Oh, so glad to be back home. The past three days were super blah thanks to a workshop called "access to justice in transitional countries". Yaaawn.
The lesson I learned from the workshop was that the constant desire to talk turned out to be not uniquely Indonesian. There was this Georgian man, particularly, who made me feel like banging my head on the table or sticking my pen to his eyes everytime he delivered a long monologue with this flat accented and undecipherable English..arrrggh.

But at least I made some acquaintances. My favorite was DS, an outgoing Malaysian activist campaigning for democracy in Burma (well,well, been bumping into people related with Burma lately). Knowing Aung San Suu Kyii herself personally, DS said that as opposed to her demure and charismatic persona, Suu Kyii was in fact cheeky and a bit of a clown, always made jokes. Which reminds me of Seal's song.."No, you'll never ever survive, unless you you're a little crazy."

Anyway, back home, I was told that I came third place at a movie critic competition held by Jakarta Arts Assembly (DKJ) *insert applause here* :)
It's a bit funny, though, cause I didn't care less about the competition (I still don't),
I signed up merely for the cash prize, which totaled Rp 15 million.
The competition opened at the end of last year, and back then my then bf and I were working our butts out to get some cash for our wedding. You see, we're no rich kid so we had to finance most of the wedding expenses ourselves.
Forget the salaries, aside from translation stuff, writing company profiles and so on, we tried to find extra cash by entering any writing competition available at that time.

Alas, we didn't win any. Fortunately, we managed to collect the cash without having to borrow it, which was our intention at the first place of not having debts after the wedding.

It's been four months after the wedding. Still, it's a nice surprise to win something:) Only one fifth of the total prize, but not bad, not bad at all.. Lumayaaan, buat beli celana mango (kamaranaaaa fashionistaa?? :))

Posted by hera at 1:48 PM | Permalinks | Comments   

Life is colorful at rumah susun/rusun (modest apartment). You can find any sort of people here aside of families and regular employees like moi. In the morning, for instance, you'd likely run into a number of ladies with micromini skirts and procovative tops just got back from works.

At night, you'd bump into anyone, you name it. Native Betawi people, Arabs (loud and house-music mania:(), mistresses of Arabs (also loud), out-of-closet gays (already hit on my husband :D), or a western man (bule) whose Indonesian wife kicked him out after taking all his fortune. The bule hated the Arabs, calling them "fucking hypocrites who pray five times a day but fuck many women." Hehehe, nyante aja mister.

Our favorite so far is a transvestite named Devi, or Mbak Devi as we affectionately call her. Our first encounter with her was through a flyer slipped under our door about her cafe/hair salon. It was on a modest pink photocopy paper, but what made us burst out was the picture of Mbak Devi herself, posing and everything with complete make up and wig.

The flyer says that the cafe provides a 24-hour delivery service just an sms or a phone call away. So we sms her :"We'd like 2 burgers and 2 fren frais (sic, as it was written on the flyer). From Blok X Fl.5 #11". No reply, so my husband called her, repeating our orders. She answer coyly with nasal voice:"OK, baby, coming right up", which freaked my husband out :D.

The el-cheapo burger/fries/hotdog turned out to be good, so we ordered them frequently. Although Mbak Devi doesn't stay true to her 24-hour service as everytime we called her to order breakfast, what we got was a sleepy nasal voice from Mbak Devi who had just woke up and said the cook's not ready or she hadn't done grocery yet. Even so, she still referred to us as baby and honey.

A couple weeks ago, as my husband was writing about life in the rumah susun, we decided to pay a homage visit to Mbak Devi's place. It was pretty neat hair salon, with the cafe on the hall way. The walls were decorated with her hairstyling diplomas, as well as pictures of Mbak Devi in front of Eiffel Tower (seriously!) and other countries like Singapore and Malaysia.

In person, Mbak Devi herself doesn't look as scary as in the flyer. In fact, she was quite pretty for a transvestite with slim figure and hardly any trace of male bones on her face. She is also pretty articulate, despite confusing v or f with p and vice versa:), and at 37 year-old, she has wisened up.

Mbak Devi is frank too. She said she was an orphan, and that she'd worked as prostitute in those foreign countries, that she had been in and out of jail for putting on the red light and selling her body to the night:), and that she had gone out with men who ended up gotten married. Oh, she said she still kept her penis too! Although her silicone-injected boobs were apparent.

Now, Mbak Devi said she wanted that life behind by starting up the business, while stills supporting her siblings and their family. She said she wanted to go back abroad and live there for good.
"Foreigners respect sick people like me and treat us better. Never for once did they call us names like 'banci' or 'perek'. They pay us good money and they treat us like regular workers. Even in Islamic country like Malaysia they respect us," she said, adding that she went back home due to overstay.

The air felt so thick when we go back to our place. Therefore people, jangan ganggu banci! :)

Posted by hera at 2:01 PM | Permalinks | Comments   

I just realized that my previous posting contains many grammatical errors :D
Anyway... about the weekend.., finally, that moment arrived. THE stuff my sister often talked and endlessly complains about, which I often think as partly her fault for being too sensitive and self center. Until I experienced it myself.

I'm talking about the relationship with the in-laws:) I'm not gonna jump into details here, I will keep them in private, or later on, in my future novel (which so far never exceeds five pages since I first wrote them in 2000:P Talking about procrastination).

Anyway, I'm sure that competition between family members is not exclusive to women. But for guys, it's about who's getting bigger salaries, who's got promoted, or who's getting bigger house etc. In my observation, though, it's mostly about physical appearances for women.

In my own family, for instance, there's always things like who's babies are uglier, and oh, too bad for Cousin X who inherited her not-so-pretty mother's look instead of her handsome father, and stuff like that. Me, alas, had always been one of the targets because of my weight and my curly hair. But with your own flesh and blood, you can always talk back, get mad, or leave.

Things sure are different with your in laws:) So, there I was in my husband's uncle's house yesterday, as the women-in-laws busily compare each other's complexion, weight, nose, hair, etc. I've always projected an image of a quiet and rather shy daughter in law (which is not exactly deliberate but so far it's been beneficial :)) so they were nice enough not too drag me in that competition.
Paranoid-me knew that it wasn't just out of courtesy, but simply because I wouldn't "win" in any field. I was the second fattest person in the room, my skin was pretty dark thanks to frequent swimming and ojek riding, I recently had acne breakout for no reason cause in the past 28 years of my life I barely had any pimple, my nose is not bad but a bit too 'monumental' and unfemine, and not to mention my curly hair. So, I was out in any competition before I even signed up :)

To top it all off, I stinked!:P
I had two articles due for Monday, but I got sick on Saturday, and I didn't want to work on Sunday (partly due to family gathering thing), so I went to office on 7 a.m. on Sunday morning, got the articles done and flew to the uncle's home. I thought I remembered to put on some deodorant, but maybe I forgot, I wasn't really sure. But anyway, I sweat a lot and I stinked!!

Well, that'd give my in-laws something to talk about me :D :D

Posted by hera at 1:32 PM | Permalinks | Comments   

A friend, and fellow journalist, just tell me this amazing story. She was at a hospital in South Jakarta last night, visiting her aunt.
My friend took the elevator to the VIP room along with her cousins, and when the elevator opens to their destination floor, guess who popped up? I'm not gonna name names :) Hints: The former number one person in the country, the longest and most feared ruler, the kleptomaniac leader, The Man (as in School of Rock), the smiling general.

As oppose to his family's plea and doctors' diagnoses, the general, according to my friend was healthy and fit, walking steadily and firmly without a cane he usually had when photographed. He even managed to smile to my friend before walking away fastly.
So, what happened to the intestinal bleeding, the brain damage, and all the ailments that hamper the investigation and trial upon him?

Quickly enough, my friend's cousin captured the general, who was accompanied by 2 adjutants, with her video-enabled cell phone. A private TV station has already offered to buy the images, but my friend, who's been in dangerous assignments don't want to take another risk despite the promise of anonimosity.

It's her choice, though. I, however, am still stunned.

Posted by hera at 5:23 PM | Permalinks | Comments   

When I was still placed at the Sunday edition desk, my least favorite assignment was fashion coverage. I love fashion, and, my hubby especially knows how much I enjoy shopping. But the local fashion scene turned out to be so uninspiring, the reality I only found out when I had to write fashion articles.

First, the designers. There are only few of them whose works, in my opinion, are excellent. The rest are overhyped and overrated designers who are actually just ripping off the works of foreign designers. Even then they couldn't come up with good copies, with unclean cut or bad finishing, for instance.
Some designers can create with their own, original style (although not necessary brilliant), but then ended up stagnant (lipit lagi, lipit lagi.. organdi deui, organdi deui:().

Secondly, the crowd. I'm definitely no homophobic, but those sissy men at fashion shows reaaally got into my nerves. They're fake, they're loud, they're judgmental, they think they're the most fashionable people in the world and underestimate others who have other things in mind rather than the latest fashion trend.. I just can't stand them. And as they look down on unfashionable people like moi, defiant me usually dress down in fashion events. The rest of the crowd, however, are like them too. In short, it's a poser universe.

The last thing I hate about local fashion scene is the fashion media people themselves. It baffled me how much they earned to be able to buy the clothes and accessories they were wearing. Very fast in sniffing and adapting the latest fashion trend, the media however can yet be able to come up with good articles and criticism that no wonder the local fashion still suck as there's barely any feedback.

Despite the freebies, friends, very-useful-and-eye-opening free fashion crash course at a local fashion school, as well as praises for several of my articles, I don't dream of coming back to write fashion articles. It's difficult, actually, to write about fashion, because I don't have deep knowledge and background about it. I was just lucky because the local fashion scene has not developed that much that it doesn't really require those crafts to write a fashion review.

The whole fashion experience, however, rub off on me when I was transferred to National desk. Suddenly, I become one of those judgmental fashion people as I cringe upon seeing the way my fellow journalists dress as if they were still in the 80s. I mean, why the baggy pants, people? And the plain platform shoes? How about taking a bath once in a while? :)

Everytime I bump into women activists, I also feel like telling them to stop wearing batik and ethnic-y accessories all the time. And oh, what is up with a legislator wearing a hair tail, a political activist in leather jacket, an Assembly speaker with pants too short by inches that urged me to moonwalk, and a woman legislator sporting a towering, bronze-colored bouffant.

Stranger thing is, now that I deal with all of those national affair shit, I turn to fashion as my escapism. I still stick to my jeans and tshirt/shirt mostly, but I shop more than ever:), frequently buy fashion magazines and regularly browse fashion sites.

Maybe it's my karma:)

Posted by hera at 9:38 PM | Permalinks | Comments   

Last night I went to interview this new president of an Islamic party. A quite respected and admired political party for its consistent clean image.

If the party was all the new president claimed it to be, then perhaps I would consider voting for them in the next general election.

Although I'm still reluctant to vote for a party whose president do not shake hands with women (although he did not avoid eye contact like the you-know-who celebrity cleric), support poligamy, and thinks that city bylaw that prohibited women to go out alone at night past 10 p.m. is actually a way to eliminate prostitution.

Posted by hera at 11:48 AM | Permalinks | Comments   

For a person who has a constant need to be inspired, I've been lucky to have the opportunities to meet wonderful, amazing people from all over the world. People who do not only give strength and motivation, but also makes me see the bigger picture, instead of being inward-looking, succumb to my own trivial agony:)

This week I met two of them. The first one is Myanmarese activist Daw San San. My God, she is relentless. She's 73 years old, for God's sake, had been imprisoned twice, and now in exile in Thailand. Yet, she still strive to fight for democracy in Burma, travel all around the world to find support.

Dressed in sarong and blouse, she reminded me of my late grandmother. San San told me horrible stories of the military junta in Myanmar. She said she missed her grandson a lot and so on. During the interview, the song U2 dedicated for Aung San Suu Kyi, Walk On, played on the back of my head.

The second woman I met this week is a woman activist from a small town of Bondowoso in..Central Java? Sorry, I always mix up the cities in Central and East Java. Anyway, I truly respect this woman, her name is Ruqoyyah Ma'shum, cause she's been teaching people on the grassroot level on gender equality and equity. And she's totally far from the angry activist type or the image conscious celebrity activist type. Yet, her struggle is real, and it works.

It's very rewarding to meet the amazing women, the real fun fearless females.
Have I told you I love my job?

Posted by hera at 9:55 AM | Permalinks | Comments