometimes one of the pairs would be stationed at an overhead bridge, the other outside the Robinson departmental store along Jalan Sabang. Sometimes you would see both Nilam and Sukma together with their mothers along the Jalan Wahid Hasyim sidewalk--like one big happy family having a picnic by the roadside. If I happen to meet only one of them, I'll usually ask where the other is.

Because I am such a regular passerby, they are not pushy towards me. I'll drop some coins into their cups every now and then, but not always. They know that I am fond of taking pictures of Nilam and Sukma. Sometimes out of nowhere I'd hear someone calling me (Om, foto, foto!) and I would turn to see Sukma's mother sitting there on the pedestrian bridge, beaming, with Sukma sleeping soundly beside her.

Lately I haven't been seeing them that much along my usual walking route. Maybe they have stationed themselves elsewhere.

I know, years from now, I'll think back of my days in Jakarta, and recall the smudged faces of Nilam and Sukma. They probably won't be begging like their mothers; but I'm quite sure they will still be out there in the streets, perhaps plying a different trade, along Jalan Hayam Wuruk at night.

The Soul of a City

The Soul of a City

I've been spending the weekend preparing for my lectures for the coming weeks. Looks like teaching has suddenly become my fulltime job, at least for this month. In between my weekly teaching engagements, I hope to take a much-needed break by doing some travelling.

I haven't done that much travelling during my two year stay here, except for business-related trips to places like Bandung, Surabaya and Makassar. Everytime I go on such trips, I am so terribly tied up with meetings and presentations that I rarely have time to really loiter around those places and observe the people in their daily lives.

It's also different when you are travelling with colleagues: Your usually preoccupations are where to eat next and which nightspot to go to after work. I never get a chance to sit in a local coffee shop and spend some time reading a book.

Every town or city has a different feeling and atmosphere. It is that feeling--the soul of the city--that I like to tap into. I've spent years trying to penetrate the soul of Jakarta; I'm still not certain that I've truly understood this city, though I've tried my very best. I will be leaving Jakarta for good at the end of the month but I believe I'll still be dropping by often, either for business or pleasure.

I will suffer from withdrawal symptoms back in KL. My remedy will be to watch Peter Weir's Year of Living Dangerously again and again to reexperience the chaotic beauty that is Jakarta. (Doesn't matter if the film wasn't exactly shot in Indonesia--the Phillipines looks similar enough).

Maybe it is time for me to rediscover the soul of Kuala Lumpur. I have lots of memories hidden there too, in every nook and corner of the city. KL looks spankingly new and efficient these days with its many tollbooths and highways, LRTs and monorails. I hope it hasn't lost its soul.

Starchild

Starchild

Two days ago, I shifted out from the hotel where I have been staying for the past two years to a cheaper one down the road. So far I'm quite pleased with this quaint old hotel which I have chosen as my temporary home. It is very quiet compared to the previous one, which was always bustling with corporate seminars and functions.

In the lobby here, a huge grandfather's clock lets out sonorous chimes every hour; old soot-covered oil paintings adorn the walls and one could easily walk up the circular stairway to its three floors of reasonably tidy rooms. There's even a portrait of a young Sukarno overlooking the dining/breakfast area--a semi-covered courtyard with an indoor garden filled with moist shrubs and water trickling into a pond of splashing fishes. A crumbling upright piano sits silently in one corner, and everywhere else, Javanese stone statues stare out blankly.

The place has perhaps seen more glorious times. But now it is a quiet and forgotten place--perfect for my brief stay here. I needed the isolation and solitude to work on my upcoming lectures and to plan for my travels for the next two or three weeks.

I even have time for breakfast these days. Sitting there in that deserted hall, amidst empty tables and the hollow clank of cups and saucers, I feel a bit like the astronaut Bowman in the final scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that very memorable sequence we see Bowman going through the mundane activity of eating as he ages progressively and finally gasping on his deathbed in front of the hovering Black Monolith. And then we see the birth of the Starchild...

Aging, transformation, rebirth. The only thing missing is Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye

There was a couple hours of bright sunshine in the middle of this rainy season here in Jakarta; it was the bluest of skies and and the most brilliant of light I have seen for a long time. The rain had cleansed the air and it was a perfect day for photography.

I had walked from my hotel to the Gambir train station to purchase a ticket for my trip next week. As usual I had my camera with me and I didn't waste a second to make full use of that beautiful light. I walked towards Monas and took pictures of the monument from every angle. The grass there was also at its greenest, thanks to the rain that has not stop pouring over the past month or so. I couldn't ask for a more photogenic Monas.

Being there in Monas, I had to make my pilgrimage to the bust of Chairil Anwar, located on the northern end of the park, in front of Diponegoro's statue. I read the poem that was etched there at the base of the bust: Krawang-Bekasi. I admired his imagery of "tulang-tulang berserakan" (scattered bones) and "jam dinding yang berdetak" (ticking wall clock). That line: "Jika ada rasa hampa dan jam dinding yang berdetak" brought back memories of scenes from Wong Kar Wai's movies (especially Days of Being Wild) where wall clocks are a recurrent motif.

I stood there for a while, perhaps saying a final goodbye to Monas, which has watched over my two very happy years in Jakarta. I looked towards the trees where Fromberg Park used to be and the place where the prostitute Aminah from Pramoedya's Tjerita Dari Djakarta had called home. And I thought Chairil Anwar's bust was appropriately placed, facing this former haunt of prostitutes.

For a moment I felt sad, having finally to say goodbye to Jakarta. But I have one month to do so. And there's no better place for me to begin my long goodbye, right there in front of the bust of Chairil Anwar, beneath the most prominent landmark of Jakarta: that mammoth gold-tipped lingam that is Sukarno's Monas.

Child at a Night Fair

Child at a Night Fair

For some reason I chose Pramoedya's It's Not an All Night Fair--the English translation of Bukan Pasar Malam, as the first book to read this year. Maybe it's because the book is rather thin, and it has been lying in my hotel room for some time. Maybe it's because it is about a journey home...

The book is a rather sad one--a semi-autobiographical account of a man's journey home to see his ailing father. Though it is a fictional account, there are many parallels between the events in the book and Pramoedya's life, as recounted in the Mute's Soliloquy: That book brought tears to my eyes when I first read it--especially the chapter about his mother's death.

One whole month of laborious technical writing has made my mind dry and rigid; I needed a dose of pathos badly to moisten my soul again. Pramoedya is a good choice because he never fails to touch me with his sensitive protrayal of the working class.

In It's Not an All Nights Fair, the protagonist has to borrow money in Jakarta to make the train journey home to Blora in East Java. After visiting his father in the hospital, he realises that his family house is also crumbling from age. An elderly neighbour gently reminds him that "if a house is falling apart, the people who live in it are falling apart too". Out of a sense of guilt and responsibility for his family home, he decides to repair the house. Again the problem of money haunts him...

In The Mute's Soliloquy, Pramoedya wrote how he spent whatever money he got from his writing to repair his family home but his wife was not happy about it. Pramoedya's sense of responsibility to his family after his parents' death was a constant source of argument with his first wife then, who felt that he was spending too much unnecessary money and attention on them. It wasn't a very happy marriage--one that inevitably ended in divorce. It was then that Pramoedya moved out from his in-law's house in Kampung Kebon Jahe Kober. (I wrote about my visit to that house in a previous blog entry)

I'm still in the process of reading "It's Not an All Night Fair" and will probably finish it by tomorrow. After that I'm not sure what I'll be reading. Now that I'm free from my work, I feel like a child at a night fair--a world of delights has just opened up itself to me. It sure feels good to be a child again, well at least for a month.

The Kaleidoscope of Life

The Kaleidoscope of Life

A new year is a good time to start afresh. There's a sense of renewal, a feeling of optimism that things will be better. As for me, I try to think of every day as a New Year's day. There is no time to waste; I don't really have to wait until the end of the year to reassess and rechart my future. A pilot makes many tiny adjustments during the entire course of the flight.

But still New Year's eve is a good starting point, because there's a sense of resolve in the air. We should latch on to it and ride the winds of change. The real challenge however is to maintain one's course for the rest of the year. So often we forget our resolutions and veer away from our original goals.

I have officially closed one chapter of my life and will be starting another soon. I often write about the natural rhythm of human affairs: I have been sensing the rhythm of things around me and feel it is finally time for me to move on. Without doing so I will not be renewing myself; I will not progress to my next level of transformation.

Life is an upward spiral motion of constant renewal. In Lila, Robert Pirsig's "sequel" to his beat classic, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he wrote of society having the tendency to slowly progress forward and then latch on to the next stable state, before something else triggers the next level of transformation.

Life progressses a bit like that too. At certain points in our lives we latch on to certain stable states, or what we call comfort zones. Remaining there however, is to invite decay. I become vary everytime I feel a bit too comfortable. My experiences have taught me that being over-attached to one's comfort zone is to be unprepared for changes that will inevitably come.

We have to transform ourselves all the time and participate in change--for that is the nature of the universe. Everytime we move forward and upward, we discover new things about ourselves. New patterns emerge. It is like peering into a kaleidoscope: rotate it, you'll see an entirely new universe.

Remember, the Kaleidoscope of Life has the potential to offer an infinity of patterns.
Happy New Year!

The Rewards of Teaching

The Rewards of Teaching

I have not written anything so far about the part-time teaching that I do twice a week at a local university. I teach an information systems course for first year undergraduate students. Now that I am finally free(!) from my regular job, I can reflect a bit on my experience in teaching.

Teaching can be a very rewarding thing to do because if you do it well, you influence many people's lives. Financially speaking, the money that I get out of it is not exactly worth my time, but to me it is an opportunity to serve the community. And I am thankful for this privilege.

My students are very young--18, 20 at most. They are in many ways smarter than I was when I was their age because things like computers and Internet are already part of their everyday lives. I only learnt how to use a computer during my final year in university.

I was never a computer science or information systems student--I was an engineering geek. Everything I know about information systems is learnt through experience. So it is also very educational for me to see how a regular information systems course is taught based on the official syllabus. It amuses me sometimes to see how the subject is presented in textbooks: It is so rigid and detached from reality. I can understand why some students feel bored.

Information systems is a subject that I can teach without much preparation because I deal with it everyday in practical customer situations. But to be able to teach the subject well, one still needs to do some amout of preparation.

I usually build about 40 Powerpoint slides to fill up each two-hour lecture session. I have to think how to explain difficult concepts in a way that is easily understood. I try to illustrate them with everyday examples.

Sometimes I feel like a film director trying to determine the pacing of a two-hour movie. At which point should you hit them with the really hard facts? How do you win over the audience and set them up for the kill?

Every lesson needs to have an introduction, development, a climax and a final denouement. You have to bear in mind that the attention span of the audience waxes and wanes over the two-hour period. You have to interspede dull moments with more upbeat ones; you have to engage the audience.

I do not think I succeed very well as a teacher, but I try my best. I am perhaps a bit too lenient with my students. But I guess it is alright--they are young and will grow up to be useful individuals. At 18, you are still struggling with the demons of adolescence. It challenges me greatly to think from their point of view: Words and concepts that I'm so used to spouting in front of my customers have to be reexamined, because what is crystal clear to me may be hazy in their young minds.

Like what I've mentioned in a previous blog entry, the best way to learn is to teach. Teaching also makes me a better IT professional. I realised that what is sometimes obvious to me may not be so to my customer. Every two hour session to me is another training in public-speaking.

As a lecturer, I a get to learn so much--perhaps even more than what my students learn from me. I cannot help but be grateful.

The Purpose of Work

The Purpose of Work

Feeling exhausted after having worked through my entire Christmas holidays. Today is the first day back in the office after that four day break. The city is still quiet and empty. There's another two days of holidays coming up--31st and 1st of January 2004. I definitely won't be working on those days.

There is a spiritual purpose to work. Work is an act of worship, especially those conducted selflessly. The noblest ideal expounded by karma yoga is to do work without expecting anything in return. Through work, one is transformed spiritually; one ascends to a deeper level of understanding about oneself.

It is good if one's work brings financial rewards. All rewards are a blessing. However my greatest reward from work is seeing things happen as a result of it, being able to assist friends in the process and having the opportunity to put my creative stamp on it. Sometimes work itself is the reward.

Work can be a drag or an adventure, depending on how we look at it. At its most difficult, we can look at it as penance. Through our hardship, we become a better person. We should always be grateful for being given the opportunity to work. We define ourselves through our work.

However the challenge for most people is to find their true vocation. Not sure if I've found mine yet. Doesn't matter. At the meantime, I'll just, continue working.

Pleasurable Choices

Pleasurable Choices

Sometimes in life, there good problems: One of them is deciding what to read next. There are so many tantalising authors and titles out there, making a decision can be very tough thing to do.

For the past month or so, I haven't seriously read any book from cover to cover. I've been dipping myself in and out of non-fictional books from my own library, reading more for information than pleasure. Time and Newsweek are also part of my regular staple.

I've refrained myself from plunging into any book because I wanted to maintain my concentration on that long report I've been struggling to finish. I am close to the finishing line now and I want to reward myself with a good read after this laborious task. I feel a bit like a student who is going through an examination and is eagerly looking forward to the long vacation after that.

Yes, my "vacation" is coming up soon. What could be more pleasurable than to be able to do some reading and travelling at the same time? I've read all the Theroux travel books that I could get my hands on. Maybe I should discover a new author that I've not read before. Colin Thubron looks promising. I've also not read any by Bruce Chatwin before. He is highly praised, even by Theroux.

Or maybe I should start reading some Graham Greene--his style seems to suit me. I've read some non-fictional works by VS Naipaul but I think I am missing a lot in life if I do not sample some of his fictional works like A House for Mr Biswas.

There are so many good authors that I have not read before. Everytime I go to a bookstore, I feel like throwing up my hands in despair. I haven't mentioned the Indonesian books that I want to attempt: Saman by Ayu Utami or maybe Arus Balik by Pramoedya Ananta Toer.

People often tell me that I'm missing a lot because I don't read Chinese. They are probably right. But I think I'll go crazy with the choices that would be available to me if I do. My sanity is more important.

We have over a hundred satellite TV channels at home but how many channels we seriously watch in a day? I think I'll just stick to my BBC and ESPN.

Discarding the Past

Discarding the Past

This morning I spent a few hours in the office clearing away my old documents. I have tons of them: project papers, proposals, RFPs, whitepapers, notes, minutes-of-meeting--all the vestiges of the past.

When I left Singapore two years ago, I threw away a lot of my old stuff. But there were still many project files which I thought would be useful for me in the future. I shipped them all to Jakarta.

Now I realised that I had kept them because of sentimental reasons: I did not have the heart to "erase" all the hardwork that I had put in--days and nights slogging in my small HDB room, the cold nights in the office waiting for conference calls and the hurried proposals I wrote in strange hotel rooms in distant lands. Those papers were proof of those tumultuously exciting years that I had spent in the IT industry.

Today I threw them all away. It was like having a lobotomy, but I needed this cathartic experience. I wanted a fresh start.

All the hardwork that I had put in, all those years, will not disappear just because I threw away some yellowing piles of paper. My knowledge and experience is still with me. I am hopefully a better person because of everything that I had gone through.

We burden the soul by clinging to the weight of the past. I feel freer now that I have discarded their symbolic traces. I look forward to my new found freedom. It is that beautiful lightness of being all over again.

The Happiness of Hotels

The Happiness of Hotels

I can vegetate forever in my hotel room. For some reason, I feel very at home and happy in hotels. Some of my friends have problems sleeping the first few nights everytime they check into a hotel. I've never had that problem. Hotels--even the cheap ones--are always cozy and comfortable to me. I always sleep like a log.

I also know some people, especially women, who are afraid to stay in a hotel alone. I can understand that: hotel rooms are so impersonal, so claustrophobic--at times, one could feel a bit isolated from the rest of the world staying in one. The loneliness and fear can be quite unbearable.

Sometimes you also hear weird tales of unseen "forces" disturbing guests in hotel rooms. A male colleague of mind in Singapore who had such experiences before now never leaves home without his religious amulets. Even hotel workers at the hotel where I'm staying at tells me tales of noises in unoccupied rooms or water taps that open by itself. I find them amusing.

I've never had any such supernatural encounters before. Such things never even cross my mind whenever I check into a hotel. I only think of hotels as being abodes of privacy and comfort. Throughout my working life, I've stayed in many hotels before. Among the luxury ones, I love the Regent group of hotels the most. I've stayed in every one of their establishments in South East Asia--Bangkok, Jakarta, Singapore and even KL. The ones in Jakarta and Bangkok are my favourites.

To me a hotel room is my sanctuary in a strange foreign place. I remember staying in a motel in California for more than a month during my first trip to the States. I can't think of a happier time in my life. I spent a lot of time there reading, watching HBO and eating Chinese takeouts.

I've been calling a hotel my home here in Jakarta for the past two years. Leaving the place will be sad for me. But I am a nomad--I shouldn't be too attached to a place. Nomads always have to move on...

The Dull IT Professional

The Dull IT Yuppie

Woke up to rain and wetness today. Jakarta city is quiet. I suppose people are still recovering from the night's Christmas revelry.

I remember I used to have a lot fun doing Christmas coundowns in pubs during the days when I was working in KL. Come to think of it, I haven't done any countdown celebrations--be it Christmas or New Year--for a very long time. Somehow these things don't interest you that much anymore when you grow older.

I've mentioned before, that I see aging as a process of transformation. It is strange that certain things only come with age. When you are young, you feel that you want to try everything and to enjoy life as much as possible; as you grow older, the things you used to consider as "pleasurable" lose some of their appeal to you. Enjoyment takes on a different meaning. You seek to find something deeper, longer lasting and more meaningful.

I mentioned yesterday about some of my "crazy" interests. There's however a more serious side to these leisure pursuits of mine: I want to constantly keep my mind active. The day I grow old is the day that I resign myself to pushing shopping carts in hypermarkets.

All my pursuits are nerdy ones. You'll never find me going scuba-diving or playing golf like what many of my friends do. I think these are fun activities too, but I have to prioritize. Outdoor activities to me means travelling to some foreign town, loitering in the streets, observing and eavesdropping on the locals. Adventure to me means exploring the grubby side of Jakarta and talking to occupants of rumah kos.

In the final analysis, I am just a middleclass bobo with bohemian pretensions--another dull IT yuppie who probably should be doing Christmas countdowns at the local pub.

The Indonesian Bohemian

The Indonesian Bohemian

I've always tried to spend Christmas back in KL. Usually I'll be having drinks with my friends in downtown KL or Bangsar on Christmas eve. But looks like this year, I'll be stuck in Jakarta, trying to finish my work.

It's not too bad though, being "stuck" here. I think the town will be rather quiet and I have four days of public holidays ahead. Four days of complete, uninterrupted concentration on my work. After that I am a free man. Free to pursue some of my favourite subjects...

My colleague Aris asked me what will be my next interest after Sukarno. Aris is a Sundanese from Bandung and I had consulted him extensively about all the Sukarno-related places in the town before I went on my crazy Sukarno pilgrimage there a couple of weeks back. He was surprised that I even managed to visit the grave of Marhaen! But my Sukarno adventure is not done yet: I haven't visited his grave at Blitar, East Java; and I have not explored his former dwellings in Bengkulu, Yogjakarta and even Ende, Flores. Maybe I won't get a chance to do all that, but I'll definitely try.

I told Aris that the next subject that I might pursue is the poet Chairil Anwar (1922-1945). I had discovered his poems during my university years when by chance I bought an old 1960s edition of his anthology of poems, Kerikil Tadjam (Sharp Rocks) from a book sale. I didn't know who he was then but I thoroughly enjoyed all his poems. I have been a fan ever since and My Kerikil Tadjam book remains one of most treasured possessions. Too bad Chairil Anwar died young and did not leave a great body of work.

But his mark in Indonesian literature has been indelible: he is the icon of youthful rebellion, almost in the James Dean mould. His famous poem "Aku" is the anthem of the idealistic individual. A pioneer of the Angkatan 45 movement, he perhaps is the first bohemian writer of Indonesian literary scene. I still keep an a newspaper clipping of an article about Chairil Anwar, written by Salleh Ben Joned in his New Straits Times column, As I Please, published in the late 1980s.

All these years, the poems from Kerikil Tadjam kept lingering in my mind. Now, who do you think own the kerikil.com domain? Right now it points to this blog but I'm saving it for some future project...

You see, I have enough crazy obsessions to last me a lifetime! But for the next four days, I'll have to clear my mind of all such crazy thoughts and focus on my boring IT work. Poor me. To the rest of the world, Merry Christmas!

Learning, Familiarity & Understanding

Learning, Familiarity & Understanding

It is often said that the best way to learn is to teach. I find that to be very true; in the course of my IT career, I often had to present to customers on topics that I wasn't very familiar with. I had to learn to master the subject in a short period of time and then talk about it with relative confidence. This forced me to learn very quickly and whatever I learnt through that difficult process remained with me forever.

To learn something well, the mind must always be seeking. We must have a goal in mind, an application, or a deep desire to understand. Many students who attend school do not see the relevance of what they are studying. As a result, very little is learnt in the process.

Learning is also difficult when there are too many preconceptions in mind. The old Zen saying about having to empty the cup of one's mind first is definitely true. Subjects like physics, mathematics and philosophy are fascinating to me because you often have to change your familiar view of the world before you could comprehend their concepts fully. And that is not easy. One cannot grasp them in one reading. It is a process that takes time; sometimes years and decades.

The impatient student would give up half-way, claiming that they do not have the aptitude or talent for the subject. That is the wrong attitude. They must first learn to familiarize themselves with the materials and not worry too much about understanding. Like what I alluded to in a previous blog entry, understanding starts from familiarity. Through the process of familiarisation, we begin to internalize difficult concepts; and suddenly, one day we realise that we actually understand what they meant.

This applies to human relationships too. To know someone well, we must get familiar with the person first. Only after years of interaction, can we claim to have understood a person. We cross the border from familiarity to understanding without us realising it most of the time. Familiarity and understanding are merely two ends of the same spectrum. Make sense, No? Well, start getting familiar with it first.

My Mindprint

My Mindprint

Many describe a blog as an online journal, even the recent ClickOnline show on BBC. To me that is only a partial description of what I want to achieve with my blog. There are also others who insist that "real" blogs are those that provide links to other websites, along with the writer's commentaries. That they insist, is the real value and purpose of weblogs--a gateway and filter to information.

I've mentioned in a previous entry that my blog entries are like daily prayers. I examine my thoughts for the day, reflect on the day's events and vow to do better tomorrow. At least the commitment to blog everyday is like one's commitment to pray daily. It is a discipline that perfects the soul. It is my daily self-motivation exercise. My blog is my humble exercise book.

Blogging to me is also an excuse for me to review movies, books and talk about things that interest me. Whenever I do so, my blog acts more like the traditional weblog--pointing readers to interesting sites for further information. To provide these links, I have to search through cyberspace and find out what I think are the best sources of information for the topics that I am discussing. The side-benefit of blogging is purposeful surfing.

There's also another psycho-analytical reason for me to blog. I want to see the inter-relationships and patterns between my thoughts. As I deposit my thoughts onto cyberspace everyday, and link them to external sites, I unconsciously create an "Extraspace" that links my inner world--my memories and thoughts--with information that exist out there in cyberspace. My blog acts like a portal to this combined Extraspace of mind and Internet.

A chunk of my mind now exists in cyberspace--my mindprint, if you will. My mind is intricately linked with the Cybermind, through this blog; in other words, the Internet has become an extension of my mind. The microcosm and the macrocosm has been seamlessly connected.

A blog is an going dialog between the writer and the reader and also between my external and inner selves. Today's blog is linked to a previous blog entry which also touched on how I view blogging. It is an on-going development of a theme. By linking these strands of thoughts together, I can detect patterns and tendencies in my thinking. I unravel my own thoughts in the process and evolve my thinking to the next level.

Through blogging, I watch my thoughts grow everyday, on the fertile soil of cyberspace.

Crossing the Poverty Line

Crossing the Poverty Line

I read a translation of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras when I was a freshman at the university. The Yoga Sutras contain 196 aphorisms that neatly captures the science and philosophy of Yoga.

When I first read it, it was quite difficult to understand. Now after all these years, the concepts have become quite clear to me. I have an audio recording of Vivekananda's commentary on the Yoga Sutras and it is my favourite bedtime listening here in Jakarta.

During my university years, I read a lot on Eastern religions and philosophy. I think one can still detect many of these influences in my blog entries--especially those about the mind. Perhaps my rather ascetic lifestyle nowadays can also be attributed to them.

I went through many different phases in my reading life. At one time I was also deep into western philosophy. My first introduction to it was Bertrand Russell's famous book: A History of Western Philosophy--the paperback copy which I bought for 20 ringgit at the university bookstore. I remember at that time I had to decide whether to spend the money on the book or to join the class trip to Port Dickson; the choice was clear to me then.

I consider myself lucky that I don't have to make such choices now. Even though I am not rich, I can afford to buy any book that I choose to read. In fact I once told a former boss of mine that I crossed the poverty line the day I bought a book without looking at the price. The scarce commodity for me now is not money but time.

Over the years, I have resisted indulging in expensive hobbies that friends my age are into--golf, cars and diving. I remain a boring bookworm. Books are expensive but they are not as expensive as a golf club membership. I am not keen to acquire all the trappings of wealth--they bore me, utterly. As long as can afford to buy the books that I want to read, I'll always feel rich.

Kill Another Day

Kill Another Day

It looks like I'll be spending Christmas in Jakarta this year. I was back in KL a couple of weeks ago for Lebaran, so it does not make sense for me to go back again so soon. Furthermore I have so much work that I have to clear by Christmas.

Let's not talk about work, which is boring. Let's talk about movies. It's sad that I haven't had the opportunity to watch that many movies this year. The last one that I watched was The Matrix Revolutions back in KL. Since coming back to Jakarta I have not stepped foot into a cinema. I wanted to watch Kill Bill (which one of my friends say is a stupid movie) but I couldn't spare the time to do so. I am a big fan of director Quentin Tarantino; even if people say the movie is stupid, I'd still watch it. I don't care much about other people's opinion when it comes to movies.

I first watched Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in Hong Kong in 1995. That movie entertained and astounded me. Have been a great fan of Tarantino ever since. I like the way his characters are killed off in his movies without a big fuss (Travolta in Pulp Fiction, Samuel L. Jackson and Bridget Fonda in Jackie Brown)--no sentimental monologue or trite exchange of words over gunpoint before dying. Cool.

Tarantino is a big fan of Hong Kong kungfu and cop movies. He is also an admirer of Hong Kong auteur film-maker Wong Kar Wai--another one of my favourites. I must write an entire blog entry about Wong Kar Wai one day. There's so much to write about that I don't know where to start.

Found out from the 21 Cineplex website that Kill Bill is still playing in a couple of places including Block M Plaza and Atrium--two of my favourite malls. It is tempting indeed but unfortunately, I don't have the luxury this weekend to kill my time watching Kill Bill. I suppose I'll let Bill live, to die another day.

Tears in the Rain

Tears in the Rain

It has been raining daily here in Jakarta; this together with the on-going Busway project which effectively takes out two lanes from the already congested Sudirman road make traffic horrendous. I've been leaving the office early lately to avoid both. Moreover I want to be back in my room so that I can start doing my work at home earlier.

I am reminded of the bad working habits that I used to have in Singapore, like going to the office when people were just leaving, to work throughout the night. I used to work on most weekends too, which wasn't really healthy. But I had to make up for my lack of productivity on weekdays by working on Saturdays and Sundays. New recruits in the office would often ask me whether I was new, because they never saw me during office hours.

But those were heady days of the dot-com boom when there were virtually new people joining the company every week. We saw how the company lost its senses doing those boom times. We were once proud of being lean and mean, but the boom changed all that--we couldn't grow fast enough. Success ruined us.

We had a cause to fight for. We, the soldiers in the trenches, used to fight with our lives because we felt passionate for our cause. Alas, we lost all that during those boom years.

The rain in Jakarta makes me feel rather melancholy these days. For some reason I'm constantly reminded of that scene from one of my all-time favourite movies, Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott: In the climatic scene (delivered with Scott's usual dazzle of rain, smoke and lights), the fugitive replicant, played by Rutger Hauer, resigning to his inevitable death (replicants were genetically engineered to have a lifespan of only 4 years), delivers a sad monologue:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain...

Outside my window, the rain is still pouring.

Choir Days

Choir Days

When I was primary school student, I was part of the choir team (we called it "kuayer"). No, I wasn't a particularly good singer, but I simply loved those traditional and patriotic Malay songs that they used to teach us to sing.

Today, many people feel slightly disgusted everytime they see Siti Nurhaliza go on TV to belt out one of those pro-government patriotic songs. I hate to admit it, but I kind of enjoy them, because it brings back good memories of my primary schooldays.

Until today I can still remember the lyrics of songs like Tanah Pusaka (...biar putih tulang jangan putih mata) and Sungai Pahang (...hilir-mudik, dan membawa berita). Our music teacher, the bubbly Mr Chin--ever-ready with his accordion--used to teach us traditional children's songs like Ikan Kekek, Enjit Enjit Semut and Burung Ketilang. I wonder if they still teach these songs now.

During the puasa month, we'd sing Selamat Hari Raya and when Chinese New Year was approaching he'd be teaching us to sing "Her Sin Nian" phonetically. And of course, we had to sing the school's song (Sekolahku) and the national anthem, Negaraku every Monday and Friday at the assembly.

So forgive me if I am such a patriot now, for I've been "brainwashed" ever since I was a kid. I have no regrets, because my soul was forged in Malaysia. No matter how far I go, I will always return to the land where the mighty Sungai Pahang flows: Tanah Pusakaku, Malaysia, where my soul will ultimately find its peace.