That Makes It So Special

That Makes It So Special

“That’s so kind, why I am so welcome, why she missed me as I didn’t visit her for some time, me, a regular visitor of her footstall in Tonjong village, an old scarecrow on a bike in a sport shirt and shorts. I spend just Rp. 5.000.-, (half a dollar) you know?” said opa Johan to his wife. “ That’s for a hearty morning breakfast of tasty nasi uduk still warm, (coconut milk cooked rice) an egg and vegetables. That’s wonderful, that makes it so special. She would never become rich out of me.” he continued.

“Do you remember when our son told us about his visit with his family to a restaurant to eat a special dish recently? It was charged about one million Rp each and they were three. Just think, that’s 600 times my meal. While I enjoyed, ate mine leisurely at the lake side nearby the village. But I’ve not forgotten you as I certainly shared this with you in my mind. Ha, ha, ha. Why don’t you kiss me, you little ungrateful creature?”

September 2008

Elly Ameling

Elly Ameling

As I heard her singing Brahms Songs on CD, so true - I have no words -, I just would kiss it.

August 2008

Childhood In The Thirties 1

Childhood In The Thirties 1

At that time my granddad took me in his Fiat, heavily laden with his children – I and my brother had to duck meeting a police officer on the road - to his country house in his rubber plantation Sadeng Jamboe a village located near Buitenzorg (Bogor). Among the village huts, this was like a mansion, a palace, white, with huge pillars, half covered behind the trees where the river Cikaniki runs past.

As a warm welcome in the arms of Mother Nature we again saw the so well-known sights of atap palms, the iron bridge, the river, the big pond, then turned left and rode the alleyway. My granddad tooted and village children swarm in welcome, ran after the car or triumphantly jumped and rode along on the back bumper or on the side step.

We again saw the low, wild bamboo hedge, of which we made our fishing rods, the high coconut-, the bald kapok-trees with the boot shaped manyar nests, the huts in the orchard and we then stopped at a rustic small wooden back gate of the house and we, my brother and I ran as happy puppies along the long open corridor to celebrate our joy.

The country house had a wide, open front gallery with white pillars, high, wide windows and doors. High on the wall on both sides of its entrance door were two guardians of bronze. The floor was of marble, there were Chinese porcelain flower pots, tables, high chairs, rocking chairs, big wall mirrors antique Dutch ornamented, an old piano that was out of tune, a gambang ( a wooden xylophone). In another hall was the offering table with a large portrait in a frame of my late grandmother still young and another old woman, perhaps the grandmother of my mother I’d never seen.

The halls were lit with candle like spirit lamps. On the sides of the hall were the sleeping rooms for guests, very high, roomy and each had a square mosquito bed of jati wood. It’s very creepy. They say that it was haunted. Yet I had slept there more than once but certainly with someone.

In one of these rooms the gamelan (Javanese music instruments) was stored, complete with a large wooden chest with wayang golek (wooden puppets). The puppet shows were performed on special occasions.

But no one, no child feels him, herself at home in this palace. All was silent, every sound seems queer, somber, hollow… No one lives here. We ate, slept in the smaller, cozy village house, with large square bricks and played in the open gallery with a view to the once big, beautiful garden.

Wild flowerbeds, wild footpaths with white stones paved, a big empty pigeon house, a “bell-tower”, many old fruit trees, a well and a murmuring, ditch that runs through the garden were what was still there of what was once beautiful from former times.

In the open gallery we comfortably sat, played, chatted on the floor or on a tapang (a large wooden low couch) agreeably, happy with each other. We had no toys. My aunts, still girls could be my older sisters. They read no books, there was no news paper or radio. In the wooden roof structure were hollows of bees and as the sound of a breeze cicadas chirp.

On Courage

On Courage

There are so many examples of being courageous but this one is unique.
There was a press photo in Merdeka December 2, 1995 where a young man standing with his bike was kissing princess Diana, anxiously watched by her guardian lest he should take more than one. It takes courage to solicit her Royal Highness for a kiss. That was certainly more than a one million dollar favor.

August 2008

An Old Wall

An Old Wall

There was a long, high, old wall along Jl. Petojo Enclek XIV as though the remains of a wall of an old fortress. It was beautifully grown, decorated with creeping plants. They framed the old wide former windows and gates, without to plant and water them. Walking there was like wandering in a village, though you were in the center of Jakarta. But that was a long time ago.

Another curiosity was a tree that embraced the wall with its roots as exotic as a relief in an old Eastern temple. Alas! People cut him down. Only its roots were saved, free from destruction, offence and affront, but that was still enough and valuable who as Job was hit by 1001 adversities to keep himself alive.

Days before our National Day, August 17, there was the usual cleaning activity. This wall also was cleaned from all the “dirt” that was on the wall but it wasn’t a clean wall that appeared, but an ugly half ruined wall, for it were the wild plants that covered the wall with beautiful greenery and flowers as lovely hair covers, hides an ugly scar on a face.

Poor wild plants. The sun shines upon you, the rain bless you, artists would paint you in beautiful lines and colors, poets would sing of you, the wind gently rocks you to and fro and butterflies, bees, damselflies, … gratefully kiss you.

It’s the Creator who painted it and that tree on that wall. He adorns, decorates our ditches, paths, slopes, rivers, mountains, lakes, even ruins with weeds, wild plants, wild trees.

It’s our eyes, our prejudice that considers as beautiful only what is costly, what is on exhibitions and what is exhibited - so grand and freely given - by Nature, as worthless, weed, dirt.

There’s a stately, noble waringin tree of over a century - 10 men couldn’t embrace him -, lucky standing in Istiqlal Mosque, safe, protected from being cut down.

October 1987

From Media Indonesia August 23, 1991

Souvenir From Beijing

Souvenir From Beijing

Dedeh Erawati our 100 M hurdle women’s sprinter finished last in her heat. She wasn’t disappointed, waited tensely for the official announcement on the board, then she cried after reading it. She was elated having surpassed the national and the SEA Games record 2007 which was on her name. Only she, her two trainers, a friend and an Indonesian reporter who reported this were happy, proud of this feat. Unnoticed, without a medal, she certainly is our hero.

I surely have no less respect or gratitude for our athletes who succeeded to win a medal and raised our dignity in the world. But it’s not necessary to mention them, since the whole world knows, acknowledges, respects them.

How we yearn, thirst even for a bronze as a rice field yearns for rain during a drought. And we‘re so grateful. happy and proud as we got not just one but more than one and more than a bronze medal.

I remember the time when Indonesia was so strong in the men’s Badminton single. “The Magnificent Seven”, so the papers praised. It was as though this class was the class, the super class, the king among the other classes: the double, women single, mixed double are, so to say, second class. We would benignly pass the honor of these classes to others. But to day, they, the “second classers”, are our heroes who raised our dignity in the eyes of the world winning an Olympic medal. Certainly, these classes are as sterling as the men single’s class.

But they are not our only heroes. Those that fought to have badminton on the Olympic agenda and to continue it in the future are also heroes. Without them we wouldn’t have ranked so high. Our position would drop as we only could rely on our athletes that are not badminton players.

Our achievements are not just due solely to the efforts of our athletes. We certainly ought to be grateful for the hard work of coaches, trainers, financial support, … those who participated for our athletes to succeed.

Remember! I haven’t mastered the art of painting in English.

Agustus 2008

Monas Park

Monas Park

A visit to Monas (National Monument) is refreshing, relaxing for the Jakarta citizen, stressed after seeing, hearing all the dreary “modern” fuss of an over-crowded city-life.

Trees planted in Monas are now growing into shady woods. Wandering leisurely through it as through Nature’s chapel, treading as on a carpet of golden acacia pollen, hearing de woods resound with wonderful choirs and echoes of singing insects, seeing the green leafage of the bamboo, or the king palm burst into showers of blossoms, seeing the lace-like silhouette foliage against the sky, watching the floating clouds pass by like subtle thoughts or feelings, hearing the joyful chatter and twitter of hundreds or perhaps thousands of starlings and sparrows high up in some tall mahogany tree at dawn and on their return at sunset, breathing the fragrant soft scented air of woods and blossoms, … How cool the shade beneath the trees, how fresh the morning breeze.

I’d even found an oasis, a bubbling spring from some underground broken PAM water-pipe, making lovely shallow pools of unusually clear water, gently flowing as a rivulet. In it were tadpoles, water-snails; fresh water crabs, an occasional fish was sporting among the grass and weeds as water-plants while delicate damselflies were hovering, perching and swaying on its leaves as though on fancy trees and bushes along its banks. It would be fine if we could have some “leakages” made on purpose, as to create more permanent springs, pools and streamlets, at least for birds to drink and frogs and dragon-, damsel-flies to breed.

There is a stately young waringin, waiting for deer; coconut trees waiting for squirrels to chase and play hide-and-seek; woods for birds, chameleons, big tree-spiders, forest-ants, fireflies, grasshoppers, chirping crickets, cicadas that sing in the breeze; ponds, waiting for a duck-family or water-birds, frogs, fish, water-lilies; flowers that should invite bees and butterflies and not to forget the little snails, looking like fairy-tale sledges or tiny sailing boats, sliding and sailing up and down on stalks and leaves.

It’s people that were doing most of the harm on holidays as they flock or swarm like ants, making a lot of noise, playing loud music and leaving much dirt and rubbish behind.

How I wish Monas someday, growing so large in area that it would include Lapangan Banteng, the Istiqlal mosque, the Cathedral, Immanuel church, the Palace and the Ciliwung river flowing through it. But that wouldn’t happen in the near future as we only slowly would become wiser. Perhaps we’d see the storks and herons visiting Jakarta again as in former times; sailing, gliding, occasionally sporting in soaring, diving, circling, dancing as fascinating fireworks and vanishing away as in a dream or the close of a wonderful song.

Indonesia Times, July 8, 1986