We were walking back to the hotel. There was this commotion in front of a government building (I assume so since it was guarded by heavily armed soldiers).
It seemed to be a typical Italian local festival. People carrying a shrine on a platform, bearing the image of a saint. Complete with a band. The main actors—the shrine bearers, the musicians and the dancers—wore wreaths of roses.
Yet, instead of the solemnity of a Catholic procession, it has the merriness of a Dionysean festival. The band (or should I say, mariachi?) played familiar tunes. Green Hornet, I think. People were dancing, clapping and singing in ecstatic abandon fueled by wine (and maybe other substances).
The revered Saint is a woman with many hands sitting on rose petals. Her image is modern and sensual. A syncretism of Guan Yin and Mary (or Kali and Magdalene). She does not shy away from nakedness, projecting sexuality. A profane woman by Catholic standards.
There were two young ladies who were the main dancers. One is red haired, she was wearing a normal modern day outfit—sleeveless black shirt and jeans—but with a metal armband that gave a touch of ancient divinity. The other is black haired but with blue eyes. She was wearing white dress typical of European pagan goddesses. Like in the paintings and sculptures of Greco-Roman Mythology.
When they danced, they were gorgeous. Their beauty is not of ‘lifestyle magazine commercial grade’. Not size zero and/or round American titties, but with imperfections that made them real. Their realness sent an aura of nymphs. To me, they seemed to be European ancient myth personified.
Madonna de Rose. A festival by fine art students. For me, a street performance represents Apollo’s desire to Daphne.
I would be repeating a conventional wisdom as old as history.
One of the faculties that differentiate our species as a sentient animal is the capacity for storytelling. We can create narratives which give our lives meaning and to better understand our environments. We invented languages and we can draw symbols and codes for sounds with meanings, an operating system for our brain which allows us to communicate more effectively and efficiently.
A single cell organism evolved into a complex living form because it learned how to exchange information. The exchange is necessary to survive and thrive. With books and written words, we can preserve and disseminate information. Making us collectively intelligent, and better individuals.
People who read have always been positioned at the higher string of societies. The brahmins and the druids are the intellectual class. Even the warriors, the kings, consulted and revered them. The priests and scribes of ancient Egypt did not have to do backbreaking labour and sat with the pharaohs.
Knowledge is power and a prerequisite for wisdom. Ignorance is the root of negative thoughts.
When you read books rather than news, your vision extends its timeline.You are less likely trapped in short-termism and provincialism. You’d be less encumbered by petty affairs and gossip.
You’d realise that most of your daily problems are not exclusively yours and, most of the time, there have been people who have found the solutions—either objective or subjective.
Reading good books has compounding benefits. You will be smarter by each book. They are written by humankind’s best minds. They are nuanced. The authors took their time and effort to reflect and contemplate, to research and observe, rather than being reactionary to the current events of their time.
The non-fiction teaches you the advent of human knowledge at that time and place, the zeitgeist and the platgeist. Even debunked ideas became precedents for new ideas. A paveway to the truth, by way of logical and empirical approaches.The fictions, although they are stories—lies—they enrich you by positing the underlying truth. Reading fiction is a training in critical thinking. By reading lies, you recognise the truth.
Reading fiction also enhances your artistic perception and emotional sensitivity. It develops your social skills and makes you a better conversationalist. A real asset, a necessity if you’re an extrovert who enjoys the company of people like me.
The capacity to enjoy reading is the capacity to be patient and to wait. Even before I meditated, books got me through many dull hours of life. The transitory moments such as airports, commutes, queues, or recently quarantines and lockdowns; you can be amused and educated by geniuses at such down time.
Unlike social media feeds, books are never over-stimulation and information overload. They require focus, not mindless scrolling. Consuming books for one hour will make you accomplish something, unlike that bloated and dizziness after scrolling the screen.
This is not to say social media is useless. It is just that their benefits are not as great as they advertised. In the end, social media companies are the attention merchants—an advertising industry. They are incentivised to overstimulate the users. Outrageous statements, vulgar images and words; the platform’s algorithms are designed to use and abuse our empathy and bias to ensure engagement and addiction. Our loneliness and insecurities are prodded.
We need to take control of our lives. Redesign your living and working space, create friction and make yourself less accessible to social media. Surround yourself with more books. Take books to the toilet instead of your smartphone.
One of the best feelings in life is to finish a good book, especially in the morning. It is a good use of life. Power is to have the initiative to assert control over your own world. When your inner self is in order, regardless of the external chaos.
Books purchases are high value consumerism. When you’re itching to buy things to feel that jolt of excitement from getting shiny new stuff—the promise of a novel experience by acquiring one of the apex of cultural expressions last much longer than any brand new gadgets that you don’t really need (and will feel obsolete within 6 months).
Even when you give away or sell the books, the knowledge and the reading experience will stay with you until your mind fails you. Books are never so much the physical papers, or the binary code. Just like money is not the papers and coins or the blockchain.
I have never made a bad purchase on books. Even for books which I haven’t read yet (or never). If it’s meant to be, I’d read the book sooner or later. If they take up too much space, I’d just donate them. In cases of books I don’t finish, reading certain parts have already developed my knowledge or, at the very least, satisfy my curiosity and thirst for something new.
As I read more books, I can tell which books will hook me better. Just by reading the blurbs and reviews. In any case, the risks of buying bad or unread books are compensated by the immense potential returns of acquiring and reading good books. Books can change your life as they can change your perspectives.
You’d learn more; earn more; travel more; and live more. You only have one life, but by reading books you’ve got the chance to immerse yourself in the lives of other people—real or fictional.
The brain is muscles and reading is an exercise for the brain. As muscles, they wither without use and strengthen with regular training. Your mind would be sharp and stay sharp longer.
Reading books can expand your innate talents. You are not merely stuck with the cards you have been dealt with. I could not read when I was 7. I was lagging behind my peers; I lacked the capacity to focus. I didn’t read books regularly until I entered professional life. English books, imported books, are expensive for people from low income countries. I could have made use of the school and university’s libraries when I was a student, but my late teens and early twenties were full of infatuations. They said student life is about books, parties, and love but I was too focused on love. Social media was not ubiquitous yet I was so distracted.
When I entered the workforce, I began to earn disposable income. I can spend my wage on books. The first book I bought with my own money was Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. I fell in love with Capote’s simplicity and rhythms in composing words. Capote’s writings are unlike the classic writers available in the Indonesian public libraries.
I had to make a significant effort to finish In Cold Blood. It took several months. Then I bought the next books, and next. Salman Rushdie, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Neill Gaiman, Eiji Yoshikawa, Haruki Murakami, Orhan Pamuk, Richard Dawkins, Alain de Bottom, Herman Hesse, Oliver Sacks, Albert Camus, Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes, Yuval Noah Harari, Nassim Nicholas Thaleb, Malcolm Gladwell, Hugo Pratt, Mahfud Ikhwan, Goenawan Mochammad, Carl Sagan, Anton LaVey, Jonathan Haidt, Carl Jung, Viktor Frankl, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Elena Ferrante, Natsume Soeseki, Charles Bukowski, David Whyte, Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Voltaire, Nietzche, Fujiko Fujio, Osamu Tezuka, D’Aulaires, Bernadine Evaristo, Intan Paramaditha, Joshua Fields Milliburn, and so on.
Of many things that I worship, intelligence is my prime god. I respect cleverness. And reading books is still the best way to learn, to satiate your curiosities, to be smarter and wiser.
I first started taking the annual reading challenge in 2016. I wanted to know how many books I can read in a year–to be more disciplined in my reading habit and to be less distracted by social media. I set the target at 12 that year but managed to read 24 books. The next year, I set 24 books as a target but then a friend set 48 books for herself. She’s the founder of a biotechnology startup. I realised I need to be more ambitious, so I matched her annual challenge. I met that target, but I don’t think I can multiply the challenge by the dozen anymore. In 2021, I broke my personal record by reading 57 books.
The number is not inclusive of books I didn’t finish, great articles I read in periodicals, law books I read for research and work related matters, and blog posts. But as Umberto Eco said, the more you read, the more your collection of books becomes an anti-library. There are too many books to be read in one’s lifetime and brain capacities. The ocean of sapiens’ knowledge is so vast.
Yet the ocean is not the universe.
My 2021 book of the year is Ethan Hawke’s Bright Ray of Darkness. The book was recommended by Post Santa, my favourite local bookstore. I can’t deny I chose it out of the relatability factor. I may not be a Hollywood actor, but I am a privileged heterosexual male who is sensitive. I have always been a fan of Ethan Hawke. The Before Trilogy are my favourite films about romantic relationships.
For non-fiction, there are two books which are essentially one: Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Mind’s Eye and Interviews and Conversations. 2021 was the year I realised that I am passionate about photography. Photography is a way for me to live more intensely, the means to an end that is to be interested in life. Grandmaster HCB articulated that. Reading HCB was a philosophical education on existentialism practice, a meditation, not just artistic pursuits.
The Goodreads reading challenge is a good way to adopt reading habits. You measure what you read. While the quantitative does not always reflect the qualitative, there is a certain quality in quantity alone. At a certain quantitative point, when you have found your taste in reading, you’d read good books.
There are many ways to achieve your reading challenge target. Mine is to surround myself with books, to make books accessible all the time. I always bring a book with me, paper or preferably Kindle. I follow Post Santa’s Instagram account for personalised curated recommendations. I import books from Amazon, as they have the largest collections and their deliveries are reliable. But most importantly, I have a fellowship of readers. This fellowship transcends time and place, from ancient sages to internet friends.
I sold my Canon EOS 6D MKII and the lenses. It was a difficult and emotional decision. I have travelled with the camera and made memories. It is an excellent camera, a very capable one. Ready for all circumstances. Except I only shoot in 35mm and 50mm focal lengths. This made the camera an overkill. Too bulky.
I often left it at the hotel and carried on with my iPhone or X100T. I hate to admit that I was wrong when I upgraded from the 500D; DSLR is becoming obsolete. The advent of mirrorless full frame digital cameras made sure of it. I held on to the 6D because of its low light performance and fast auto-focus. But physical size does matter, not just technological performance.
Leaving the 6D unused is a waste of a great camera. Somewhere there is someone who can benefit from owning and using it. I had a good run with the EOS system. It is the system I learned photography seriously with.
My dry box looks so empty. But when you let go, you do not just make physical space. You are making room for changes in your life. Hopefully, for the better.
The EOS system made me a proper photographer. It is by Canon I know my aperture, shutter speed, focal lengths, compositions and bokeh. Wielding a DSLR makes me look like a photographer—despite I don’t have fancy hats and scarfs.
Self-portrait, 2015
Now I am at the stage where I don’t want to look like a photographer. Just an individual living or travelling, casually. Trying to see places and people; to be interested and pay attention.
When a photographer changes a camera system, he changes his religion. Adopting the Leica M-system is a great leap of faith. No one needs a luxury camera. How do one justify the stripping down of features and the increase of price? By measuring and re-evaluating what really matters. Do you ever use or even touch camera settings other than dialling up to ‘P’, ‘Av’, ‘Tv’, review playback, and white-balance? How often do you use the video recording feature?
The M-system reduces everything to basic necessities. Drawing with light is the art of seeing. You are not merely documenting. You are sketching your perceptions, reflecting your views to the world.
The system’s architecture of choice makes the photographer assume a correct posture in photographing; to be intentional in the exposure triad—the holy trinity of photography: aperture width, shutter speed, focus and composition. This is not friction, this is traction.
The small size makes the rangefinder inconspicuous. The shutter clicks are discreet. The photographer can easily carry it anywhere, the subjects can see his face.
Purist, minimalist. Unobtrusive.
I can argue about the engineering and built quality. The M cameras are made of brass and iron. It can withstand extreme environments and weather. From the arctic tundra to deserts, warzones and ballrooms.
The vanity factor is also an appeal. The pride of owning a luxury item without being loud. The “look-at-me-but-don’t-look-at-me” brag. In this social media era, where “likes” are validation to good photography, Leica is a reminder of what matters the most in photography. When I am photographing with the M-system, I can let go of the idea of getting “likes”. I have owned a Leica, the most premium camera system for small format. I do not need the opinion of the masses.
Leica’s price point forced me to be more serious in my photographic endeavours. Now I have spent significant money on tools. I need to improve my skills. I read more books, I took courses and workshops. I got to know more about Henri Cartier-Bresson and, most importantly, the Tao of Photography. I got the validation I needed: that you do not need to be a commercial photographer to call yourself a photographer. I may be an amateur, but I am no dilettante.
I have come to the realisation that photography, as with writing, is my self-expression. I ceased to see photography and writing as separate. The great photographers are readers, first and foremost. They are capable of expressing themselves through words, spoken and written. Cartier-Bresson was a writer and a painter. The only way to train your observations is to read great books and to immerse yourself in art.
HCB embodied photography as the art of seeing. “Taking photographs is a way to understand and a way to live more intensely.”
A photographer is also a witness. We have our biases. We tend to see what we want to see. To be partisan in the event we witnessed. To give narratives—testimonials—according to our prejudice. An image, a photograph, is a representation of reality which can be worth a thousand words. It can be manipulated or used for manipulations; the real event captured can be contextually different than what is presented to the viewers. Consequently, there is an ethical aspect of photography. A reliable witness, despite their biases, must strive to tell the truth.
Yes, truth can be subjective and debatable, but witnesses shall not deliver false testimonials intended to mislead or misrepresent. Even when one practises salon photography, the sculptor-kind photographer expresses his surreal art by making photographers akin to fiction. He is trying to tell the truth by lies. This is different from propaganda, in which one twists the truth to tell lies.
I look forward to travelling with my new camera system. It is when you shoot you are practising photography. I am most inspired to make pictures whenever I travel. I have new thoughts, stimulated by new environments and novel subjects. I am escaping, no—wandering—beyond the banality of everyday life.
In the words of Ratna Mohini, “Yes, it is good to travel the world, but above all the world has to travel in us.”
The National Archeological Museum’s permanent star is Caravaggio the Neo-classic. Canova’s sculptures mesmerized me. But the underground exhibition space that exhibited Corto Maltese is where I found a kindred spirit. A 20th century transnational artist, a fellow travel aficionado. Perhaps Pratt’s works have been recognised as classic; instead of being exhibited at the modern art museum Madre Napoli.
Sol LeWitt’s “10,000 Lines” at Madre Museum
Naples is a walking city; its Metro only has 2 lines. When we arrived at Napoli Centrale from Rome, we decided to walk to our first accommodation Diletto apartment. The cobbled pavements made dragging wheeled luggage a hassle. Once we dropped our luggage, however, we were free to explore the charming bad boy.
We stumbled into an anarchists’ commune Santa Fede Liberata. They squatted an abandoned monastery. The denizens formed a cooperative sans government support or corporate sponsor. An Antifa stronghold. Many members are intellectuals and artists. Murals and manifestos decorate the premise.
Elena Ferrante’s hometown is a juxtaposition of poverty and high taste. The lack of glamour makes it a haven for tourists interested in bohemian aesthetics. The narrow alleys towered by building with faded paint job and scraped stuccos. The sepia hued city bathed under the Mediterranean sun. The neighbors hanging their laundry in public. Altars and shrines at every corner. Local kids training to be footballers in the streets under the grace of Santa Diego, the unofficial patron saint of Napoli.
Neapolitan presepe is the crème de la crème of Nativity diorama; commissioned by the Papacy to be exhibited during Christmases in Vatican and Jerusalem. Even Tuscan Nativity dioramas, with their Northern riches, do not compare.
Naples is a city above ancient cities. Below 2019 Naples are Roman and paleo-Christian cities. During World War II, the underground cities relived as shelters from the Allied bombings. A port city, Naples was a strategic military target. Napoli Sotteranea runs a guided tour that takes you to the humid and claustrophobic underground. We were guided through secret trap door which leads to Roman amphitheater and cistern, hydroponic garden made planting possible by artificial UV light, and World War II themed installations.
Whilst waiting for the tour to start, an African souvenir seller approached me.
‘Salemaleykum!’, he saluted me.
My hardwired dogmatic reflex replied, ‘Aleykumsalam.’
I knew I lost to him that moment. He proceeded with the usual brothers-in-faith charade. Gave me a Chinese made trinket, a red miniature elephant, as a gift. He asked me if I have a gift in reciprocity. Gave him a 2 euros coin.
I kept the elephant. A reminder of another defeat in negotiation with the locals.
Santa Fede Liberata, the anarchists commune
I needed a haircut. I would not want Instagram picture of me in Italy to look bad. Neapolitan men are well groomed. I asked the receptionist of Hotel Piazza Bellini, our second accommodation, for a recommendation: Dixie Barber. The main barber Cheero looks like Mario of Nintendo. I would have asked for a close shave too if I have proper beard and moustache.
Coffee here is simple: espresso or cappuccino. No takeaway, if you don’t have time to enjoy a cup of coffee then don’t. This is not Starbucks or Costa. Don’t waste the indulgence out of a good cup, especially when accompanied with a sfogliatella.
We always eat well, obviously. Italy is one of two countries where we can eat the local cuisines for the entire trip. We only had burger once at Salumeria Upnea with its guerilla beers. They are worth skipping Neapolitan cuisine (but just once).
Napoli is our London dad’s hometown. He works at the Italian Foreign Ministry, now stationed in New Delhi. Coincidentally he was in town, on leave to visit his mama. We were invited to the best restaurant: Nonna’s home in ERCOLANO.
‘Nonna apologized that she couldn’t serve handmade pasta,’ Om Nello translated.
Whilst preparing the food, assisted by his sons, she watched us observe her living space. A VHS video player, a tubular telly, an audio cassette player. Her house is speck clean; all her items are vintage. A photograph of a soldier caught my interest. Nonna’s father (or grandfather) was a cavalier, fought in World War I for the Italian Kingdom.
There is something romantic about the Great War. The soldier’s uniforms looked more befitting in a gala than a battlefield. Camouflage was not invented or adopted yet. It was an unapologetic white men world. The First World War brought an end to the 19th century. Trench warfare is the worst. Try digging a hole in your garden, fill it up with water and live inside there for three days. The ‘world’ was Europe in those days. Most of Asia and Africa were colonized or primitive kingdoms. But here we are now, in the 21st century, Europe enjoying the peace and prosperity. The Blue Continent has ceased to be the bloodiest battleground.
The appetizer were tomato salad and fresh clams. The tomatoes from Mount Vesuvius were so sweet from the volcanic nutrients. The clams were something you can’t get in London, or from Jakarta’s mercury laden Sea of Java. The pasta was spaghetti vongole, the secondi was fried seafood.
I have learned about Italian way of dining: don’t fill up at pasta (tempting as it may). Make room for the next courses, the second.
We didn’t go to Pompeii, but Om Nello took us to Herculaneum, another ancient Roman city wiped by Vesuvian eruption. Smaller but less crowd. The weather was lovely, the transition between spring and summer. Sunny blue sky with gentle breeze.
Found Seneca’s On the Shortness of Life in the souvenir shop. The Stoics are the occidental Zen. Both seek to find calm in chaos. Their method is slightly different; Zen koans demonstrate the limit of our reasonable mind to articulate our understanding of the unconscious. The Stoics insist on logical deductions. Another gift from the time we live in now, the globalized world; we can learn both ways.
The stroll around the necropolis was a contemplation on the psychology of extinction. How men and women of Herculaneum came face to face with their mortality as a part of the mass and as an individual. A soldier stood steadfast manning his post. The crowd screamed in panic. a sister comforted her little brother. A son searched his mother.
Om Nello waited for us at the exit. He got us chilled water, with gas. We took the train back to Napoli Centrale. The cars were full of tourist returning from Pompeii. It was golden hour; the landscape outside and the cabin were gently lit by the dusking sun. We didn’t get seats. The white ladies were reddish, blotched by their excursions under the sun. Some passengers reviewed pictures taken and video recorded. Some napped, some chatted. Some, like us, just sat or stood in the silence.
We took a taxi from the hotel to the ferry port. Neapolitan traffic is a passionate as its people. The Italians speak with their hands rather than with their mouth. When our driver got out from the car—to yell at the driver who kept honking when he stopped for pedestrians—we knew he was spewing obscenities despite we know very little Italian. Some languages are so beautiful that even their curses are gracious.
The ferry took us to CAPRI. It was weekend, a lot of tourists – local and international. The cabin was full. Passengers were competing for seats. Ladies in tacky fast fashion took the priority seats. When a family with a disabled member wanted to claim the seats, the ladies refused to budge. Hand gesture got lively; a crew joined in the entreaties. ‘Signora, mi scusi!’
We left the cabin and sat on the deck. It was cold and windy, but we didn’t have to compete for seats or caught in the crossfire of arguments between the locals. The views are nicer. Capri is the opposite the Napoli: touristy luxurious. The town is a labyrinth of shoppes. A sum of Mediterranean vacation with piazzas, cafes, and seascapes.
We stayed two nights at Hotel Villa Eva Anacapri. The funicular is the most romantic way to move around Marina Grande-Capri-Anacapri, but the buses are more practical.
We always had lunch at E Divino. We became familiar with the entire crew: the proprietors, the chefs, and the waiter.
E Divino’s meals are divine, true to its name. This hidden restaurant changes its menu everyday according to their garden and whatever source fresh from the market. Whenever the weather was permitting, we sat at the garden table.
We met Amadeo, an artisan jeweler, the prodigal son of Capri who set up his business in New York and London. Every time he comes home, he always dines here.
Too bad we missed the Blue Grotto due to poor weather. It was rainy during our visit. We had plenty of time drinking limoncello, a local specialty sweet liquor served almost frozen.
We wandered and visited churches, Roman ruins and gardens. Took the chair lift to the top of Monte Solaro; the rainy days made the peak of the island blanketed by fog and chill breeze. Strolled Giardini di Augusto, watching people—fellow tourists—taking selfies, solo and group pictures. Climbed to Emperor Tiberius’ imperial quarter at Villa Jarvis. It was up on a cliff with killer views. The climb was demanding and rewarding despite the cloudy weather. We talked and quarreled a little on our way up.
The imperial quarter is a chapel with a gigantic statue of Mother Mary. Overlooking the ocean, I imagined the Emperor’s life. I read that he lived there in his last 10 years of his life. How did he govern with the telecommunication technologies available at that age? I remember my visit to the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. The Ottoman sultans spent their lives inside the palace—held court, heard petitions, met with advisors and emissaries, entertained themselves in the harem, planned wars, eavesdropped and spied on conspiring courtiers. Ruling an empire was a sequestered existence. Emperors lived like hermits with luxury.
It is true that Italy forces you to slow down. To appreciate the moment for what it is.
The art of doing nothing. But when your ‘nothing’ is sustained with wine, food, and coffee—added passionate sex and conversations, it is not too hard to meditate.
When I was successful in my scholarship application, I knew it was a major milestone in life. How many people got the chance to live abroad for free? It took 3 years for me to get it; the rejections I endured, the anxiety of being scholarship material.
I lived in a nice studio flat in Bloomsbury. A PhD student’s tenancy was expiring in October, the landlord couldn’t let it in September—the prime month for letting; the start of the semester. We got the rent price under the market price.
We had to find temporary accomodation for September. We lodged at the Noviellos. We were adopted. They even agreed to provide a reference letter to the landlord, saving us from paying 6 months of deposit.
39 Tavistock Court was perfect for us. Big enough for a couple to move around, small enough to clean. There is a sofa bed for two guests, a desk, bookshelf, and a tiny dining table.
We were surrounded by parks. It was like owning a garden, gardens, without having to maintain them (under student visa, we lived tax free).
Bloomsbury is our kind of rich neighbourhood: intellectual rich. Not corporate sterile like Canary Wharf or posh aristocrats like Chelsea. Big names like Tagore, Gandhi, Lenin, and Woolf were residents. The British Library, Wellcome Institute, University of London, and Dickens House are walking distance. A Waitrose in Brunswick. King’s Cross is just a few blocks away, but the noise and hustle bustle do not reach the Bloomsbury bubble.
Bloomsbury is a significant upgrade from Jagakarsa. But soon we compare ourselves with our neighbours. If we stay holed up, we would be thinking we are poor; myopic to our postcode privilege. We know London cannot be explored, even lived, in two lifetimes, so we explored at our own pace—slow enough to soak in the Greatest City in the World yet ambitious and fast enough for a Paddington bear.
On a student budget, our explorations require resourcefulness. ‘Student discount’ and ‘free events’ were our keywords. We relied on TimeOut magazines. Being in Zone 1 means we can walk to most sights and events.
Our disposable income was not as flexible as in Jakarta. There were times when I wished I could go out more or to spend more carelessly; to take a cab—mini, black, or the then unregulated Uber—when I was tired of walking. Returning to student lifestyle made me envy those City professionals. Ordering foods and drinks without consulting the price on the menu or worrying about the last train schedule.
We were better off than most Londoners. The African toilet attendant in a club; handing paper towels for tips. The homeless man who asked for change when we students were having a midnight snack in Subway after the Christmas ball—his facial skin cracked due to the dryness of the winter breeze; it was the first time I met a poor white man. People queuing at a job centre in Camden. East Europeans syndicated begging to repay their debts back home. Council house boys knifed under gang culture and postcode wars.
Inequality in London is not as extreme as In Jakarta, but it is more visible. In Jakarta, we don’t allow homeless or shabby looking people in posh streets, CBDs, or upscale neighbourhoods. Satpol PP (public order inspectors) will arrest them like criminals.
I have never been on the wrong side of the inequality equation before. I am the default man in Indonesia: Javanese, Muslim, male, educated professional. I would have ticked all the boxes of the Indonesian Dream checklist, if not because of my atheism and childlessness.
In London, I made conscious efforts to make friends with people from different countries. When there are conflicting invitations, I always opted for non-Indonesian events. I only attended one Indonesian event: the election for the chairperson of Indonesian Students’ Union. Out of Solidarity with a fellow LPDP scholar who was running for the post.
Opting out from Indonesian events was not just to avoid enmeshment. Typical Indonesian events seem to always include pengajian (prayer group), while the international students’ and London’s events are about something else, i.e. fun—European kind of fun.
I also don’t get the logic of making all the efforts to study abroad then forfeit the opportunity for cultural exchange. There is a chance you’d be exposed to racism. But if you take all culture shocks as racist offense, maybe you are the racist.
Of course, I can indulge in cultural exchanges because of my life’s priority and socio-economic background. Many Indonesian students need to save; they want to use the scholarship monies to buy a house back in Indonesia. Some have to support their family back home.
Europeans are more open with personal finances. When it’s your birthday, they don’t require you to treat them. We’d go to a restaurant, celebrate with a meal and each pay for their own or split the costs. Under Indonesian custom, you have to treat your friends if it’s your birthday. So having many friends can be expensive.
London is multicultural. A prerequisite for the greatest city in the world. I love Western food, but I am by nature and nurture a rice boy. When we travelled to West England for 10 days—and had to eat English foods exclusively—I understood why the Europeans colonised the Orients and Africa.
People have the tendency to flock with their kind. At base level, this means people who look like you. As a rule of thumb, this is helpful. Similar looks mean a higher chance of similar values. But probability can mislead you.
A fellow LPDP scholar entered into a flat sharing arrangement with two Indonesian students whom she met in the departure briefing. She soon realised that just because they all clean their asses with water—not just with paper—does not mean they share the same standards of hygiene or privacy. Her flatmates wet the bathroom floors and toilet seats. Confronted her when they found a bottle of wine under her bed (haram!).
Colonialism was the catalyst for the concept of race. ‘Africa’ was invented when pale-faced people began shipping indigenous people with dark complexion to the plantations of the West Indies. These black slaves were less vulnerable to tropical diseases than white slaves. Before, ‘black’, ‘brown’, ‘yellow’, and ‘white’ people raided and enslaved each other exclusively.
Fast forward past the debunking of eugenics, people still struggle to transcend the homophilic instinct. When the economy became globalised, the mobility of the people intensified. Sapiens are natural travellers. Emigration and immigration have always been necessary for survival and to thrive. Like insects, we were drawn to lights.
London, bright lights-big city.
Here, you can learn any subject you wish to learn. Education is an established industry. The UK Government handed out scholarships to foreign students not just for altruistic purposes. International students are a stimulus to the local economy. They pay higher tuition fees compared to UK and EU students. Living in the UK, despite tax free, means they will spend money here.
Foreign scholarships are soft power exercises. Cultural diplomacy. At surface level, Western Freedom is the consumer’s freedom of choice. You can consume anything known to humankind, provided that you have the buying power. At a deeper level, you are freer to think. Imagine a Chinese student having a taste of Western Freedom. His view on government surveillance and control may change.
The first noticeable freedom is sexual freedom. I co-signed the tenancy agreement with my wife, making her liable for half of the rent. This legal arrangement has a subtle implication: that we are equal by default. In Indonesia, the law assumes the wife to be dependent on the husband. This kind of equal responsibility applies to all kinds of partnership—heterosexual or same-sex—from marriage and civil partnership to cohabitation.
A co-tenancy can be legal evidence that you are partners. In Indonesia, only marriage certificates are recognised as proof of partnership (and you have the be of different sexes but same religion to be married),
You can get free condoms from NHS clinics. My wife still feels awkward buying condoms for me in any Indonesian pharmacy. Many heterosexual couples in Jakarta are not comfortable using condom in their intercourses. ‘Like picking your nose with a gloved finger’, a female friend said.
Abortion is legal in the UK. So when you have an unwanted pregnancy, you can have proper medical treatment (instead of having to abort in a dubious establishment in Raden Saleh, risking your life and criminal liability). Porn is accessible without having to use VPN. Vimeo and Reddit are prohibited sites in Indonesia.
I don’t see that, with the amount of sexual freedom, the Brits and the Europeans are more inclined to debauchery compared to Indonesians. A French friend apologised for ‘talking too sexually’. She asked if Indonesians talk sexually. I should have shown her YouTube videos of dangdut and ronggeng. Or the 90s Indonesian cinema. Nothing represents our dissonance on sex and religious taboos like Catatan Si Boy. We are expected to be hot blooded sexy hunks and dames, like Onky Alexander and Meriam Bellina, but with religious restraints.
An Indonesian parliament member from Islamist party watched porn during a parliamentary session. Local and international sex workers providing services in unofficial red light district establishments: nightclubs, hotels, karaoke boxes, massage parlours. Whatsapp group text messages circulating porn. #Jilboobs (hijabi girls with big tits in tight attires) are as popular as #MILF here.
So yes, Indonesians talk and act sexually.
In fact, my European friends are more sexually conservative than my inner social circle in Jakarta. All of my European friends in London are monogamous. My Jakarta friends are quite liberal in their sex life. Some subscribe to open relationships or even polyamorous (but they keep it from the public and all of us are financially independent).
Then there is religious freedom. Secularısm is a core feature of Western liberal democracy. In London, Islam is an identity—more a race than a religion. Our host family are Muslims, yet they seem to go to the mosque only during the Eid and Ramadan. They vote for the Labour Party. In the West, you can be a liberal and a Muslim.
In Indonesia, a proper muslim must be against LGBT rights (lynch them, those sodomites!), gender equality (a man in the imam, the leader!), abortion (baby killers!), and pre-marital sex (a judicial review to increase the statutory minimum age for marriage was rejected; child marriages are better than falling for the carnal sin of lust).
When my wife’s parents visited us in London, they asked for prayer times. I checked Google. There are at least five different versions according to each school of Islam!
Indonesia only has one prayer time. The only discrepancy is only about Eid dates: you can follow the government’s Islamic calendar or Muhammadiyah. Shiite Muslims are persecuted for heresy, and only 6 ‘other’ religions are recognised (Catholic, Protestant, Balinese Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous beliefs). Atheism is unconstitutional and proselytising it is a crime.
One of the patterns I observe about Indonesian Muslims studying in the West is they will reconcile their identity as a Muslim. Some become more religious, even radical. A Chevening scholar, an Indonesian diplomat, quit her job and wears the hijab to serve her ‘natural’ role. Another Chevening scholar, a gay man reembrace the faith because, in London, he found an interpretation of Islam that accepts his natural inclination.
As an atheist, I fit in nicely in the WEIRD (Western Educated Industrial Rich and Democratic) tribe. But I lost that sense of uniqueness I had back in Indonesia, where being openly atheist is controversial (it can be outright dangerous in certain parts of the country). After all, London is a metropolis where stating you are gay weight the sames as stating you like aubergine.
Freedom as a consumer is the most problematic aspect of the Western liberal democracy. Many Islamic demagogues in Indonesia point them as the keystone of the West: a prosperous materialistic culture devoid of meaning. While I can testify that there is nothing meaningful in extreme poverty—a state where humans must live like non-sentient animals—I too shared the existential angst when living among the Europeans.
There is an illusion of choice because there are too many choices. Everyday I was overwhelmed by what items I should purchase and what experience I should buy? The air pollution in London is not as bad as in Jakarta, the traffic is not as congested, the rubbish is not overflowing. But the UK’s carbon footprint is among the top in the world. In third world countries, pollution and environmental destruction are more visible. But the one who benefits the most from such exploitation are people in the first world, the ones who consume the most of the resources.
No wonder if you are poor in a rich country you feel more miserable. When you see extreme poverty, you are reminded of how bad life can be. You are forced to do Stoic practice of negative visualisation every day.
In London, you can go have fun even if you are on a tight budget. The parks are free. The pubs will serve construction workers, so long as he is not wearing soiled work clothes. It’s always good to be rich anywhere, but to have the disposable income in London means you can taste that freedom measured in Poundsterlings.
Money is only as interesting as what you’re going to do about it. In the free Western world, money could be that interesting. No wonder those Arab royalties and Russian oligarchs, the Nigerian oil tycoons, and members of Indonesian political dynasties spend their summers in London. This is the playground of the 1% rich.
The wealth of the Greatest City in the World and its free thinking atmosphere also gave me a crash course and immersive learning on socialism. I was a crypto-fascist libertarian. Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and Objectivism are romantically appealing to me. I believe in meritocracy and private corporations as the bulwark of humanity. If we work hard, be clever and innovative, and bring the best of ourselves, the world should reward us. After all, I managed to negotiate my way to London.
I came from a middle class family in Jakarta. My family is always struggling with money. Not necessarily because we were poor, but my parents are bad at managing money. Their aspirations are simple: a house, weekends at a shopping mall, dining at mediocre chain restaurants, new car every 5 years, new phone every year, and fast fashion clothings.
But that kind of Jakarta lifestyle is above my parents’ income. My dad is a self employed architect (but he doesn’t generate many clients so he’s virtually unemployed). My mum’s meagre salary in a publishing company supported us financially. They are both Muslims and patriarchal. Bapak is insecure and always feels undermined as the man of the house if my mum speaks any disagreement. Ibu is resentful that she has to take a man’s duty of bringing the food to the table. Supposedly, she could enjoy her income for fun.
London can be brutal when you are poor, but Jakarta can be third world brutal. Only few decent public parks or spaces here. So if you can’t afford going to the shopping malls, you’d be stuck in your home. The public transports are substandards, not having your own transport will severely restrict your mobility. If you are a guy without a car, do not dream of dating a pretty girl. If you are not a pretty girl, do not expect to date a guy. Men’s currency is wealth and women’s beauty. It is the remnants of our feudalistic societies, East or West.
So I worked hard, went to law school, and entered private practice. Climbed my way up the socioeconomic ladder—thought that I came that far due to my perseverance and cunningness. But when I came to London, I just realised a thing called ‘systemic inequality’. In Jakarta, as a default man, I was blind to it.
London is the pinnacle of my achievements, but it brought me to the ground. My peers of international students represent the North-South divide. International students from emerging market countries are typically older (30 something or late twenties). While Europeans are in their early twenties, fresh graduates.
It is common for my European peers to have a master’s degree before entering the job market. The EU job market is so competitive that you need to have at least a master’s degree. Many jobs are outsourced to Asia, where the labour costs are cheaper.
European students are typically trilingual. They are taller not just because of racial profile or genetics, but also because they consume more nutrients. The cities they lived and grew up in have proper sanitation, better access to healthier foods, and are less polluted. Their teeth are not crooked like me because dental treatment is not a luxury.
When I visited Hampstead Heath, Kew Gardens, and other parks, most of the visitors were white. But walk past Oxford Circus and you’d see Asians in a shopping spree—dragging suitcases for hoarding Primark items, produced by sweatshops exploiting our own kind.
Fashion and finance hacks: shop at charity shops near posh neighbourhoods. You’d get better quality fashion items. They are secondhand, therefore reducing your carbon footprint.
Asians are still reluctant to purchase experience. Europeans, being old money from colonial inheritance, know how to live. But when your state takes care of your welfare, it is easier to be less acquisitive to tangible goods. Experience is more difficult to share with your extended family. Many senior British Asian citizens still support their family back ‘home’. Despite receiving the same amount of benefits, they have less disposable income.
Living in London taught me how to treat anyone as an individual. It may sound obvious, but our reptilian brain relies so much on generalisation. We are no longer hunter-gatherers. Our primitive psyche is not suitable to live in the 21st century. Our reasoning faculty may be a new feature in our evolutionary biology. However, ancient prophets and sages have testified the importance of mastering your mind.
David Whyte’s poem ‘Istanbul’ said it best about ourselves: ‘We are never just one thing’. I attended diversity training when working at an international law firm. The facilitator noted that most Indonesians he met identified themselves with their societal roles. A daughter, a husband, a mother. Religious affiliation is also a popular identifier. A Muslim, a Christian. While westerners tend to identify with their interests and socio-economic class. Swimmer, middle-class. Religious affiliation is only mentioned if it shows unorthodoxy. Quaker.
The diversity training comes from a business need: large corporations operating cross-borders, multinational or international, must nudge their employees and executives to collaborate (other than the fact that diversity is good PR). The divide between the foreign lawyers and the locals in an international law firm is more apparent than in boutique law firms. The expatriates in Indonesian offices are paid according to London salary standards. The westerners think that the locals are corrupt and/or incompetent; the Indonesians think the bule are naïve—that they don’t know how to do business in Indonesia (where ‘corruptors’ are equated with ‘survivors’) and colonising.
The divide was not just cultural, but genuine economical competition. The expatriates need to justify their posting, acting as the foremen and overseers. The locals need to curry favours to the white boys upstairs. Politicking exists even in monocultural organisations. However, in a multinational corporation, the multicultural aspects exacerbate it. It is safer to assume that your own kind would understand your situation (which, based on my personal professional experience, went horribly wrong).
University allows you to be more egalitarian. You are evaluated, marked, individually. No quota for distinction marks. Even in such an environment, I can still feel the competitiveness of certain students—they refuse to collaborate or share information (within ethical standards) because they know they will compete in the job market post-graduation.
Of course, diversity does not translate automatically to quality. During the induction trip to Cumberland Lodge, the dean gave me advice she deemed relevant to her Indonesian students. ‘Improve your English. Many Indonesian students struggle with the language barrier.’ The advice can be extended to all students coming from countries which are not anglophone.
A good command in English is not a predictive mark of intelligence. Pendantics are often pseudo-intellectuals. They have little or no analytical capabilities. But, if you’re an Indonesian living in Indonesia, it is difficult to acquire knowledge if you don’t speak and read English. Not many books have been translated to Indonesian. I tried reading Camus’ Happy Death in Indonesian and I have to reread it in English to understand. The quality of Indonesian translations is inconsistent.
Great books of all languages have been translated to English. Just by learning this international language, one will have access to literature from every culture. We still live in the Asian Century. Maybe in the coming African Century, we’ll have to speak French.
Indonesian literature—given our history of totalitarian regimes and censorship—is limited. Only one out of one thousand Indonesians read books. Even the giants of Indonesian literature are not yet in the same league of Western, Japanese, Russian, Korean, or Chinese literati. Part of the equation is the newness of Indonesian language. Declared a lingua franca in 1928. Indonesian is simple and easy to learn. It’s a modified (simplified?) Malay. Ideal for an emerging nation with hundreds of local languages.
Languages evolve. But Indonesians, being Java-centric, have a special affinity for euphemisms and jargons. These two traits are the main contributors of devolution in the Indonesian language. English has ‘quarantine’ and ‘lockdown’. Indonesian has ‘karantina’, but we have to invent ‘large scale social restrictions’ or ‘enforcement of social mobility’ (the only reason the government invented such buzzwords is to circumvent their statutory obligations to subsidise citizens living in a quarantined area).
When I returned from London to Jakarta, the reverse culture shock hit me. Everyone looks like me. My neophilia is always stronger than my neophobia. I have always wanted to connect with the ‘other’. I have a soft spot for interracial couples.
I am glad that post-London I can make multicultural friends even in Jakarta. Real friends with symmetrical relationships—not that typical relationships between a white savior and a struggling local. Now my closest friends are Chinese Indonesians, Australians, Americans, Norwegian, French, Germans, Belgian, Italians, Brazilian, Maltese, Singaporeans, and Brits.
On closer scrutiny, ‘multicultural’ is an exclusive club. We share two common cultural capitals: higher education and financial independence. To pretend my social circle is inclusive is a liberal ignorance. Universities are more discriminative than the Catholic Church or even ISIS. But not all discriminations are equal.
In This is London, a black copper shared his street wisdom about racial hierarchy.
‘I’m gonna level with you . . . Y’see in London you’ve always had the Africans at the bottom of the pile along with the West Indians. I don’t mean West Indians like who flew in yesterday from Jamaica but I mean the second generation of West Indians. They are the bottom too . . . Then you get some Afghans. Then the Eastern Europeans coming up. The East Europeans are above us Africans . . . because they are more acceptable. Because of the likeness of the race. There is a commonality in Europe of the ethnicity . . . you know? That’s the way it is. ‘Then you get the Asians . . . Then you get the Irish. Then you get the white . . . And at the very top you get the rich . . . Where there is no race.’
Being rich does not automatically make you multicultural. But it is impossible to have a symmetrical relationship when the economic inequality is severe. The expats and the locals main divide in Jakarta is wealth. People do not live on bread (or rice) alone. There is more to life than money. But in capitalist-consumerist societies, money is essential.
Being aware of systemic inequality was another nadir. Bleak as it may be to learn that the odds are not in my favour as a brown man from an emerging market, it was also liberating. To know that my failures are not always caused by my incompetence.
One of the illusions of self-grandeur loosen its grip on me. I am not my external achievements. I was forced to be more compassionate with people and myself. Privilege contests, reversed or otherwise, are pointless. There is always someone better off and worse. At an individual level, comparing yourself will only make you bitter or vain.
White privilege exists, but to the homeless man at Subway, I—an international student living in a private flat in WC1—am the privileged. I attended Royal Ascot in the Silver Ring, gazing up at the Windsors; aristocrats; oil sheikhs; and warlords dressed in their top hats or traditional ceremonial attires in the Royal Enclosure. The minimum betting and fences made clear our ‘class’ distinctions.
This was London’s greatest gift to me: a better understanding of life which transcends my default concepts and instincts.
To the Globe, in which I needed subtitles for watching Shakespeare’s Henry V.
To the routemaster buses, in which I have to share the ride with prudes with their music blasting on speaker phone.
To Hampstead Heath, Kew Gardens, Richmond and other parks in which I practiced shirinyoku.
To Waitrose, in which I hunted and gathered as a modern man. And to the Brixton Market, in which we sourced our proteins from the British butcher to Afghan fishmongers.
The crowded tube, the endless museums and galleries, the hipster shops in Shoreditch. The curry houses in Brick Lane and Whitechapel, the Asian supermarkets in Chinatown—which made us feel settled in gastronomically; the pubs in which we socialise in civilised manner despite intoxicated (I love the British way of ordering drinks in orderly fashion—queueing despite no visible line; giving way to other drinkers and never had to shout).
Fitness First Tottenham Court Road, our home gym. The Family Business in Exmouth Market, where we got our first tattoos. The LIF, Barbican, and Mile End campuses. IALS where I spent most of my self study. Monmouth Coffee which taught me to appreciate black coffee. London Krav Maga classes in which I learned to spar with and defend myself against European size opponents, under the tutelage of a Jew instructor.
Our gardens: Tavistock Square, Gordon Square, and Woburn Square. Our main stations: Euston, Euston Square, and Russell Square.
Kandy was the capital of the last Sinhalese kingdom. It felt like Yogyakarta: an impoverished aristocrat who has to sell her cultural assets to make ends meet.
Tuk tuk drivers swarmed us tourists freshly offloaded to the station’s platforms. I thought we’d be more incognito because we share common skin tone with Sri Lankans, but our rucksacks gave us away. Taxi service providers at tourists’ point of arrival or main sights are less honest. However, we needed their services. So we bargained with one who has been stalking us and agreed on a price (overcharged, but still in affordable Rupees) for transfer to our hostel Clock Inn.
Along the drive, the driver solicited city tour. We said we’ll think about it and he gave his number. We checked in, unpacked and rested a while in our room. When we went down to walk around the town, the driver was waiting at the lobby. He asked if we have made up our mind for the tour. We told him we want to explore the town on foot first and left the hostel.
He was still there when we returned. Asked us again. This happened for several days. He intercepted us whenever we were passing at the lobby. His persistence was a reminder of the low season.
Kandy’s economy is supported by tourism. We got scammed more in Kandy than Colombo. One time we hailed a tuk tuk, agreed on Rs 200 fare but the driver stopped halfway when the road started going uphill. He ‘negotiated’ for additional Rs 200 (that old negotiation trick always work).
Being scammed is a part of travel experience and, unless you are negligent or unlucky, most of the time they are harmless (except for your ego). But the money lost to the scammers often deprived me of small changes for tipping the helpful local service providers.
The main sight in Kandy is Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. Lord Buddha’s tooth—said to be taken from Gotama’s funeral pyre—is stored in its inner sanctum. Whoever hold possession of the relic has the divine right to rule to the island.
The Portuguese claimed to have destroyed the heathen artefact in the 16th century. A claim contested by the Sinhalese: it was only the replica which was destroyed by the Catholic colonisers. Like a piece of True Cross or stock market valuation, it does not matter whether the sacred object is true as long as it is believed as true.
Every dusk a grandiose ritual is held at the temple. Traditional drums and blowpipes and conch shell musical instruments accompanied the monks in the procession worshipping the tooth. A stunning spectacle for photography and videography.
Puja of the Sacred Tooth Relic
However, it masked something hollow.
The temple has collections of paintings with self-righteous and holier than thou narratives equal to Biblical stories. Stories about how an evil king was vanquished for his faithlessness. Posters on Buddhism as the only religion consistent with modern science (astrophysics) because of its views and teachings on how the universe started with Nothingness.
I could not articulate such impression until I read Hermann Hesse’s Singapore Dreams. The sophistication of Buddhism philosophy was reduced to primitive idol worship. The proselytising Buddhism feels like another Abrahamic religion. An exclusive faith with a petty jealous god.
The Buddha Tooth reminded me that no spiritual discipline are immune from mutating to organised religions (as I have been warned by Osamu Tezuka’s Buddha). I wanted to shake off the bad aftertaste, so I went to the Buddhist Publication Society. The English books collections are limited. I got a pamphlet “Information about Meditation Centers in Sri Lanka Year 2013”.
I have always been interested on Oriental Meditation. Sri Lanka is a prime destination for meditation retreats. However, the pamphlet warned that meditation centres, the ashrams, offer basic meals (twice a day vegan diet) and bare lodgings (some even with no electricity).
A friend tried a silent meditation retreat in Thailand. Meditators were instructed not to speak or even write for two weeks. He felt refreshed after that. I wonder whether it’d be good for me? I am aware of the power of silence; the banality and the detriments of talking too much (as Mario Puzo, and Francis Ford Coppola, taught me in The Godfather). However, isolation and excommunication are also effective interrogation techniques to mentally break a subject. With my extraversion, the silent meditation may have adverse effects.
I have never meditated at that time. I’d better start somewhere less hardcore than plunging myself in those meditation retreats. I bought The Attention Revolution, a step by step meditation manual. It articulates well the how to, but I realised I will need to practice the manual as meditation is not just a conceptual exercise. There is a physical exercise involved, and I will need to be guided during such session.
My references on Oriental meditation is so Eurocentric, translations of Westerners studying under the tutelage of Asian masters. I have never read Dalai Lama or Thich Nhat Hanh. Not that the East-West label matters at all in this endeavour. However, as an Asian living in Asia, I had to travel all the way to the West to discover the Eastern Wisdom. But it has been a privilege to be initiated to the Western Rationalist approach. It infused me with a dose of skepticism which help me avoid that cultish herd mentality.
Kandy is the home of Sri Lanka’s modern artist Helga de Silva, the one memorialised by Sterophonics with their song ‘Madame Helga’. Her mansion, Helga’s Folly, is an art gallery and a hotel (the band stayed there, thus the song). The theme: surrealism. Helga imagines what if Salvador Dali, Brothers Grimm, and Lewis Caroll were flatmates. The rooms are mishmash of taxidermied animals, skulls, Mad Hatter’s tea party, murals, melted wax and candles, mirrors and shards of glass, pygmies, painted walls and windows.
Helga’s Folly living room by @adindaaditha
The mansion was empty when we visited. We only met two members of the staff, the receptionist and the resident curator. We were the only guests. With the mansion’s secluded location on a hilltop posh residential area, we felt like Chihiro in Spirited Away. We had two pints of Lion Lager; do what 21st century tourists do: photographing and posing for the Gram.
I read framed newspaper clippings on Helga’s privileged lineage: she was a Dior model; her brother, Sir George Desmond de Silva, QC., a barrister of Middle Temple, was the UN Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone; her father and grandfather were prominent Sri Lankan politicians.
The first Sri Lankan I met in person was Harsha Fernando. He is a professional negotiator. He negotiated on behalf of Sri Lankan government with the Tamil Tiger (whom he described as the most reasonable negotiation counterpart despite their reputation as violent killers). Harsha also represented Sri Lankan tea plantation owners in negotiations with their workers (in which he advised them not to act like ancient raj, develop a relationship strategy with the most important people in their business, people with whom they share mutual interests the most: the workers). I took his interest-based negotiation workshop in 2015 (one of the best courses I took in my life, a hands on workshop for Fisher and Uri’s Getting to Yes).
‘Fernando’ or ‘de Silva’ are not Sankrit-Sinhalese or English names. Ceylon was a Portuguese colony before the British took over. The Sri Lankans with Portuguese surnames are of mixed descent, members of the country’s elites.
We heard that Kandy Esala Perahera Festival is a magnificent ten days procession with dancers and elephants marching in extravagant colourful ornaments. However, they are held around July or August. The only way to see a tease of the said festival is at the Kandy Lake Club. It was a quick course of Kandyan performing arts sans the elephants—which saved us from the ethical dilemma considering the cruel domestication methods and what they have to endure for the parade.
We visited the Garrison Cemetery, a burial ground for British soldiers as well as the empire’s accompanying colonisers located next to the St. Paul’s Church, a neo-gothic red bricks colonial era house of worship. We met with the caretaker Mr Carmichael. He was wearing a rubber flip flops when we met him, but speaks with Queen’s English. He guided Prince Charles in his visit to Sri Lanka. An official thank you letter from the Prince of Wales is framed in the cemetery’s office.
Lonely Planet said the caretaker is a wonderful storyteller. He’d tell the life stories of the denizens of the cemetery. However, he assigned his nephew to guide us. The barefooted apprentice caretaker, albeit speaks in second-tongue English like us, did well in telling stories. I took their photograph, I promised to send it by email to them. The caretaker is not familiar with internet. While his nephew only understands Facebook.
Many underprivileged people in South and Southeast Asia skipped the early internet age of emails and blogs—that time when you needed a personal computer to go online instead of affordable handheld devices. No wonder Zuckerberg wanted to provide free internet for rural India, it was Facebook’s philanthropic and commercial opportunity to dominate the internet in a land of billion users.
On the way to the church and cemetery, we walked through Deva Veedya where the local lawyers have their offices in Victorian buildings The street of gods is the street of lawyers and these Kandyan colleagues maintain the antiquity: no computers on their desk, just typewriters. I can’t imagine drafting my court submissions or contracts without digital word processor; no room for typo errors and reformatting. No wonder among the rows of law offices, typists still offer their services.
Street of gods, street of lawyers
Our favourite restaurant in Kandy is the Empire Cafe near the Temple. They serve both Sri Lankan and western foods—of which I always chose the former being a rice boy. We became friendly with a charming enthusiastic waiter.
A few months after our trip to Sri Lanka, he texted me. He lost his job at the Empire Cafe because, he said, he organised a tour for a group of Spaniards but they didn’t pay. He was struggling without a job. He was reconstructing his family home to a guesthouse to make a living. He needed money and asked if I, as his ‘friend’, can help sponsor him.
It was awkward to receive such request, but I remind myself that it’s easy to dismiss money matters as vulgar when you’re not poor. I wanted to help, but I don’t like being cheated too—I have not reached Siddharta’s non-attachment. So I asked further details. I didn’t know if he was avoidant in providing the detailed answers or unable to do so due language barrier. I was not convinced to help him.
We arranged direct transfer from Kandy to Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayake (despite coded as CMB, Sri Lanka’s main international airport is not in Colombo). It was 8 hours drive. The van has no air-conditioner. We shared the ride with Norwegian and Belgian surfer girls. They just finished their surfing camp.
The driver is a Sri Lankan muslim (he told me and asked if I am; it is not intrusive to ask a stranger about his faith in Sri Lanka). He wanted to find work in Singapore and asked me how to do so. I told him just check the official ICA website. Singapore is a first world, official information is reliable.
Why he asked about Singaporean immigration to an Indonesian?
He made several stops, which may or may not be scheduled. Got lost and insisted to drop us first to the airport despite the itinerary was to transport the girls to their hostel then to the airport. We checked our Google map, the hostel is on the way to the airport.
My wife told me we should stick to our original itinerary. I was the only male passenger in the van. It’d be safer for the girls.
The driver complied when we all asked to go to the hostel first. The girls got to their hostel and we still had plenty of wait time when we arrived at the airport.
Were we being paranoid? Maybe the stops and the detours were innocent?
We hired a lady driver from Galle to Ella. Sami told us that Sri Lankan men are not aggressive like in India. She feels safe driving long distance. Indeed, Sri Lankans are approachable and helpful. A young man in Colombo escorted us to the bus stop when we asked which bus to take. If you’re a photographer, they’d be happy to pose for you and not too concerned with western concept of privacy.
The camel is not a comfortable steed. We were riding at walking pace. Our Berber guides Mohamed and Ibrahim led the convoy of camelback tourists.
We travelled the featureless terrain, criss crossing the sand dunes. It may be easier for me to just walk. But I’ve learned that in a harsh environment, your survival chance could diminish by being a smart ass. Heed the locals.
Our tour package from Inside Morocco was quite exclusive. We were touring Morocco in a private limousine van. There were only two of us when we booked, but the tour company asked if we don’t mind if another tourist joined in. The costs will be divided too.
We’re both extroverts. One of our joys of travelling is meeting new people. But we’re also old enough to know that inviting strangers to join our party can ruin the whole experience. We decided to take the gamble. Anyone interested in exploring a desert, willing to bear discomforts for a once in a lifetime experience, should not be a horrible person.
That and the fact we were in our last leg of our London based travel. I’ve completed my master studies and the last of the scholarships monies have been spent. Anything to save my depleting Poundsterlings account.
We picked the third wheel at a cafe near Djemaa-el-Fna square. Philipp is a Swiss biologist. Late twenties with a PhD. He just finished a conference in Marrakech. He is a sputnik.
Our camp was only a 30 minutes ride from civilisation, a hotel with a swimming pool at the edge of the Sahara desert. My friend who took a cheap tour package said that his camp was a 4 hours camel ride. My crotch thanked the ‘exclusive’ tour package.
We had to walk a few meters from the camel hitching ground to the camp. I was wearing Altama desert boots, yet my feet sank to the soft sands as I walked. The camels’ feet have evolved to walk the desert. Their wide hooves distributed their weight.
I watched the Berbers. They didn’t sink. They know which ground is solid enough to bear their weight (that’s why it is inefficient to walk in a straight line). A city boy like me can’t see the difference in the sand textures.
Camel ride
Our camp hosted a group of Spaniards, Brazilians, an Australian senior couple, and us—an Indonesian couple with a Swiss tag-along. We were told to climb to one of the tall sand dunes to watch the sunset while our hosts prepared dinner.
I was a clumsy hiker. Relied only on my strength to climb the ever sinking sands. Philipp being the smarter one learned the Berber way of walking. His Swiss national service training also helped. We were heaving and puffing at the top of the dune.
The Australian granddad arrived not so long after us. Philipp said we’re not so tough, even a 70 year old man could catch us up.
Ning Cai and Pamela Ho, in The Adventures of 2 Girls, met a fellow traveller who goes to Erg Chebbi as an annual pilgrimage. The sunset there restored her balance. The desert is her place, a place where she can feel the connection to the universe.
My Sahara sunset was cloudy. I was expecting to hear the sound of the desert, the sound of silence. But four ATVs kept roaring.
I know it must have been thrilling to ride ATVs in the Sahara under the dusk light. Imagining that you’re a Stormtrooper riding a speeder. But I wanted a solemn moment like Ning had. And since my desire leaves less carbon footprints, I have the moral high ground to judge those philistine tourists.
We sat on a dune. The grains of sands are so soft and fine, it seeped into the sensor of my entry level DSLR. The Berbers kept asking if we’re Japanese, and insisted we are because we look Japanese. I wonder if the Saharans think that all Asians are Japanese or Chinese. Maybe we’re not brown enough to be identified as South Asians.
Mohamed and Ibrahim could not pronounce Dinda’s name properly. They are polyglots, speak Arabic, French, Spanish, English, and a little Japanese; but Sankrit tongue is too foreign. So they gave her an Arabic name: Fatima. Fatima is her grandma’s name.
They could not pronounce my name either. I google translated my name to Arabic. ‘Tawhaj.’ Next time, in Arabic speaking countries, I’d introduce myself as ‘Abu Tawhaj’.
We could see towns, villages, on the west horizon. When the sun set into night, the artificial ground lights further reduced my expectations of a romantic Scherezade sunset.
Our hosts called for dinner. The Brazillian tourists could not hide that Berber foods served were too exotic for their taste. Philipp asked if I like rice. A silly question to ask an Asian. The food was not the best Moroccan cuisine, especially after we had been lodged at Chez Pierre the night before. But we were dining in the middle of a desert.
The feast did not stop with food. Drums and tambourines and dances to desert tunes. The Aussie grandad, Dinda and Philipp played the tende drums. I was given a pair of qaraqib which are too big for my Asian hands. A cheerful party without any alcohol served.
I imagined ourselves to be the privileged academics-aristocrats in The English Patient. Morocco is one of the few countries that does not require a visa for Indonesian. I always envy travellers with stronger passports. But that night, we tasted a world without maps for a night. Our nationalities were made irrelevant.
Tendes and Qaraqibs
Our beds were spring beds. Another luxury given the environment; I was prepared to sleep on a mattress. I woke up past midnight to pee. The camp has an outhouse with dysfunctioning plumbing.
I met Philipp there. He said ‘look and listen.’ It was not a full moon, but the camp was lit by the lights from the night sky. The stars were unobstructed by air and light pollution. Cloudless and windless, I heard the sound of silence.
Our sunrise was glorious. The eastern horizon is an expanse of desert. No ATV tours in the morning. I could hear the sounds of wind and sand. I read that the desert tribes named the winds. Ghibli is a wind. Hayao Miyazaki may have read Herodotus and Oondatje.
Sunrise
We packed our bags and rode out from the desert. We tipped our Berber guides. They asked us to tell our countrymen to visit Morocco.
On the road, a goatherd kid approached us, carrying a baby goat asking if we wanted a photo for a dirham. I was hesitant because I worry my dirham would disincentive the boy from pursuing education.
Philipp gave the money. I followed suit. Maybe his family can’t afford to send him to school anyway. I justified our charitable short termism act.
This is one of the places where the economy relies on tourism. Unlike their Arab neighbours, Morocco is not oil rich. It’s a chaotic beauty. Touts offering guide services, locals misleading your way in the medina, two women fighting over a boy (too bad the local men intervened before it became a proper cat fight), and donkeys in the city. Many mopeds are modified to have pedals; the riders would cycle them when the petrol ran out.
The desert is harsh, but it insulates. A different, detached world. I had a glimpse of Almásy’s world. It was a decompression chamber prior to our return to third world Indonesia after living in first world Europe.
Erik Prasetya photographs Jakarta with a Leica M. Cartier-Bresson, Salgado, and a long list of Magnum photographers’ works testified its prowess. The original rangefinder camera. Classic timeless design with the iconic red dot (or subdued, if you don’t want to announce ‘expensive camera’).
I have always had a crush with the M since I saw Blood Diamond; Jennifer Connelly wielding the M among hard men with Kalashnikovs and Armalites. I may never cover an armed conflict, but I practice photography the most when I am travelling.
Rangefinders are the happy medium between size and performance. Bigger firepower than smartphones, smaller than DSLRs. The ergonomics of a real camera is always better for making pictures. Smartphones’ features are distracting. When you’re travelling, you want to save your phone battery for navigating—and posting those pictures.
Never a best value camera. M’s lack of auto-focus at that price point was a deal breaker for me, a mere photography enthusiast.
Settled with the poor man’s Leica, Fuji X100T. Not exactly a rangefinder, a premium point and shoot. Beautiful retro (Leica-like) design with a pancake lens equivalent to 35mm and f2.0 aperture—an ideal street photography camera. Attached Lensmate’s thumb-rest and red lizard soft release button for better stability and look.
My EOS 6D and X100T are all that I need for travel photography. I have realised that when a picture is not good enough, it’s usually because you’re not close enough. Bang Bang Club. I use 50mm and 35mm lenses.
I was a contented traveler-photographer. Until the pandemic.
In the last months of 2020, I was demoralised—perhaps even depressed. I was burning out from the dullness of isolated days. I was running out of my resiliency in enduring the pandemic days. I found it hard to finish books I am reading, to choose which film to watch, or even to decide where to eat when dining out.
I wanted to write a New Year post. Something about surviving 2020. I had so much insights from 10 months of ‘house-arrest’. But I was unable to find the words. I sat and stare at the blank word processor page. When I force-typed the words, they were vapid.
I tried photographing my neighbourhood: potholed and cat shitted roads; government or community sponsored banners with vapid jargons (‘Bersama kita lawan COVID-19’); rows of ruko(shophouses) housing SMEs with alay copywriting: ‘Alpucok’ (alpukat kocok), ‘Kedai Netizen’. Digital images are extremely low cost to make and store, but they are not even worth to be captured.
Naturally, I was not alone. Even creative professionals felt similar burnout. My London host brother, Adithio Noviello, lost interests in photography—a career threat for him. He decided to return to film photography. He picked up his old Bronica ETRSi and started shooting again. He said analog photography allowed him to slow down, to savour more the process of making a picture.
Photography as therapy.
Iyo’s posts piqued my interest in analog photography. In pre-pandemic times, it felt senseless to revert back to impractical photographic equipment when you can spend your resources for travel.The subjects and the environment are always the more decisive factors in making a picture than your kits.
But I needed something novel to stimulate my mind. Thus begin my research.
I never used a medium format camera like Iyo’s Bronica. My search got me to Negative Feedbackrecommending Mamiya 7 and Romanas Naryškin’s review on Mamiya RZ67. Mamiya 7 seems to be better suited for travels, but you’d shoot from your chest with RZ67—allowing you to make better eye contact with your subjects.
Romanas reminded his readers that taking picture with analog camera will not make you a better photographer, but it will make you take pictures in a different way. He admits the impracticality of shooting with RZ67. It is a choice he made with heart, not head.
I spent weeks ruminating on the compactness of Mamiya 7 and the shooting experience of RZ67. However, when I saw the price of 120mm film rolls, I decided to start with 35mm.
The cheapest way is to use my father’s Nikkormat again. But I want a small format camera that I’d take when travelling. Negative Feedback recommended Minolta TC-1, a point and shoot with 28mm lens. It is not available in Indonesia. Another problem: it’s so hipster (try searching ‘#minoltatc-1’).
My further search led to ‘the best camera ever made’. Sounds heavy for a 1954 technology, but it’s a Leica. After watching Youtube videos and reading blogs about the M3, I knew that she’s the one. I have always been in love with the M after all.
Yet, I was worried that I won’t make good pictures; that I would be wasting money. What if this craving for analog photography is just a phase? Will I actually want to travel with a film camera, risking missed shots of priceless moments? 36 unreviewable-undeletable shots with full manual control seems to require so much skill.
The M3 does not have a built-in lightmeter. If I rely on my current light reading skills or the rule of the average from Kodak Pocket Guide to 35mm Photography, the learning curve would have large error margins (costly in terms of money and, worse, moments). Leicameter seems to be a complicated apparatus. Most modern lightmeters’ designs are not aesthetically compatible with the M3 design.
Thankfully, KEKS EM01 is an easy to use digital lightmeter. Its compact minimalist box shaped design is compatible with the M3’s. The hot/cold shoe attachment, unfortunately, is flimsy white plastic.
I found the justification for the acquisition of the M3 from Jillfit’s post (‘It takes a lot of courage to be willing to suck at something’) and Michael Ramage’s (‘Do something for yourself this year, get better at something…old. Find yourself again’). Digital cameras are my comfort zone photography, analog camera will drive me out of it.
So I went to Joelcam. They had two M3s for sale: a single stroke and a double stroke shutter release lever. The double stroke is the older version, more ‘vintage’ (I checked the serial numbers on f22cameras.com, the double stroke was made in 1955; the single 1962). Function wise, double stroke can better prevent accidental shutter release. Conversely, you can lost milliseconds for readying the shutter release.
The double stroke’s body is in better conditions. The single stroke has more wear and tear. I don’t mind cosmetic wear and tear as long as the camera works; the weathered look also gives that vintage feel (and makes it cheaper).
Arifin of Joelcam made his sales pitch: more and more photographers are turning to analog. Investment wise, analog camera price is not as depreciative as digital. He didn’t really need to pitch the M3. The moment I walked to the store, I already made my decision.
The M3 viewfinder is designed for 50mm lens. I’d love to get a Leica lens—the Summicron, Summarit, or Summilux. But I thought it is best to start with something cheaper: the Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f1.2.
Leica M3 with Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f1.2 and KEKS EM01 Lightmeter
Joelcam gave me a complimentary Kodak Gold 200 roll film. It became my first roll for my M3.
I walked out the store with the M3 single stroke. Anxious and excited, like successfully asking a lady for a first date. Hoping everything will work out yet knowing everything could be a disappointment. Downloaded and consulted the manual, watched video on how to load the film roll.
The M3 is heavier than it looks. The shutter speed options are limited from B to 1/1000. I never had to compensate the viewfinder parallax before. I was worried that I would only get a few good pictures or none at all. Dropped my first film roll at Rana Lab when finished it. A few hours later, the developed results were emailed to me.
Dapit the Builder (Kodak Gold 200)
I am glad that my success rate in making good pictures is not bad at all, especially for first time user. Matt Day is right. The Nokton produces visible vignetting in low light conditions. However, it is a great lens with good value.
The M3 is the first camera with which I do photography for the sake of photography. I read that the M3 is not a camera for working professionals but for artists. I am not at the level of an artist, but I am not a working professional. The fully mechanical functions and minimalist features, as well as the delayed gratification of seeing the results, allow me to enjoy again the thrill of shutter clicking and the excitement of anticipations. No white balance setting, no ISO adjustments. Just shutter speed, aperture, and focus.
My choice of the negative have direct and almost unalterable impact to the images. I found joy in experimenting with the negatives. After the Kodak Gold, I tried film rolls from a Ciamis firm, Lapan Film Lab: the BW400 and Cine200. They are half the price of established brands. My verdict: very grainy and inconsistent exposures in low light. The hidden costs of missing moments can be larger than expected. In anyway, I’m a Leica owner. I should be able to afford the investment of better (pricier) negatives.
Mini Cooper (Lapan BW400)
I am glad that I didn’t decide on Minolta TC-1. A point and shoot would have lessened my photography experience. If I am only looking for the analog look on the images, I could have used one of those filter apps.
I want my skills to match the fine apparatus I am using. I researched on black and white photography books. The first authoritative name appeared from my research is Ansel Adams, the father of straight photography, I acquired his trilogy The Camera; The Negative; and the Print, which unfortunately are too technical so I only skimmed them. Still, I was enlightened of my ignorance on many photography terms (and even the existence of large format cameras).
I bought Lambrecht’s Way Beyond Monochrome. The book focuses on developing and printing film. Too advanced for someone who have only loaded fewer than 10 film rolls in his adult life.
The references section, however, is a map to gold mines. Sontag’s On Photography is on the top of ‘Art, Perception, Composition, and Lighting.’ But another unfamiliar name kept reappearing: Mortensen, William. His books The Command to Look and The Model are mentioned as the classics.
I followed the rabbit down the hole.
Command is a book on how to make an impactful image with the anti-thesis of the straight (purist) photography. Adams dubbed Mortensen as the Anti-Christ and used his influence to exile Mortensen from the mainstream photography. Mortensen approach is to engineer a photograph in such a way using psychological nudges to make the viewer look, see, and enjoy.
The ‘pictorial imperatives’ constitute of shapes/patterns associated with our primal fear as well as universally appealing themes. The shapes/patterns are diagonals, S-curves, triangles, and dominant mass. While the themes are sex, sentiment, and wonder. Mortensen’s ‘pictorial imperatives’ are Roland Barthes’ ‘punctures’ in Camera Lucida.
Mortensen’s formula for two dimensional visual arts was adopted by Anton Szander LaVey in creating the rituals for the Satanic Church—rituals are aimed to satisfy the carnal desires of men and women, employing psychodrama theatrics which are often sensual and terrorising (like in Eyes Wide Shut).
LaVey’s The Devil’s Notebook feels like Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil or Hesse’s Demian, but with pagan carnivals. Perhaps, Satan is Abraxas. Satanism is not really about worshipping Satan or eating babies. It’s an alternative to mainstream religions and consumerism herd mentality. An atheistic philosophy of individualism based on responsible pursuit of pleasures.
I was a sixteen year old high school kid, sitting on a bench of a warung on a Saturday night; waiting for my friends who have cars to pick me up to party at one of the live music cafes in Kemang (was it Barbados?). The proprietor sat beside me, smoking a clove cigarette. He inhaled and exhaled nicotine and tar fumes. Contented in cancerous indulgence. He was illuminated by a dangling incandescent lightbulb powered by stolen electricity from the streetlights.
I wished I had a camera and the photography skills to take his portrait.
I couldn’t afford to pursue photography yet that time. But what really prevented me was Dazed and Confused teenage life. Gaining approval from my peers was more important. Spent my pocket money on cellphone credits, internet cafes, fast fashion, marijuana and cheap liquors (which tasted so bad you’d have to mix them). Got into a gang, but not a band; soft drugs and violence, but no sex other than masturbations.
Now.
I am reading books, on photography and other topics.
I have an outstanding promise to Erik Prasetya: to write an essay on his (then) newly published photo book Women on Street. I have written a rough draft and note sketches on my journal. However, I never follow it through.
I am fan of Erik’s works (I took his Street Photography Course). I just don’t have the same interests to Jakarta as him.
This is a sprawling kampung. It hasthe worst traffic jam in the world. It’s orthodox and homogenic. It’s superficial and a starkly inequal society. It worships anything Western (Hollywood, Louis Vuitton bags, Panerai watches, Supreme anything, and recently Taco Bell) but glorifies the so-called Eastern (Islamic) values; so sexual but laden with religious guilts. A society claiming to value individualism, yet imposes so much emphasis on social gatherings and, therefore, camps.
The aspiring metropolis is bearable to me only because of my close personal relationships and relative career success. In normal times (the pre-pandemic world), I could escape this city. To spend that money made here for travels. But the pandemic forces me to stay. Even worse, it even barred me from meeting my friends. Those video calls help, but not a substitute for in person meetings where we can just be silent in each other’s company.
However, as a knowledge worker, I can now work from home with little frictions. Being spared of Jakarta’s traffic reduces a lot of stress.
I live in Jagakarsa. A very middle class neighbourhood. An ugly one, almost suburban. Potholed roads, cat shitted, suicidal mopeds. The local mosques engage in daily shouting matches with each other when reciting prayers—at dusk, evening, and dawn. One particular muezzin is so bad, I wonder if he’s the son of the mosque’s imam to be allowed near the microphone. Kiosks and food stalls with bland or unaesthetic designs with alay copywriting. There is Gudskul, a cultural oasis by Ruang Rupa, but other than that you have to buy your own shalimar.
We tried walking around the neighbourhood to be less sedentary during the semi-lockdown, PSBB. I tried to see the aesthetics in the banality as Erik does, but failed. With no foreseeable travel plan, I didn’t touch my cameras for almost a year.
I miss taking pictures. However, for me, photography is about the subjects and the environments. I have been living in Jakarta for more than 30 years, yet I cannot ‘see’ my home. But even Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York failed photographing Jakarta. Erik himself said that Jakarta is difficult to photograph, the weather is either sunlight overexposure or grey overcast—always with humidity, diffusing the ambient lights.
There is such thing as ugly beautiful, but most Jakarta is ugly ugly. Just look at the bathroom tiles used for the exterior of local mosques. Sterile luxury may not be charming, yet it is always better than vapid poverty. In Humans of New York, Jakartans’ life stories are always about the struggle of the sandwich generation. Despite an aspiring metropolis, Jakartans’ life aspirations seem to revolve only around family and religion. The uniformity make them banal subjects.
I do not say this out of spite or unkindness (self-depreciating reversed nationalism, maybe). Indonesia is a third world country which was under authoritarian regime for most of its existence. We are not used to diversity of thoughts and ideas or original self-expression (whatever it is, given our memetic psyche); we stand out to blend in. Thus our love for uniforms and matching clothes within our peer group—e.g. sarimbit. The clannish communal social structure is a safety net since the state has not been able to provide welfare security.
The absence of stimulating subjects and environments muted my interests in photography for a while. Until Instagram ads forwarded me Greg Williams’ Candid Photography Skills online course. With the downtime and restriction on practice from the isolation, I thought maybe it is time to catch up on theories. So I bought the course and was inspired with Greg’s concept of candid photography (which corrected my misunderstanding, ‘candid’ is not just discreet observer’s view but can also be participatory). I never really read the photo books I owned, to look at the pictures slowly. I reread Women on Street and also Mysterious Happiness by Mathias Heng and Anna Bärlund.
Then it came to me that Greg, Erik, and Mathias/Anna worked with different subjects from socio-economic backgrounds: the members of the high society (Hollywood celebrities), the middle class (of Jakarta), and the marginalised people (denizens of Manila’s slums). All of them work in human-interests genre.
When it comes to socio-economic division, the middle-class is the most vulnerable to banality— the least interesting class. The sufferings of poverty can be painted as revolutionary, reactionary, or at the very least, romantic. One can find life’s meaning in endurance, after all. The high society glamours are the aspirations, the Dream (American or elsewhere). Give a humane perspective on success; bring the elites down to earth and they become relatable.
Everyone loves glitter and grit. The upper and the lower classes are high stimuli.
The middle-class, with little or no cultural references and capital, are simply consumers—which experience is mediocre.
Seno Gumira Adjidarma, in his collection of essays Affair, described the middle-class experience of Jakarta. The superficiality, in which he coined the term ‘kibul-kibul’, of Jakartans who can look the part as cosmopolitans but subconsciously village people, e.g. smart professional suit and tie, but would change to sandals in the office. In Women on Street, a lady changing her stilettos to walk the streets of Jakarta after work—lest she’d trip from the potholes or easily elbowed and shoved away in Darwinian commutes.
The dreams of the mediocre, the basic, middle-class are simple: new mobile phones every year, new car every five years, weekend recreations at the malls, eating out at (not cheap but not so good) chain restaurants, and to pursue one or more trending hobbies (current pandemic trends: cycling, gardening, and Siamese fighting fishes).
How Erik see the aesthetics in such banality is impressive and puzzling.
Perhaps the answer can be found in his essays in Estetika Banal & Spiritualisme Kritis and his biography Cerita Cinta Enrico. Erik was not born in Jakarta. He came from Sumatra. He’s a perantau. For him, as other domestic migrants, Jakarta the capital is (or was) a metropolis. Yet, unlike most utusan daerah, he is privileged to have a mother with a good taste (despite she was a Jehovah Witness) and an intellect with vigorous activism (during his student years in ITB, he participated in many protests against the New Order).
Claiming to be a member of the middle-class, Erik could not nor wished to leverage the stimuli of his subjects with voyeurism or exoticism perspectives.
Maybe Erik loves Jakarta because the city gave him the chance to acquire cultural capital he could not have outside Java? He has travelled extensively, he has seen world great cities, but he became of an artist in Jakarta.
As a born and bred Jakartan, who climbed the socio-economic ladders both culturally and economically, I found Jakarta is easier to live now compared when I was younger. Erik’s anthropological visual records in Women on Street remind me that there have been improvements in infrastructures. Sudirman, the main boulevards, is more walkable now. The MRT, despite its limited reach, made the main business districts much more accessible. The advent of ride hailing apps make owning a car less of a necessity. E-wallets nudged Jakartans to be a more cashless society. While e-commerce platforms allows me to avoid shopping malls.
Perhaps one misrepresentation of Jakarta in Woman on Street is there are only few women in hijab. In Jakarta, the richer the area, the fewer the hijabi women (despite the Muslims are still the majority population). Inversely, in places where people from various socio-economic backgrounds rub shoulders—the bus stop and train stations and pedestrian walkways—and less affluent or suburban areas, the women cover themselves.
Maybe that’s why he titled a chapter ‘Looking for the faces of women who may disappear in the future.’ More and more women are covering themselves as a symbol of their faith. Glamorous and hedonistic lifestyle as portrayed by those artis ibukota is inaccessible to most people. Those who can afford them yet sensitive enough realised that the consumerist-exhibitionist pursuit of happiness is futile and spiritually barren. With little or no access to initiate oneself to philosophy and art, Jakartans mostly rely on organised religion as a panacea to their existential questions.
The hijabs have practical purpose of preventing sexual harassment, some say. Jakarta is a patriarchal city, women in public places are always subjected to the male gaze and catcalls. Jakarta women often wear jackets, shawls, or anything to cover their shoulders despite the heat and humidity; as well as earbuds to dampen those catcalls when walking. I, however, am skeptical the effectiveness of hijab as countermeasure to sexual harassment; a hijabi coworker said she is often catcalled by ‘Assalamualaikum, Bu Haji!’
In anyway, a photographer sees what he want to see and present what he want to present. Women of Street is intended to be a street photography project, not journalism. Erik wants a Jakarta that is more inclusive and female friendly. A less orthodox and, yes, more cosmopolitan, cultured, and liveable city.
Erik is among the few of Indonesian photographers who can write to explain his ‘art’. In fact, I don’t know any other Indonesian who does that. He posited that Indonesian photography scene is short on precedents. The Indonesian maestros rarely left literatures on their take to the art of photography. The younger generations have to start from scratch; no wonder most Indonesians stuck at craftsmen level. The artisan photographers are usually trained and educated overseas. Erik’s books, including Women on Street, are his dedication as an educator.
