Danau Toba Pt. 1: Medan

Apporximately 69-77,000 years ago, the human population was reduced to a mere 1,000 by the eruption of a volcano. The human species almost died out in the 1,000 year cooling that followed. With such a cheery back-story, how could I not want to go to Danau Toba, the crater lake remnant of this volcano. I decided to be optimistic and go by myself. I was getting pretty comfortable with my Bahasa skills, and many people do the back-packer thing with zero language skills, so I figured I would be set. Off I headed, taking a flight from Jakarta to the city of Medan, Sumatra's largest city, which hovers around 100% humidity year round. That moisture turns the place into a decaying mass, where even new buildings seem to be melting, the sides completely streaked with water lines. The place also just feels dirty. The one highlight was the Ramadan night market. It happened to be the holy month when I was there, so of course, breaking the fast is the main priority on people's minds during that time. Just around the corner from my "hotel" (more on that later) was a long street which was the place to be after sundown.  Spread out along the main street and parallel to the city's main mosque, a long line of food stalls offered every kind of Indonesian food.  The waiters (kids hired for the night, not wearing uniforms or anything) would nervously approach me, the 'bule' trying to offer me a menu and a seat.  Finally I did sit down and because I was alone, a number of young Indonesians came and sat down with me to make conversation.  They were very friendly and shocked to learn I was traveling alone.  Solo travel isn't common in Indonesia, where the culture and mentality is deeply communal.  Doing things alone is considered a sign of abandonment or insanity.  After some delicious but very Indonesian tasting Nasi Kebuli (as in Kabul, Afghanistan Rice, supposedly originating from the wartorn Central Asian country), I headed back to the squalor that was my hotel.  

The Fattest Officers Ever

Between 1967 and 1998, Indonesia was ruled by the dictator Suharto (not to be confused with, whose main motive was to drain as much wealth out of the country as he possibly could while staying in power. Suharto was a military man, and consequently, he found his largest support base in the armed forces. The logical next step was to reduce the police to a second rate institution, underfunded, barely functional and most importantly, no threat to the army. Today, the effects of the Suharto legacy persist in corruption and impressive levels of incompetence. One telling incident involved my friend having her blackberry stolen through a con. She was scammed by a team, a guy and his 'fiance'. Claiming to want English lessons for their whole company, the guy then asked for my co-workers phone so he could direct his 'boss' to the place. Feigning low battery and poor reception, he walked out of the resto they were in ostensibly looking for better signal. With that, he was gone, leaving his 'fiance' behind. So, this was my co-workers course of action. She called out every friend she had, she escorted the captured fiance to the police station, and the only thing they would do without a bribe was let us, the citizens, rifle through the belongings of the fiance. I asked if they had any record on her (she clearly seemed to be an experienced con artist) and was told that the police in Indonesia don't have a database! In the end we didn't get the phone back. Another incident, which I only heard of, involved my friend's brother. Driving through a village, he hit a local on a motorbike. A very large group of villagers gathered around him and told him that if he didn't pay up $2000 (a fortune here) he wouldn't be leaving the village any time soon. Take into account, the victim did need hospital treatment, but he wasn't dead or crippled for life. Without having recourse to law, the villagers took it into their own hands.

FOLLOW UP: The other night, I got stopped in a police check and the police tried to get a bribe out of me.  As they pulled over our taxi, I could hear them both saying "bule, bule". Clearly they thought they were in for a pay day.  Luckily I was with my friend Tasha who gave them a successful fuck you look as she told them that my documents were in order so they'd better hand them back.  The jr. officer still tried to press his claim saying "money, money" but the sr. officer shooed him away and despondently handed back all my id.  

Islamic Fashion?

In Canada, in my experience, every girl I knew who wore a veil ALWAYS wore a veil and was NEVER seen without one. Muslim girls who didn't wear a veil NEVER wore one and I don't remember seeing any of them ever wearing one. In Indonesia, the role of the veil is quite different. Some girls choose to wear their veil on Fridays only. Others wear it on days that they forget to do their hair or are running late. Most Indonesian muslim girls have at least one Facebook profile pic wearing a veil. Another interesting phenomenon is the wardrobe on Islamic holy days, such as the various Eids. Soap operas suddenly become a lot less revealing as all the gorgeous actresses suddenly get veils and as all the handsome actors look a lot more pious as they suddenly dawn kufi's and sarungs. You also see some very fashionable girls strutting their stuff veil and all, incorporating the jilbab (as hijab is called here) into their look. Its quite different from Iran, where the girls wear the veil only defiantly and bending every regulation they can, showing as much hair as they can. Here, it is not obligatory, and so girls who do wear it are mostly those who choose to. Also, some shops don't allow their staff to wear the veil. So, you see a girl walk into work veiled, do her shift unveiled, and put it right back on as soon as work is out. Another interesting phenomenon is the mother with full veil walking through the mall with her teenage or twenty-something daughter wearing a mini skirt, tight top and heels. Here, it seems the veil has a lot to do with a stage of life, representing motherhood.

Di Mana Ya?!

"Di mana ya?" You will very often here this phrase in Jakarta. The city is an absolute maze without any urban planning going into the sprawl of this city. Consequently, the citizens of this metropolis very often get lost. About 60% of the journeys I've been on with native Jakartans involved either getting totally lost, or going around in circles for hours.  And that is a conservative estimate. I remember the first outing I went to here was to the Wall Street Halloween party. It was spread out over two locations, a pre-party for the underaged students who can't drink yet (and also for the majority of Indonesians who think going out after 11pm makes you a criminal, no matter what you're doing) and an after party at another nightclub. I was offered a ride from the first location to the second. I was happy to accept. What I didn't know was that it would take us about 40 minutes to get to a place that was less than a 10 minute walk away, due to the driver getting totally lost. So, if you hear your driver, friend, guide or host say "Di mana ya?" meaning "Where is it, huh?" don't be alarmed, just sit back, enjoy the scenery and be thankful you're not driving.

Dragon and Lion Dance Competition

            The global lion dance community is a very small and tight-knit circle.  When I first confirmed my move to Jakarta I put out a call to all my lion dance friends via facebook to ask if any of them had any connections in Jakarta.  Sure enough I got a response from Cecilia from Australia, the most fanatical female lion dancer in the world I’m sure.  She gave me the number of a guy named Denny, someone who I’m now privileged to call a good friend.  I didn’t realize how generous and hospitable he would be.  Cecilia told me that his English was great but I was truly shocked at his fluency and knowledge of idioms and slang.  He even uses the perfect tenses correctly!  Anyway, after a few months of hanging out, he invited me to the Indonesia Lion and Dragon dance competition.  It was held in the enormous driveway of a mall called Mangga Dua (Mango Two) World Trade Centre.  If that isn’t a great name for a mall, I don’t know what is.  So, this area provided more than adequate space to set up the lion dance poles and benches.  There were teams from as far away as Makassar and Medan.

            The lion dance categories are as follows, poles and floor show.  The floor show is on the ground and on some low tables, or benches.  I can assure you that even though the height isn’t great, it does require some guts and quite a good degree of balance to play on the benches.  The poles segment is a separate category.  In this section the team jumps around on some poles which are about 2-3 meters in the air and topped by a platform about half a meter in diameter.  As you can imagine, the poles require a great deal of courage and physical precision in order to play on them successfully.

            Day one was the floor show category.  This allows lion dance teams a great deal of flexibility as they get to create their own obstacle course, as opposed to the poles, which are standardized by international judging requirements.  For me as a traditional lion dancer who looks back to the esoteric heritage and Fut San tradition and kung fu roots of lion dance, the floor show is really what I’m there to see.  It allows a school to show their style, character and martial prowess (if any).  Disappointingly, mmost of the lion dance schools in Jakarta are exclusively lion dancf, with no Kung fu.  You can really see the difference between a school that does martial arts and lion dance and those that only do lion dance. 

            The other highlight worth mentioning was the dragon dance segment.  In Toronto, I’ve only ever seen dragon dances that were monotonous and boring.  The lion dance here was different, the teams were athletic, graceful and exciting.  One of my favourite things that they did was to create these shapes with the dragon, for example, two concentric rings mimicking an infinity symbol, or a coiled dragon chasing the pearl in the centre.  The best part of these poses was the way the music would suddenly stop to emphasize the pose.  Then the music would slowly restart, and the dragon would return to life in slow motion, following the rhythm of the music. 

            I was lucky enough to be there with Denny as mentioned above, who just happens to know the current WORLD CHAMPION LION DANCERS!  To me, it’s the equivalent of a golf fan meeting Tiger.  They are really nice guys, and I chatted with them a bit in broken English and Indonesian.  I had already attended their practice so it wasn’t the first time meeting them, but they had won the world title since I had seen them last.  Surprise, surprise, they won the poles competition.  I got to hold the gold medal!  Closest I’ll get to a lion dance medal. 

            Highlight for me was the floor competition winners.  Their routine was great, very expressive and the story was quit intricate.  First, the “cheng” was suspended from a palm tree.  When the lion jumped up to get it, putting its legs on  the tree, it toppled over, landing on a cave.  The lion circled around to get the fallen cheng, still connected to the fallen palm.  BUT, when the lion approached the cave, a noxious gas (produced by smoke machine or maybe fire extinguisher) blinded the lion.  The lion cleared its eyes (using the sleep routine) and then a snake slithered out!  At some point a little frog was also catapulted into the air.  Th lion killed the snake and then proceeded to eat the cheng.  Shockingly, both the head and the tail of the winning floor team were pretty chunky guys about my age, but they played the lion with tons of character and most incredibly of all, were still able to do some jumps!

Zikr Session

Last Tuesday morning, I was invited to go to a Zikir session. For those who don't know, Zikir means "remembrance" in Arabic and it is a ritual whereby chants are sung to the Prophet Muhammad, perhaps accompanied by a lecture. This session was held in someone's house in the backyard. It was a huge house, with a giant backyard by Indonesian standards. Indonesian houses don't typically have very big backyards, even this backyard was smaller than the one at my old Pinewood house. But, it was completely carpeted and had a luxurious canopy shading us from the heat of the sun. The event was really for women, so there was a group of about 80 women and about 10 husbands/brothers sitting at the back.  The session began with a female chanting group.  They sang songs accompanied by a small handheld drum.  They were great, singing with clear, beautiful voices.  The contents of the speech by the Ustad were lost on me, but I was able to ascertain that he was an excellent speaker.  He would periodically break up a serious point with a joke, he would respond to comments from the audience or to distractions, such as children being naughty.  He also had two accomplices who arrived midway through the speech.  He used them for rhetorical effect, asking them questions, and occasionally letting them break into his sermon with their own interjections, which obviously supported the Ustad’s own message.  Afterwards, we had home made Padang food! (for a description of Padang food, see the post called Kelapa Gading, Glutton’s Paradise).  I saw this Ustad a second time at an immensely crowded event at the Ghadafi Islamic Centre located in Sentul just outside Jakarta.  I don’t know what the Libyans are doing building mosques in Indonesia but that’s another story.  

Sekolah Alam

So, I visited another school as a guest and gave a short lesson to some 7th graders. The school was called Sekolah Alam, which means 'nature school'. The whole thing got set up because one of my students' kids go to that school. It is located in Cinganjur (say it ching-anjoor) which is still in Jakarta but quite a distance from Kelapa Gading, my area. The school grounds are great, lots of trees and greenery, and no classrooms! The classes are held either in the courtyard, everyone sitting together in a circle on the ground, except the teacher who gets to sit on a raised dias. I asked the kids if the teachers usually stand, or sit on the dias. They said "Whatever you feel like, some teachers stand, some sit, it's up to you." which is a very typical Indonesian response. The stereotype of tropical cultures being thin on formality is abundantly evident here in Indonesia. So, I sat on the ground and didn't use the microphone that they made available, as I felt that would depersonalize it slightly. I asked the kids to get in groups and create some questions. They were very eager to ask their questions. This school does not have any foreign teachers, thus it was a unique experience for many of these students, to be able to ask a "bule" (Indonesian for European/Western foreigner) any question they wanted. The questions ranged from the mundane to the sophisticated. I particularly liked questions like "How do they deal with garbage in your country?" and "How long do you think it will take Indonesia to become like Canada?" I taught two classes in a row, the first was slightly higher in skill level while the second was a little lower with several special needs students. It was a little challenging to teach the second group, but there were several assistants helping out, so I had lots of support. After the lesson, I was driven directly to work through the thick of Jakarta traffic. I was prudent enough to tell them that I had to leave by 11am, even though I didn't have to work until 2pm. I made it with time to spare, but it still took more than 2 hours! My parting gift was an enormous bag of rambutan, fresh from the tree! They were crawling with ants, and I had to head off a near infestation of the teacher's room, but they were the most delicious rambutan I've ever had. Incidentally, rambutan means hairy in Indonesian, and is also the very apropos name of the fruit.