18th Moon Station

May 1st for public holiday!

Warning: this is a joke post came from several minutes of shallow inspiration in the solemn room of deep thoughts (read: toilet box).

In the spirit of the S.O.S day (more known as the Mayday), thought of reasons to make this day into a public holiday. Why a holiday ? Won’t it make even more workers go down to the streets ?

At least in Indonesia, maybe that’s not the case.

A photogenic city

As the election for Jakarta's new governor is closing, the newspaper made a continuous theme on the metropolitan section. Basically it's trying to remind peoples about the problem that the elected governor should be doing (not that he'll be doing it, anyway). It sums up into:

• Traffic that got worst while the city lack of any popular mass public transportation system.
• Flood problem that's almost like the city's yearly festival. This one will got forgotten since it's almost the dry season.
• Trash, although this seems to be relegated to the neighbouring city.
• Public space.
• Public safety, especially after the recent motorbike gangster incidents.

Anyway, about the public space (and city planning in general), I still find it hard to believe Indonesian would do it. First and most important thing:

Public space is not cash cow, private commercial space are.

That alone, in my opinion, made it impossible to have a city where the peoples can look almost to the horizon and see the wide open sky above. They can't walk in a well designed landscape under shades of trees. All those cost money to buy and maintain, especially in the profitable plots where private sectors can get huge amount of money the banks stole from public.

Comparing to city abroad in developed countries, the city is clean, cool, has open space and even the more packed area still has its charm (mostly cleanliness and character). Summarizing it all, a photogenic city.

Well, there are such place in Jakarta, but that's on private owned land and instead it's burdened to the rich peoples who can afford living in the expensive plots for the LUXURY of having open park nearby instead of the tightly packed dense populated areas. In fact, visiting several of those areas recently, it really made me feel grateful that the place I live now at least still have much sky to see.

But the only solution would be a firestorm downtown though. There's no way the city can be re-designed without being razed down by force majeur. The compensation money would be ridiculous if it's going to be done legally.

Fire incident, no alarm

Yesterday, in Taman Anggrek Mall, I had a small party.

During that time, on the lower floor, there's an incident involving fire on one of the decorative Christmas tree. The incident is settled by the firefighters and although there's panic, all's back to normal soon after.

The problem here is, me and friends doesn't hear the alarm at all. Yes, we're located in section separated from the mall itself, but still in the same building. How come there's no alarm and no announcement at all ?

Right place in the Right time

Had a photo hunting event with the local street photography group yesterday. As usual, they started early so I have to catch up with them later. This time though, thanks to being late I got to watch this.

A traffic accident. And as far as I can see, it starts with this sedan running in high speed across the Sudirman street right to the Hotel Indonesia roundabout. He then just crashed to box car in front after a loud screeching tire.

The person on passenger seat told me that his friend thought the road is empty, which is still weird because… straight road is okay, but running high speed to a roundabout like that sounds like looking for trouble.

The arrangement are as follow. Sedan ⇒ Box ⇒ Motorbike ⇒ Taxi

Just do it at someone else's place

With the rising issue about leak of the US Congress' letter to Indonesian government ordering and paying for protection of Freeport assets in Indonesia, it brings an interesting question.

How do Americans think about corruption done by their government towards other government for the benefit of America ?

Rejected, not that it matters

Been a while since I last time have pictures of public demonstration.

In a few days, there will be cabinet reshuffling in Indonesia, which the pessimistic majority think is just a power transaction between politician instead of the peoples. But leave that opinion aside, this demonstration is related to the reshuffling issues.

City planning problems

For the last few days, the national newspaper is making serial article about city planning issue. This is in continuation of articles about problem in Jakarta, the capital’s city planning and various urban issues.

Previously, the articles raised issues about railway system and public transport. Before that it's the clash between communities probably sparked by stress caused by overpopulation.

But for all ideals, I wonder why they don’t yet say the harsh reality… this city is too “settled-down” to be changed easily.

Putting the realistic expectation

Too bad I didn’t have the chance to put this in the three question limit, but still managed to confirm something in the after-session private.

Last weekend, a new local (online) comic publisher called Makko is helding an event in Central Park mall, Jakarta. In a tie in with Toyota (inevitable, reason later) that also have the usual crowd gathering circus of cosplay parade.
No offence to the cosplayer, but I think that’s as much as you all are seen by sponsor, free attraction to pull the eyeballs to their products.

Portion of the comic lineup already printed in small numbers to be sold in this event.

As a new player, they (Makko) had a big dream to build the Indonesian comic industry that’s currently dominated with big players that are not able to support local comic, and disappointed by the revenue made by local comics.

The main difference, other than their main media of distribution by the web, is their eagerness to do huge spending to support the artists with intense promotional campaigns. The strategy is promote often, keeping peoples Seeing the executive staffs yesterday, I believe internet-style grass-root campaign by approaching the target market’s online opinion leaders is one of the most important spearhead) and also producing merchandise and market it.

The artists will also be paid per page they made instead of strictly royalty based like the current print publishers. So yes, the “You buy food with money, not Facebook Likes” problem for the artists is also addressed.

Bypass operation

The opened traffic separator in Semanggi street

One of the recent local news in Jakarta is the disagreement between the transportation department and the veteran legionnaire regarding traffic control.

The Indonesian war veteran legion have a building called Balai Sarbini. It’s located in a very strategic place, right next to the main interchange in the heart of Jakarta. Originally, planned by ex-defence minister in charged for veterans, it became a monumental historical building.

Later on, the building is not just renovated, they build a shopping mall behind that circular shaped monument, the Plaza Semanggi. The original building is then used as concert hall, rented to various high-profile shows.

Easter

There is two way to look at it, positively or negatively. Positively, maybe my view of the world has widen up a lot in these recent years. Negatively, it’s just getting exploited more and more.

Even in the majorly Muslim country like Indonesia, the three days of Christian largest celebration, the Easter (contrary to popular belief, it’s not the Christmas because the deal that we can go to heaven is made through the resurrection) is a long three days weekend (for those working 6 days a week though, it sucks).

I didn’t see much last year, but this year there’s a lot of hotel programs for family to spend Easter together, and Sunday brunch packages. Shopping malls had decorations and Easter themed promotions.

I hope this is just that I’m becoming more aware of the world, but they actually starting to exploit Easter even more don’t they?