Anti Social

Detik.com today reported about an incident in Pekanbaru, Sumatra, where a foreigner was disturbed by the loud noises coming from a religious study in a mosque amplified by the loudspeaker on Sunday morning, at crack of dawn, and came to the mosque to ask them to stop ((it’s not clear in the article whether to stop the study or stop using the loudspeaker).

In other countries this (I attached the article in Indonesian below, if you can’t see it) would be considered an anti-social behaviour – not the person who complained, but the people in the mosque who used loud speaker to study about religion in the wee hours of the morning, which is worse/more frequent during the fasting month.

Why can’t they not use the loud speaker? Do the rest of the residents have to hear their study? Is it a sin if they don’t use the loud speaker? Is it the only way to study about religion, by waking up all residents – Muslims and non-Muslims, old people and babies, sick people – at 4.30 am in the morning?

And how could detik.com putting up an argument that because it’s a custom there and nobody ever complained, then it is an acceptable behaviour? Implying that the people who used the loudspeaker is the right one, and the person who was disturbed by the loud noise at dawn and complained is the wrong one.

Religion is something personal, it’s between you and your Creator. Why do people have to broadcast their devotion loudly, and disturbing other people? If this is to attract more people to join their belief, this kind of action would work the opposite. I believe the best dakwah (preaching) is through example or proof. If people see followers of a religion look peaceful, fair, considerate, virtuous, and like cleanliness, they would look at this religion with more interest (in a good way, not like now where people from other religion are interested with Islam because sadly they want to understand why some of its followers are very violent).

I have a dream, that one day, I could build a mosque where the people inside and outside of the mosque can pray and study about Qur’an or just have a conversation with God in serenity. No loud speaker is allowed. The muadzin will do the call of prayer using his natural sound (maybe the sound could be enhanced by designing the tower in such a way that his voice could be heard by people afar). The ibu-ibu (ladies) who do the pengajian recite the Qur’an with no blowing up sound from the loud speaker. Everybody live in harmony …

This is the article in detik.com:

28/05/2008 11:19 WIB

Terganggu Pengeras Keras, WNA Labrak Pengajian di Pekanbaru

Chaidir Anwar Tanjung – detikcom

Pekanbaru – Seorang WNA tiba-tiba saja marah dan meminta sebuah pengajian di sebuah masjid di kota Pekanbaru dihentikan. Dia merasa terganggu dengan pengeras suara yang digunakan.

“Tiba-tiba saja dia masuk masjid dan marah-marah dengan menggunakan bahasa asing. Saya tidak mengerti apa yang dimaksudnya. Namun agaknya dia marah atas pengajian kami itu,” kata Ustad Budi Setiadi kepada detikcom, Rabu, 28/5/2008, di Pekanbaru.

Budi menjelaskan, kejadian itu terjadi pada Minggu 25 Mei lalu. Saat itu ustadz Budi dan 2 ustadz lainnya yakni Zakaria dan Husein, sedang melaksanakan pengajian subuh di Masjid Al Muhsin, Jl Sutomo, Pekanbaru, Riau. Kegiatan yang disebut dengan istilah Pendidikan Subuh itu diikuti anak-anak sekolah dan dilakukan seminggu sekali, tepatnya setiap hari Minggu.

Pendidikan Subuh yang diikuti sekitar 20 orang siswa itu diisi dengan berbagai materi, seperti mengaji, membaca doa, belajar azan serta pidato. Acara dimulai sekitar pukul 05.45 WIB.

“Saat baru berlangsung 15 menit, tiba-tiba WNA itu masuk ke masjid kami dan mengamuk. Saya tidak tahu persis apa yang dia ungkapkan. Tapi terdegar ucapan Stop,” kata Ustadz Budi.

Akibatnya, pengajian pun sempat terhenti sekitar 5 menit. Puas marah-marah, WNA itu meninggalkan masjid tersebut. Sedangkan pengajian atau Pendidikan Subuh kembali dilanjutkan dengan tetap menggunakan pengeras suara.

Namun hal itu tidak berlangsung lama. Sekitar 10 menit kemudian, pria asing kembali datang. Seperti kedatangannya yang pertama, dia pun kembali marah-marah. Pria itu kemudian dilayani oleh ustadz Husein yang lebih mengerti bahasa Inggris.

“Saya pun kurang tahu apa yang mereka (ustadz Husein dan WNA) bicarakan. Tapi kalau tidak salah, intinya, bila dia merasa tidak senang atas pengajian kami,” kata Budi.

Diduga kuat, WNA itu merasa terganggu atas pengajian Subuh itu karena meggunakan pengeras suara. Padahal di Pekanbaru kondisi tersebut sudah sangat lazim. Setiap Minggu Subuh, sejumlah masjid pasti diramaikan pengajian anak-anak yang menggunakan pengeras suara. ( djo / asy )

What a luxury!

Today I went to several places, almost the same distance (about 14.07 km in total) as to going from Cinere, in South Jakarta to Blok-M and back again which may take at least 4 hours if not 2 days (because you might have to do the errands in batches), but here it only took me less than 2 hours by public transport (one taxi ride from Pasir Panjang to Tanjong Pagar, the rest are by MRT and bus).  And it’s raining!! (anybody who ever lived or lives in Jakarta would know how bad the traffic in Jakarta would be when it’s raining).

In two hours I managed to deliver a cable that my beloved husband forgot to bring to his work, have a chat with a good friend whom I haven’t seen for some time eventhough we’re neigbhours, shop for some stationeries, get a receipt from a clinic, return the books to the library, and do a bit of grocery shopping! And I got home safely without ‘bau matahari’ (smell of the sun, from the pollution) or ‘bau keringet’ (smell of sweat) like if I got home from public transport in Jakarta, and more importantly my purse and myself still intact, and I was not stressed out worrying that I would get hypnotized or robbed, or being sardined in the packed metro mini (mini bus) with no aircon trapped in a traffic jam.

It may seem trivial, and easy to take it for granted, but this is the kind of luxury that I love in Singapore: being able to do several errands in less than two hours, without so much logistic preparations of thinking, analysing and deciding what day to do it (because usually the traffic in Jakarta on Monday would be macet minta ampun (terribly jammed) since it’s the first day of work after the week end; Wednesday would also be bad because according to some Javanese it’s ‘hari pasaran nya Jakarta’; or Friday since it’s the day before the week-end so many office workers would take their lunch time longer; and don’t even think of Saturday because everybody would go out to the malls to spend their week end), what time (not too early in the morning because everybody will be on the road going to the office and school; not near or during lunch time because it’s lunch time!; not 4 pm or after because everybody’s going home from work), which route, and so on.

All I need to do here is to check my map, check where the places are in relation with the MRT or bus stop, decide the route and then go.

Example Of Lack Of Appreciation For Good Translators

Can’t resist to improve the following translation (from Indonesian texts to English), an announcement of the launching of a book written by the Indonesian Health Minister about the bird flu virus and the controversies surrounding the handling of the virus for vaccines.

It’s very painful to read because apparently the translator translated it word by word. I found it in the Indonesian Health Ministry’s website. It looked as if the translation was done by her children. I had to translate it to Indonesian first, then back to English to understand what it means. I read that they also produced the books in English language. I think it would be just a waste of money.

Why don’t they spend a bit more money to hire a better translator and English editor??

Below is my translation, I admit I need an English editor to check the grammars, but at least it’s more understandable, and you don’t feel like ‘reading mud’ (as my husband put it).

 

The Indonesian Minister of Health, Siti Fadilah Supari, launched her first book

For more than fifty years, sharing viruses between countries has been going on, but the practice turned out to hurt poor countries, as well as the country where the viruses come from. It is easy for the vaccine manufacturers from developed countries to take the virus without any permission from the origin/source country, develop it to produce vaccines and then sell it with high price to poor countries.

This reality was revealed when Indonesia found the first case of avian influenza to human in mid 2005. At that time Indonesia was asked to send the virus sample to WHO Collaborating Center in Hong Kong to be analyzed and to make a diagnosis from, and this process took place until August 2006. However, without any knowledge from the Indonesian government, the virus sample was handed over to the manufacturers in developed countries and produce vaccines for commercial purpose from it.

Since then, Siti Fadilah Supari, the Health Minister, decided that Indonesia would do its own research of the avian flu specimen, in its own laboratories — the Health Ministry Research Board and the Eijkman laboratory. She believes that Indonesia has the capability to examine and analyze the H5N1 virus, and it has been proven with their result continuously being the same as the one produced by the Hong Kong laboratory. However, Indonesia welcome all researchers from any countries to get access to the data which are saved in a public domain called Gen Bank. “For the sake of basic human interests, the Indonesian government declares that genomic data on bird-flu viruses can be accessed by anyone,” the Health Minister said at the time.

The Economist magazine wrote, “Siti Fadilah Supari started a revolution that could yet save the world from the ravages of a pandemic disease. That is because Indonesia’s health minister has chosen a weapon that may prove more useful than today’s best vaccines in tackling such emerging threats as avian flu: transparency.”

From that experience, Supari was inspired to change the virus sharing system, which had harmed the developing countries, to become more transparent, fair and equal. This idea was discussed and went through a great effort to be considered as the standard practice during the council meeting of the World Health Organisation in Geneva, Switzerland. However, at the end of the meeting, this idea was finally agreed and legalized to be the WHO resolution which all the participants have to abide by.

Her fight to make this idea being implemented is written in this 182-page book titled “Saatnya Dunia Berubah! Tangan Tuhan di Balik Virus Flu Burung” or in English “It’s Time For The World To Change! God’s Hand Behind The Bird Flu Virus”. …

Through the book, Supari hopes to get supports from all Indonesian in order to have the Indonesian people’s right heard by the world. She believes the fight is not finished yet and will keep fighting until the fair, transparent and equal system of virus sharing is realized. In her foreword, the Minister hope that her book can be used as a reference for researchers, practitioners and anyone who is fighting for the pride and unity of the developing countries, and for the equal position with the developed countries.

The launching of the book by the first female minister of health in Indonesia was held at Borobudur Hotel, Jakarta, on Wednesday night (January 6, 2008). The event was attended by many, including several Indonesian ministers, members of parliament, ambassadors, hospital directors, directors of state-owned companies, governors, lecturers from Indonesian universities, leaders of several organisations, and officials from the Ministry of Health and the Jakarta Provincial Health Office.

It Might Be Giant But It Doesn’t Have Trika

I just realized how small Singapore is when I went to one of their supposedly biggest supermarket, Giant Hypermarket in Vivo City, and could not find ‘trika’ (or something like it. it’s a nice fragrant liquid sprayed onto your clothes during ironing). All the other products like laundry soap, cleaning liquid, etc, that they sell also give limited options of different brands, mostly made in Malaysia or Thailand. Meanwhile in Jakarta supermarket like Hero or Superindo, there’ll be more than five different local brands for just one product. And in the up-market supermarket like Ranch Market, there would be more, plus the imported ones.

The Straits Times two weeks ago reported that Singapore loses 1,000 capable people to other countries each year, most of them looking for …‘trika’ (kidding!), bigger economic opportunity.

So, you can see how small Singapore is that people have to look for trika in another country, let alone bigger economic opportunity.

Irresponsible agent

This is my first bad experience in Singapore, after three months living here (it’s not too bad given the length of time actually … ) . I hope this is an exclusive one and not a reflection of all the people working or involved in this industry.

We recently rented an apartment. The owner is a couple — a british husband and a singaporean wife, they seem nice people, and we were hopeful that we could have a decent negotiation with them. And we did, more or less. After a month living in the apartment, we encountered some problems with some of the fixtures, and informed the landlord’s agent about this. A week passed, two, a month, nothing’s been done to fix the problems. Then we contacted the owner, and a technician was sent to try to fix the problems. However a new sparepart had to be installed, and took another month to eventually decide what to do next.

Anyhow, to cut the long story short, we were very disappointed with the service and the respond of the estate agents whose responsibility are to help the landlord and tenant dealing with problems related to the property, like when ac or washing machine is broken and need to be repaired, etc.

And I have a feeling that the agent gave bad advice to the landlord, like installing cheap household equipment, naturally with the consequence of bad quality, to reduce the cost (this means for the advantage or interest of the landlord– instead of for the tenants who live in the property — which would reflect good on the agent).

The impression I get is that basically they’re just not interested to help or to have anything to do with the tenant anymore, once they got the deal.

But luckily (Javanese philosophy: there’s always something positive/bright side within the negative or bad thing; or in javanese: untungnya … ), we were not ‘cheated’ by agents and landlords like the stories of a number of people in some expat forum.

Since this blog mainly is about my experience living in Singapore compared to Jakarta, so I have to point out how it was done in Jakarta.

In Jakarta, where many people think is a very tough place to live, at least in these areas, the estate agents are polite and helpful and will do their best to give a very good service to the tenants, even after they’ve got the deal. The customers are served like a King, or in my case, a Queen.

I read in the expat and local forum, that it seems these days customers should not expect a good service from estate agents in Singapore, like it used to be, owing to the property booming. And apparently the tenant do not have an equal position or bargaining power with the landlord and the agent. Does anybody have this kind of experience as well? Good experience would also be welcome.

Why?

I read an article in the Straits Times on Wednesday about a Swedish artist named Lars Vilks who drew a cartoon about Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Now, I can’t understand what he is trying to do? Does he want to show that it’s about freedom of expression? But do you have to do this, to show that you have a freedom of expression, at the expense of other people’s feeling? As a Muslim, eventhough I don’t consider myself as very religious, I feel very very sad also angry to see our Prophet depicted as a dog. The feeling is like seeing my beloved mother being drawn as a disgraceful object. And if this guy is trying to shock people, this is the easiest thing to do. It is so predictable that all Muslims would be shocked and angry to see his cartoon. Anybody can do this, it doesn’t have to be an artist. And if he wants to celebrate courage, I think this is the kind of courage that teenagers do when they play dare. I just can’t see the point, but insulting the Muslim.

The Starer, Part 2

If not imitating what the passersby say, the starer would call out “cewek, cewek … ” (meaning: hi girl!), or whistle, unfortunately off-key-ly. So, today when I walk down the hill from the apartment we’re staying to the bus stop, I heard a guy in front of a school shouting something, and I thought ‘pfft, it’s happening here too … ‘, but I was wrong. The guy actually was chatting with his friend who was in a truck. Some Singaporeans in a normal situation sitting next to each other usually chat very “passionately” where people who were three blocks away could hear, so you can imagine how powerful the voice that the guy in the school should produce to have a proper chat with his buddy sitting inside a truck. But, what a relief that they were just minding their own business.

You wonder why many Indonesians like to stare and gawp toward strangers. I think the problem is deeper than having nothing to do. For one thing, it’s a sign that there are lots of unemployment in Indonesia. If these people were busy working, like in Singapore, these guys would not have had time to stare and gawp.

Another thing is that I see many Indonesian parents are too lazy to educate their children that staring is not polite. And in some cases if not many, it’s not because that they are lazy, but because they don’t know or aren’t aware that staring is impolite and makes the people who are the object feel very uncomfortable and feel like doing something silly such as walking like a balerina.

Let me share you one of our experiences. We were going to have lunch at a food court in Ambo Mall. As soon as we sat in our table, one little girl went near us (very near like 43 cm from us if you want to be a bit precise), and stood there and stared at us – well, at my husband actually, because he is gorgeous and kind hearted, and a westerner. And she stood and stared for quite a while, about 2 minutes and 17 second, I think. Initially, my husband looked at her and smiled and said hi. She shyly smiled, then went to her father who was sitting in a table next to us. Then she went back near our table again, and stared at us, this time accompanied by two of her sisters who were all wearing the same kind of clothes. And we started not to feel comfortable, and I could see that their father was actually aware of what his children were doing, but did not do anything to stop them from standing and staring at an inocent and goodlooking couple. Instead he just said, “oh bule”, when one of his children pointed at us, as if he justified them doing so.

So, it becomes like a cycle. The children are not aware that staring is impolite, and because of that, they also wouldn’t teach their own children that staring is not polite. On and on and on … and more or less staring becomes a culture …

The next question is who are the people who like to stare?

The Starer, Part 1

Let’s talk about the starer. Upon arrival in Singapore, the thing that I notice most is that people leave you alone here — unless you need them or their help. It’s not that nobody did a bit of staring, there are, but only a few. The frequency of people staring and gawping at you and occasionally harassing you is much lower here than in Jakarta.

So far, my husband and I only encountered them in Bedok area, done by some peruta (an abbreviation from Pekerja Rumah Tangga, the politically correct way of referring to domestic staff) who were attending to their employer’s children on the stairs. Perhaps it’’s because they rarely or never see ‘orang asing’ or ‘orang barat’ (politically correct for ‘bule’ or ‘londo’ or ‘muka pucat’). I’m not caucasian, but my husband is. So, there you go …

However, I think the reason people in Indonesia like to stare is because they don’t have anything to do but to stare or gawp at people passing by infront of their eyes. Like when my husband and I were walking in the pedestrian road in Kuningan area, there were some ojek (motorbike taxi) drivers nearby waiting for passengers staring at us, and I was calling my husband from behind, and all the ojek drivers imitating me and shouting ‘tayang! tayang!’. Well, I don’t mind if they did it with a little bit of affection, but they did not! These fierce looking guys instead shouting ‘tayang!’ and then laughed, and then shouted again, and laughed again. Very annoying. So we quickly left them worrying that they would get crazy.

Hello

First of all, the writer wants to welcome anybody who visits Rendang Ibun’s blog. This is not a blog about food. Eventhough the writer’s major interest is and the name of the blog is derived from the writer’s mother’s signature dishes. This is a blog about the writer’s experience to live overseas for the first time in her life. The new country is not very far from her own. There is no difference in terms of climate, and not a big difference with the food, but huge difference in efficiency and productivity. The motherland is Indonesia, the new country is Singapore. Let the journey begin …