Indonesian Diary Entry
18/8 Yesterday was Indonesian Independence Day. Like the 4th of July, it is largely a break in the work action. For us, it was a day off from school (unwelcome in my case), for others a real holiday. A few of my feathered neighbors seemed to be missing this morning – their participation in the holiday was of a different sort.
The holiday was made more significant by the new administration. I cannot compare Megawati’s public reception to any others of this country (and needless to say, one wouldn’t want to compare it to anything in the States) so my observation is seriously impaired. Nonetheless, it seems that she is doing everything right. She is anything but charismatic, but she definitely is being well received. I should say that differently. She is doing things properly and well. Her cabinet choices have been balanced, relatively non-political, and intelligent. Where positions demand technical expertise she has chose technical people. Yesterday she gave a speech apologizing for human rights abuses in Aceh and Irian Jaya (and even E. Timor). These are two areas where the army has trod especially heavily on civilians, as well as rebels. Something else she has done in the last few days is to make public pronouncements against corruption. That is something of a national sport here, so there is absolutely no hope or expectation that it will be swept away. But there is hope that it might be kept out of her own house, and the houses of her ministers. If that can be done she will have accomplished a great deal.
It being a national holiday I did the holiday things. On one day I went to the Sultan’s Palace (Kraton Yogyakarta) and on the next day to the local zoo. Some comments are in order as this comes close to being my first travel note. The Palace is in fact the Sultan’s residence, and the Sultan is in fact in place. He is the tenth of his line and serves in the government (parliament) as well as being the ruler of Yogya. His father was very well respected and served as Minister of Defense for a while under Suharto. A visit to the Kraton is a little like a visit to the White House, in that you are visiting public areas, but the areas are more extensive and they are not as well maintained. Once again it is very easy to be critical, but it helps to remember that the average income is quite low and devoting scare public funds to the maintenance of a Sultan’s residence has mixed messages. In any case there were some parts that were really beautiful, and one could imagine fancy affairs taking place in lovely rooms. One particularly nice feature was a pavilion where performances take place daily of different local arts. During my visit there was a shadow puppet performance (wayang kulit), with gamelan backup to the show. I know I’ll see more but it was a good introduction. As always there were hoards of people, but it’s starting to be familiar.
The next day I went to the zoo: another reasonable event for a holiday weekend. The zoo was described in one of my guidebooks as “nothing special,” but I found it quite nice. Most of the animals on display were from Asia, and most of them found in some part of this vast country. One of the things I really like about the zoo was that there were almost no hawkers, and the people were mainly family groups. This made for a very nice atmosphere. A couple of interesting things are worth mention. Smoking is so common here that one never almost gets away from it. Zoo personnel, visitors, etc., were puffing away. One is always in a cloud. I expected to see the animals with cigarettes in hand. This is not fatuous. There was a keeper (I believe) leading three orang hutans (many spellings) around, and pausing frequently for people to take pictures with the animals. In fact, he would take the photos and then pocket a few thousand rupiah (25 cents U.S.) for the action. The orangs were cute (I know, politically incorrect) and were a big hit. The keeper was continuously smoking and at one point as he lit yet another cigarette I thought he was going to hand it to one of the orangs. Happily he was just working on his own health, not theirs. One could also ride an elephant for Rp. 2,000. Not a very long ride, but a real ride for the same 25 cents. The cages for the animals were pretty lousy, and some of the visitors pretty strange. I saw one fellow feeding peanuts to a camel. That’s a little strange (I don’t think of peanuts as part of the diet, and there was a “no feeding the animals” sign right in front of him), but those weren’t the issues. He was a little frightened by the beast, so rather than continue to feed one nut at a time he simply gave the animal the whole bag: in its plastic bag. So the camel swallowed the whole mess. Yuk. The birds were wonderful -- incredibly exotic animals with crests, beaks, wattles, and other bodily parts to marvel. So, if you find yourself in Yogya, do visit the zoo. Who knows what you’ll see.
If this diary were to be complete I’d also describe the play I went to, but since I understood almost none of it there is not much to describe. Hence, I won’t.