This 14 minute video does an outstanding job of painting a comprehensive picture or country profile on Indonesia. There are, of course, many things he left out about life in Indonesia which I would have put in; but... having lived in Indonesia myself for several years, what he says or points out his piece are indeed true and valid.
Monday, August 27, 2018
Indonesia Country Profile
Here is a great video from YouTube channel Geography Now host "Barby" which really captures the essence and subtleties of Indonesian culture, "geo-political" characteristics and attributes, linguistics, cuisine and life in the archipelago nation of Indonesia with an air of humor.
This 14 minute video does an outstanding job of painting a comprehensive picture or country profile on Indonesia. There are, of course, many things he left out about life in Indonesia which I would have put in; but... having lived in Indonesia myself for several years, what he says or points out his piece are indeed true and valid.
This 14 minute video does an outstanding job of painting a comprehensive picture or country profile on Indonesia. There are, of course, many things he left out about life in Indonesia which I would have put in; but... having lived in Indonesia myself for several years, what he says or points out his piece are indeed true and valid.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Why Do Asian Women Invariably Flash the V Sign in Photos ??
This is something I have always wondered and been perplexed about living in South East Asia and having been exposed to Asian culture. Why do Asian women invariably flash the V or peace sign in photos?? Why?? I just don't get it!
Well.... now I finally have my answer!
Here's an article from Time Magazine below which sheds much need understanding about this:
Some say it began with Janet Lynn. The American figure skater was favored to take home gold in the 1972 Olympics in Japan. But the 18-year-old’s dream came crashing down when she fell during her performance. The gold medal was gone. She knew it, and Japan knew it.
But instead of grimacing, the shaggy-haired blonde simply smiled. Lynn’s behavior ran charmingly counter to the Japanese norm of saving face, and in doing so earned her legions of Japanese fans.
“They could not understand how I could smile knowing that I could not win anything,” said Lynn, who eventually went home with a bronze, in a telephone interview. “I couldn’t go anywhere the next day without mobs of people. It was like I was a rock star, people giving me things, trying to shake my hands.”
Lynn became a media sensation in Japan and the recipient of thousands of fan letters. During media tours around Japan in the years following the Olympics, she habitually flashed the V-sign. A cultural phenomenon was born.
Or rather, it was consolidated — because the V-sign was already entering mainstream consciousness through manga. In the 1968 baseball comic Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of the Giants), a protagonist struggling with father issues, and the pressure of competition, gets his dad’s tacit approval when the elder throws him a “V” before a big game. The volleyball manga Sain wa V! (V Is the Sign) was created shortly after and was adapted into a television series with an infectious earworm of a theme that features the chant “V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!”
It was probably advertising that gave the gesture its biggest boost, however. Though Lynn had some influence on the widespread use of the V-sign in photos, Japanese media attribute the biggest role to Jun Inoue, singer with the popular band the Spiders. Inoue happened to be a celebrity spokesperson for Konica cameras, and supposedly flashed a spontaneous V-sign during the filming of a Konica commercial.
“In Japan, I have seen the Inoue Jun theory advanced most often as an explanation for the origin of this practice,” Jason Karlin, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo and an expert on Japanese media culture, tells TIME. “I think the practice is a testament to the power of the media, especially television, in postwar Japan for propagating new tastes and practices.”
With the mass production of cameras, and a sudden surge in women’s and girls’ magazines in the 1980s, the aesthetics of kawaii — a visual culture superficially based on cuteness — took off. Suddenly, more women were posing for more shots, and more shots of women were being shared. V-signs proliferated much like today’s “duck face” pouts on Instagram and Facebook.
“The V-sign was (and still is) often recommended as a technique to make girls’ faces appear smaller and cuter,” says Karlin.
Laura Miller, a professor of Japanese studies and anthropology at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, stresses the role played by women in popularizing the gesture in photos. She recalls hearing girls say piisu, or peace, while making the sign in the early 1970s. “Like so much else in Japanese culture, the creative agents in Japan are often young women, but they are rarely recognized for their cultural innovations,” she wrote in an email to TIME.
When Japanese pop culture began to spread around East Asia in the 1980s (prior to the emergence of K-pop in this century), the fashionable V-sign found itself exported to mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea (where it already enjoyed some recognition because of the decades-long presence of the U.S. military).
These days, the habit is everywhere that Asians are. However, most young Asians who make the gesture in photos do so without thinking and are baffled when asked why they do it. Some say they’re aping celebrities, while others say it’s a mannerism that alleviates awkwardness when posing. “I need something to do with my hands,” says Suhiyuh Seo, a young student from Busan, South Korea. Little children do it without even being taught.
“I don’t know why,” says 4-year-old Imma Liu of Hong Kong — but she says she feels “happy” when she does it. Perhaps that’s all that matters.
Well.... now I finally have my answer!
Here's an article from Time Magazine below which sheds much need understanding about this:
Some say it began with Janet Lynn. The American figure skater was favored to take home gold in the 1972 Olympics in Japan. But the 18-year-old’s dream came crashing down when she fell during her performance. The gold medal was gone. She knew it, and Japan knew it.
But instead of grimacing, the shaggy-haired blonde simply smiled. Lynn’s behavior ran charmingly counter to the Japanese norm of saving face, and in doing so earned her legions of Japanese fans.
“They could not understand how I could smile knowing that I could not win anything,” said Lynn, who eventually went home with a bronze, in a telephone interview. “I couldn’t go anywhere the next day without mobs of people. It was like I was a rock star, people giving me things, trying to shake my hands.”
Lynn became a media sensation in Japan and the recipient of thousands of fan letters. During media tours around Japan in the years following the Olympics, she habitually flashed the V-sign. A cultural phenomenon was born.
Or rather, it was consolidated — because the V-sign was already entering mainstream consciousness through manga. In the 1968 baseball comic Kyojin no Hoshi (Star of the Giants), a protagonist struggling with father issues, and the pressure of competition, gets his dad’s tacit approval when the elder throws him a “V” before a big game. The volleyball manga Sain wa V! (V Is the Sign) was created shortly after and was adapted into a television series with an infectious earworm of a theme that features the chant “V-I-C-T-O-R-Y!”
It was probably advertising that gave the gesture its biggest boost, however. Though Lynn had some influence on the widespread use of the V-sign in photos, Japanese media attribute the biggest role to Jun Inoue, singer with the popular band the Spiders. Inoue happened to be a celebrity spokesperson for Konica cameras, and supposedly flashed a spontaneous V-sign during the filming of a Konica commercial.
“In Japan, I have seen the Inoue Jun theory advanced most often as an explanation for the origin of this practice,” Jason Karlin, an associate professor at the University of Tokyo and an expert on Japanese media culture, tells TIME. “I think the practice is a testament to the power of the media, especially television, in postwar Japan for propagating new tastes and practices.”
With the mass production of cameras, and a sudden surge in women’s and girls’ magazines in the 1980s, the aesthetics of kawaii — a visual culture superficially based on cuteness — took off. Suddenly, more women were posing for more shots, and more shots of women were being shared. V-signs proliferated much like today’s “duck face” pouts on Instagram and Facebook.
“The V-sign was (and still is) often recommended as a technique to make girls’ faces appear smaller and cuter,” says Karlin.
Laura Miller, a professor of Japanese studies and anthropology at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, stresses the role played by women in popularizing the gesture in photos. She recalls hearing girls say piisu, or peace, while making the sign in the early 1970s. “Like so much else in Japanese culture, the creative agents in Japan are often young women, but they are rarely recognized for their cultural innovations,” she wrote in an email to TIME.
When Japanese pop culture began to spread around East Asia in the 1980s (prior to the emergence of K-pop in this century), the fashionable V-sign found itself exported to mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea (where it already enjoyed some recognition because of the decades-long presence of the U.S. military).
These days, the habit is everywhere that Asians are. However, most young Asians who make the gesture in photos do so without thinking and are baffled when asked why they do it. Some say they’re aping celebrities, while others say it’s a mannerism that alleviates awkwardness when posing. “I need something to do with my hands,” says Suhiyuh Seo, a young student from Busan, South Korea. Little children do it without even being taught.
“I don’t know why,” says 4-year-old Imma Liu of Hong Kong — but she says she feels “happy” when she does it. Perhaps that’s all that matters.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Foreign Workers in Indonesia Required to Know Bahasa Language?
Legislation is being proposed to require foreign workers in Indonesia to demonstrate proficiency in the national Indonesian language (Bahasa). This is an issue that should definitely be tracked and monitored by any foreign national who is either already working in Indonesia now with a working permit (KITAS) or who plans to come to Indonesia for work in the near future. Are the Indonesians cutting off their noses to spite their faces with this proposed move?!
The idea of requiring foreign workers (or their employers) to "upload their working permit documents though an on-line system" is a great one; however, categorically requiring every foreign worker, without exception or exemption, to demonstrate proficiency in the Indonesian Bahasa language would mean that highly skilled technical, medical, engineering, aviation, or consultant type of professionals would only come from either the local labor force or pool and would exclude or effectively bar from employment foreign nationals who have expertise in certain areas (besides linguistics or Bahasa). Only those foreign nationals who have lived in Indonesia for quite some time or who have previously studied Bahasa or who have such bi-lingual language proficiency would be eligible to fill those positions or roles.
If this does get implemented, there should be a cross-country "reciprocity matrix" whereby another country will treat Indonesian diaspora or immigrants the same as a foreign national is treated in Indonesia. In other words, if a foreign national is required to demonstrate proficiency in Indonesian Bahasa language as a requisite to obtaining a working permit KITAS, then conversely Indonesians should be required to take the same test or be held to the same exact standard to be able to live (or work) in another country too. Fair is fair....
The idea of requiring foreign workers (or their employers) to "upload their working permit documents though an on-line system" is a great one; however, categorically requiring every foreign worker, without exception or exemption, to demonstrate proficiency in the Indonesian Bahasa language would mean that highly skilled technical, medical, engineering, aviation, or consultant type of professionals would only come from either the local labor force or pool and would exclude or effectively bar from employment foreign nationals who have expertise in certain areas (besides linguistics or Bahasa). Only those foreign nationals who have lived in Indonesia for quite some time or who have previously studied Bahasa or who have such bi-lingual language proficiency would be eligible to fill those positions or roles.
If this does get implemented, there should be a cross-country "reciprocity matrix" whereby another country will treat Indonesian diaspora or immigrants the same as a foreign national is treated in Indonesia. In other words, if a foreign national is required to demonstrate proficiency in Indonesian Bahasa language as a requisite to obtaining a working permit KITAS, then conversely Indonesians should be required to take the same test or be held to the same exact standard to be able to live (or work) in another country too. Fair is fair....
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Indonesian Media Needs to Cover Religion, Not Radicals
Here is an excellent article from the Jakarta Globe copied below which really makes an excellent point about covering the topic of religion in Indonesia in an objective and non-biased manner and in accordance to widely accepted journalistic norms or standards.
Indonesian media need to work together to ensure that religious extremists don’t have a voice in print, the International Association of Religion Journalists said on Wednesday.
“Don’t give any room to the hard-liners,” said Endy Bayuni, of the steering committee of IARJ. “Please cover them when they’re violating the law, but don’t give space to small group of people when they rally against something absurd. They used the media effectively and deceive the media to suit their own means.”
Journalists’ objectivity — which is usually present in business and political news — often gets forgotten when covering religion, Endy said before listing off examples of bias in coverage of religious conflicts with Shiites and Ahmadiyah.
“Islamophobia in the West in the past could not be set aside from the media,” Endy said. “The growing hatred among Muslims toward people of different religions is also influenced by the media.
When Indonesian media covered attacks against Ahmadiyah and Shia, many in the media called them heretics.”
The media should staff a religion beat with reporters committed to providing balanced and objective coverage, Endy said. Senior staffers need to remind young journalists of their responsibility to pluralism, he said.
“In most of [Indonesian] media, religion is not a prioritized beat,” he said. “There’s rarely news about religion on the front page or at the top of the news on TV unless it is a scandal or it involves violence. Even if the media does cover religion, they fail to do it according to good journalism standard.”
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Indonesian media need to work together to ensure that religious extremists don’t have a voice in print, the International Association of Religion Journalists said on Wednesday.
“Don’t give any room to the hard-liners,” said Endy Bayuni, of the steering committee of IARJ. “Please cover them when they’re violating the law, but don’t give space to small group of people when they rally against something absurd. They used the media effectively and deceive the media to suit their own means.”
Journalists’ objectivity — which is usually present in business and political news — often gets forgotten when covering religion, Endy said before listing off examples of bias in coverage of religious conflicts with Shiites and Ahmadiyah.
“Islamophobia in the West in the past could not be set aside from the media,” Endy said. “The growing hatred among Muslims toward people of different religions is also influenced by the media.
When Indonesian media covered attacks against Ahmadiyah and Shia, many in the media called them heretics.”
The media should staff a religion beat with reporters committed to providing balanced and objective coverage, Endy said. Senior staffers need to remind young journalists of their responsibility to pluralism, he said.
“In most of [Indonesian] media, religion is not a prioritized beat,” he said. “There’s rarely news about religion on the front page or at the top of the news on TV unless it is a scandal or it involves violence. Even if the media does cover religion, they fail to do it according to good journalism standard.”
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Mixed-Nationality Marriages (UU 6/2011)
Below is an article appearing in the Jakarta Post which gives an update on implementation of the new immigration law which affects foreign nationals living in Indonesia who are married to an Indonesian citizen with regard to obtaining either a temporary visit Visa (KITAS), or a permanent residency status or "PR" (KITAP), and also the right of a foreign national who is married to an Indonesian to work in Indonesia.
For a digest of other articles and background relating to this issue, please see my previous articles:
For a digest of other articles and background relating to this issue, please see my previous articles:
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