Borneo to Run - Four Star Hotels, Angklung, and Rock 'n Roll: Orientation in Bandung part 2

Orientation began at eight in the morning with Indonesian language class.  As Indonesia is one of the world's most linguistically diverse nations (the official count is around 670, second only to Papua New Guinea), the standardized national language of Indonesia is a relatively new innovation, based primarily on a Sumatran dialect very similar to Malay, although it contains loan words from many languages and bears a resemblance to most of Indonesia's regional dialects.  Luckily, it is a remarkably simple language to learn.

 

There are no verb tenses, no conjugations.  To make a noun plural, just say it twice.  Past and future tense are demarcated by context. Saying "before," "yesterday," "after," or "tomorrow" is quite enough to make oneself understood, and it is a joy to speak and listen to due to its percussive, rolling cadence.

 

My language teacher, Ibu Lily, was a sprightly woman with an impeccably cute Mary Tyler-Moore hairdo.  She was a good teacher, and, like most Indonesians I've met so far, loved music and singing, teaching us children's songs about brushing one's teeth in the morning as well as contemporary Indopop songs, songs that since first learning them, I've heard nearly everyday. 

 

The afternoons were spent in teacher training with Ibu Itje, a kindly woman with a broad nose and large, almost purple eyes.  She is an educational consultant, frequently hired by the Indonesian Ministry of Education to conduct research and make reports on the state of Indonesian education.  The class was long, usually four hours a day, but it dutifully served its purpose, especially as most of us had never before taught a high school class.  We were told that English teaching in Indonesia was done almost entirely by rote, that the teachers often barely knew how to speak the language, focusing on grammatical constructions instead of conversation.  We were told that the students nearly always sat in rows, chatting or sleeping or sending text messages for most of class.  Our job is to engage the students, we were told, to give them an opportunity to actually use the language, to apply the techniques of our educational system to the Indonesian classroom.  We were told that despite our lack of experience in teaching, we had plenty of experience in learning, and therefore, in the techniques that engendered productive, enjoyable learning.  

 

We practiced simple language activities, wrote lesson plans, discussed.  But we knew that in each of our schools, we would encounter a different situation, that we would need to tailor our lessons to the interests and abilities of our students.  The class was decent practice, but nothing would truly prepare us for teaching in our schools but patience, creativity, and attention to the students' needs. 

 

 

***

 

As a city, Bandung seems rather hip.  The air is relatively cool, there are buskers on every street corner playing Indopop songs on ukeleles and withered guitars for thousand rupiah notes and loose change.  Warungs (street-food stalls) line the streets, each with a different specialty, most of which are delicious and incomprehensibly cheap for someone used to Western prices. 

 

Everywhere, one sees young people dressed in stylish black hoodies and jeans, their t-shirts bearing the names of American punk and hardcore bands, their hair styled into faux-hawks, mullet faux-hawks and other interpretations of Euro-trash and punk looks.  In this city, several people were trampled to death at a grindcore show last year.  And, while I haven't yet had the chance to experience this for myself, Bandung is reputed for its art and music scene.  It played host to Helarfest, an arts festival with a "creative urbanism" theme that showcased local talent in both traditional and contemporary contexts.

 

It has also been a center of political and social radicalism through the years.  Students at the Bandung Institute of Technology, including Soekarno, the ultimate icon of Indonesian nationalist ideology, helped to form the Indonesian Nationalist Party under Dutch rule in the late 1920's, and this tradition has continued among Bandung's youth to the present day.  

 

In contrast to this, perhaps minority, element of counterculturalism, Bandung is renowned for its many malls, outlet stores, chic coffee shops restaurants, and hotels.  At one point in time, its glamor earned it the nickname "Paris van Java."  On the weekend many Jakartans come here to enjoy the breeze and the shoppping.  And yes, the malls are epic and crowded.  The stores are mostly the same old international standards:  Starbucks, Adidas, The Gap.  KFC is surprisingly omnipresent here. 

 

A strip of Jalan Cihampelas, known as "Jeans Street," presents an alternative to the malls.  Here, giant plaster sculptures of The Terminator, Dragon Ball-Z characters, the Marlboro Man, Batman, Aladdin, and other iconic heroes, stand guard over a plethora of stores specializing in blue jeans and brand name shirts and sweaters. 

 

***

 

In this city, the Rolling Stones are huge.  Their classic tongue logo can be seen on storefronts, decorating becaks (bicycle rickshaws), t-shirts, jackets, stickers, buttons, motorbikes. 

 

One night, I joined some friends for drinks at a chic bar called Score, located right beside the clean, ultramodern CiWalk mall.  At Score, we found an increasingly drunk crowd of mostly men, many of whom were decked out in Rolling Stones shirts and hats.  Some of them dressed in retro snakeskin, denim jackets, broad-brimmed floppy hats.  As the band took the stage, I realized that this was no coincidence.  They instantly launched into a rollicking version of "Jumping Jack Flash," as the crowd rushed to the dancefloor, shouting along with the lyrics, strutting and frolicking as if they had studied DVDs of Mick Jagger performances. 

 

And there was no irony in this.  The band legitimately rocked, better than any Stones cover band I've seen in the states.  The guitar player smoked incessantly, hunched over in a dead-on Keith Richards stance, his un-ashed cigarette perpetually hanging from the corner of his mouth.  They played "Honky-Tonk Woman," "Wild Horses," "Satisfaction." 

 

"May the Rolling Stones be in your heart," the lead singer said at one point, wishing a happy birthday to someone in the audience.

 

***

 

One afternoon after class, the Fulbright crew was invited to a karaoke party held by the Novotel staff in the ballroom downstairs.  Despite my general indifference to karaoke, I went along with some friends to see what the hub-bub was about.  In the ballroom, it was like Indonesian Karaoke Idol.  One after another, young men and women performed, music videos of their karaoke choice playing on giant screens at the front and back of the room.  Mostly Indonesian pop songs, but a couple did croon "A Whole New World" from Disney's Aladdin as two young men dressed in skimpy pink cupid costumes shot plush pink heart arrows at each other, to the audience's audible amusement. 

 

Erin asked if she could sing a song, but they said they didn't have much American music.  Would we like to play a song using the full-band's worth of instruments on the stage? 

 

Would we like to play a song using the instruments on the stage?  I immediately thought of the prospects.  In our group we had musical talent to spare.  Immediately I rushed to find Samson, a hotshot punk drummer, Eric, who plays mostly folk guitar, Chris, a music major who can play most any instrument.

 

After a few minutes of trying to find a song that we all knew, we decided to keep it simple and unabashedly American:  Woody Guthrie's "Union Maid." 

 

So, the buleh rock band took to the stage and proceeded to ramble through a speedy, mosh-pit inducing "Union Maid."  The crowd, encouraged by Samson's expert rock 'n roll abilities, skanked and moshed.  A young man in army fatigues stood on the stage, protecting Erin from the rowdy crowd of men roiling on the dancefloor.  We were even asked for an encore, "Rolling in My Sweet Baby's Arms," played loud and fast, just the way rock and roll is supposed to be played. 

 

***     

 

It would be silly and most likely inaccurate to say that Bandung is this or Bandung is that.  I know nothing of Bandung.  These are just shallow impressions, superficial renderings of my first days in Indonesia, days giddy with foreignness.  Yet in the writing, my voice betrays a dubious authority.  Perhaps this is the only way to write about a new place, new people, new sensations.  The only alternative would be to write pages of questions.  How presumptuous the travel writer is, to insinuate any real insight into experiences that merely graze his skin.   

 

***

 

If a culture can be at all interpreted through its physical manifestations, its "things," then it is important to look at the omnipresent things of Bandung:

 

Cigarettes.  Usually tobacco mixed with cloves, Indonesian brands such as Djarum and Dji Sam Soe and Sampoerna, although Marlboros are popular as well.  They even market a Marlboro clove cigarette here.  No-smoking sections in most public places are rare.  Consequently, clouds of sweetly perfumed smoke are everywhere.

 

Motorbikes.  This is the way to get around, in the cities and the countryside.  Traffic in Bandung seems a never-ending flow of motorbikes darting through a maze of cars, trucks, mini-vans.  As there are very few traffic lights, crossing the street is always an interesting endeavor. 

 

SMS, or text messaging as we call it in the States.  This seems to be the most popular form of communication.  It is done on the street, in the home, while eating, while driving a motorbike, during meetings and in class.  Some people are quite skilled at this, their thumbs moving nimbly over the phone's buttons like a dexydrine-fed fly picking at the remains of a plate of rice. 

 

Smoke.  Whether from cigarettes, roasting meat at a warung, or burning garbage on the side of the road.  At first I was confused by the prevalence of flaming piles of newspaper and fruit peels, but apparently this is the common method for getting rid of refuse.  Sometimes the smell is unbearable, while at other times it is nearly pleasant, similar to sage or marijuana. 

 

***

 

I was told many times that Bandung is the capital of Sundanese culture.  Like most human beings, Sundanese folks are proud of their culture and its traditions.  Random strangers met at warungs and bars told me about certain Sundanese dishes I should try, and Deden, a middle-aged man with a leathery face, impassive eyes, and a tight black leather jacket, attempted to teach me a wealth of Sundanese language one evening.  I happened to be eating at a warung he frequented, so he sat down beside me, and began the usual litany of questions.

 

"Where are you from?"  "What are you doing in Indonesia?"  "Do you like Indonesia?"  "Are you married?"  "Where are you sleeping in Bandung?"  These questions are standard operating procedure, asked by taxi drivers, acquaintances, and, as in this case, perfect strangers.  They are usually asked with a mixture of noseyness, curiosity, and genuine interest.  It is also customary to be asked, on a totally random basis, to pose for a photograph with a stranger. 

 

Deden insisted on speaking to me in Sundanese, although I told him I didn't know any, just a little Indonesian language.  This seemed unacceptable to him, so he stoically and methodically inscribed common Sundanese phrases into my notebook and helped me practice the pronunciation. 

 

When I left, he gave me his address and phone number and asked me for my mine.  This is also very common, like saying goodbye or waving.  According to previous ETAs, the sharing of  phone numbers is a regular occurance.  And, apparently, people call.  They recommended that I not give my number out at random unless I wanted a plethora of calls beseeching me to help practice English or just to say hello.  I declined Deden's request, unsure of what emotion I felt at the time, or what emotion was expected of me from this man, with his demeanor of statuesque friendliness.

 

***

 

On one of our free days, a warm Sunday afternoon, Rudi (the uncle of the girlfriend of fellow ETA and friend, John) brought a group of us to Saung Angklung Udjo, a place that holds traditional Sundanese cultural performances. 

 

At the entrance to the performance space, a giant Javanese fruit bat hung upside down in a cage.  It stretched its large wings, whose consistency were somewhere between leather and rubber, and rubbed its belly against the mesh fence of its cage, climbing up and down the fence with its irrelevant claws. 

 

Rudi got us tickets for the Indonesian price, nearly half the buleh price, and we entered the gift shop/cafeteria adjacent to the ampitheater where the performance was to be held.  With the price of admission, we were entitled to one free drink, and I chose bandrek, a specialty of the Bandung region.

 

Bandrek is the closest thing to heaven in a glass I've yet tried.  Very similar to Indian chai masala, it is a brew of black tea, cloves, ginger, chilis, cardamom, and black pepper, usually served with red palm sugar or sweetened condensed milk and chunks of chewy young coconut.  It is a drink that instantly warms.  One can feel the spice massage all the way down the throat and into the stomach.  Like a great work of art, it is the kind of beverage that demands energy from all of one's being in order to be fully appreciated.

 

So I took my bandrek to a seat in the ampitheater near the stage.  A gamelan orchestra wove its subtle percussive hypnosis over the chatty crowd, as people found their way to their seats.  The program began with a performance of wayang golek, a wooden puppet show with gamelan accompaniment.  A traditional wayang golek performance can last as long as seven or eight hours, but the brief, fifteen minute demonstration we saw was mesmerizing in itself.  A skilled puppeteer can truly make his characters come alive.  Subtle movements of the arms, the head, the torso.  The performance reminded me of a Punch and Judy show, lots of slapstick in a royal court motif.  The narrative, interestingly enough, seemed to be delivered by the dynamics and circular melodies of the gamelan.

 

The rest of the performance was focused around the children of the angklung.  The angklung is a Sundanese tuned bamboo percussion instrument.  And the children are the performers of Saung Angklung Udjo, which also functions as a boarding school for local kids from rough backgrounds, providing the usual classes (language, math, etc.) plus training in Sundanese performing arts:  the martial art pencak silat, traditional dances, and, of course, angklung performance.

 

The younger children played single note angklungs in a variety of contexts, while the older kids played giant anklungs with any notes.  They performed traditional songs from around the archipelago, Sundanese songs, the "do-re-mi" song from The Sound of Music, Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up."  And the kids were genuinely adorable in their shiny, silken garb, shaking their angklungs for all they're worth, swaying to and fro.   

 

Another part of the performance involved handing out single-note angklungs to the entire audience and leading us in a big group performance.  The mission of Saung Angklung Udjo is to "promote peace in the world through angklung art performance."  And, as we tocked our bamboo angklungs in vibrato patterns, leveled to the status of wide-eyed, giggly children, this mission didn't seem too unrealistic to me.  Imagine the leaders of the world, with their fancy suits and their grimaces, their bullshit handshakes and pretensions, sitting in a circle with a bunch of angklungs, following the simple directions of jubilant children in order to create a melody that is only possible using each of the differently tuned instruments.   "If the players play the instrument harmoniously," says the playbill of the afternoon's performance, "the beautiful melody of a song can be resulted...it is believed that everyone can play it melodiously."