Pandoraspace

Dearest Uncle G,

Recently, I re-read the children’s book by Dr. Seuss called Green Eggs and Ham and thought of my Indonesian food trip.  Have you read that book before?  Just in case you have not read it, it is about a persistent guy named Sam who tries to make his unnamed friend try green eggs and ham.  Throughout the entire story, Sam hounds the unnamed friend who, without trying the green eggs and ham, says that he does not like it.  To end Sam’s pestering, the unnamed friend  eventually tries green eggs and ham thinking he will not like it but ends up liking it instead.  I love this story because it sounds funny when read fast.  Try it. Read this excerpt from Green Eggs and Ham really fast -

“SAM:  Do you like green eggs and ham?

UNNAMED FRIEND:  I do not like them Sam-I-Am.  I do not like green eggs and ham?

SAM:  Would you like them here or there?

UNNAMED FRIEND:  I would not like them here or there.  I would not like them anywhere.  I do not like green eggs and ham.  I do not like them, Sam-I-am.”

Like Sam’s unnamed friend in the Green Eggs and Ham book, I was doubtful about some of the Indonesian food I encountered.  I wonder if you would be more adventurous than me.

I forgot to ask Danang what this was when I chanced upon it at the traditional market in Jogjakarta.  Monk thinks it is fried bats.  Whatever it is, I’ll passed on this roadside food. (more…)

Dear Uncle G,

For as long as I remember, people have always warned me not to eat roadside food.  Most of the time, I heed their advice.  But sometimes, roadside food is just too irresistible to pass up.

Love, Pandora

In Indonesia, I could not resist eating grilled corn, which is sold everywhere.  LS, Danang and I were in Ketep Pass, Java to see Gunung Merapi when I first saw someone selling grilled corn on the side of the road.  The next time I saw someone selling grilled corn was when we were in Jimbaran, Bali with Tito L and Tita D.  Grilled corn with salt or basted with butter is also sold in the sidewalks of the Philippines.  In Indonesia, however, other than salted or buttered grilled corn, you can also opt to have your corn basted with chili butter.   (more…)

The Sultanate of Jogjakarta and the Kraton

In the book, Indonesia Peoples and Histories, Jean Gelman Taylor tells us of how Arabs established trading posts in Indonesia, which made it possible for “learned men to travel from one end of the Islamic world to another. Some settled in foreign ports to head mosques or set up a school.” (at, p. 66) Eventually, the rulers of small communities in the Indonesia archipelago converted to Islam and began calling themselves sultans. “In 1641 the ruler of the archipelago’s largest kingdom, Mataram in Java, advertised his rule as Islamic by taking the title of sultan.” (Ibid) “In the seventeenth century Indonesian sultans…extended their power by their tried methods of slavery, raids, and marriage alliances, and they added a new method: they employed and allied with the Dutch.” (Id., p. 142) “In Java, Mataram’s kings hired Dutch soldiers to preserve their throne against rivals.” (Id., p. 144) This paved the way for Dutch trade in Indonesia through the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) or the United East Indies Company, which was composed on various Dutch commercial companies that merged. Eventually, Dutch not only traded in Indonesia but colonized it as well.

Meanwhile, in the late eighteenth century, there were a series of wars of succession to Mataram Kingdom, which led to its division. Through that division, the Jogjakarta Sultanate was created. The first sultan of Jogjakarta is Hamengkubuwono I. The present Sultan of Jogjakarta who lives in the Kraton his descendant, Hamengkubuwono X.

While I am still trying to grapple with Indonesian history, particularly, Javanese history, my trips to several museums in Jogjakarta and my tour of the city, all care of Danang, gave me the impression that, although Java was colonized by the Dutch, their rule did not dilute the deeply routed Javanese traditions. For one, the Javanese continue to speak their own language. Although I am sure that a number of Javanese speak Dutch, I never heard it spoken by them. Also, the Javanese tradition of making batik and playing the gamelan (Javanese musical ensemble) still lives on. In Jogjakarta, the Sultan remains to be “the center of his palace (Kadatuan or Kraton), which [is] in turn the center of the city. The city [is still] the center of the King’s own patrimonial domain (Vanua), which [is] surrounded by a circle of submitted neighbours…” (Munoz, Early Kingdoms of the Indonesian Archipelago and the Malay Peninsula, p. 308 [c 2006].) I suspect it was this way even when the Dutch had ruled Indonesia as I noticed that the structures built by the Dutch in Jogjakarta were outside of the Kraton.

Although we were allowed entrance to the Kraton, we only saw a a fraction of it.  As the present Sultan, Hamengkubuwono X, and his family still live in the Kraton, many areas there are off limits.  Strangely, for all its grandeur, my favorite part of the Kraton is the entrance - the simple wooden doors that open up to the world inside the Kraton. This entrance is guarded by an old gatekeeper who did not hesitate to have his picture taken by me.

Volcanoes fascinate me.  This is strange.

You see, I have not seen many volcanoes.  I have never seen a volcano erupt.  Although, I felt the wrath of Mt. Pinatubo when it erupted some years ago.

I was in college in Manila when Mt. Pinatubo, which is located outside of Manila, coughed out ashes that spread across the globe. At about 5:00 p.m., the sky darkened and it began raining ash. By 6:00 p.m., it was completely dark and everything was covered in a thick blanket of ash. By some miracle, my dad found me and took me home. We drove at a speed of about 2 kilometers per hour as our windshield was covered in ash and we could not see where we were going. Mt. Pinatubo buried several towns leaving many dead or homeless. Such was the effect of its fury.

Despite the danger that volcanoes pose and even if I never saw a volcano cough out lava or ash, I am drawn to them.

Before my trip to Indonesia, I have only seen four volcanoes, Mt. Mayon, Mt. Pinatubo, the Taal Volcano and Mt. Sto. Tomas.  So you can imagine what joy I felt when I saw not one, but seven volcanoes, while I was in Indonesia.  Even better, I saw five of them at one time.

I should not have been surprised by the number of volcanoes I saw in Indonesia since, according to this article,

“Indonesia leads the world in many volcano statistics. It has the largest number of historically active volcanoes (76), its total of 1171 dated eruptions is only narrowly exceeded by Japan’s 1274, and these two regions have combined to produce 1/3 of the known explosive eruptions. Indonesia has suffered the highest numbers of eruptions producing fatalities, damage to arable land, mudflows, tsunamis, domes, and pyroclastic flows (104, 186, 84, 13, 76, and 96, respectively). In the first five of these, Indonesia also leads other regions in the global proportion of eruptions with each characteristic.

Four-fifths of Indonesian volcanoes with dated eruptions have erupted in this century, and history shows the danger of volcanoes that have not erupted in recent centuries. Relatively few stratigraphic studies of older volcanic deposits have been completed in Indonesia, and only 0.5% of known Indonesian eruptions have been dated by other than historical techniques, emphasizing the need for more study of the prehistoric record in this region.”

But I was surprised.  More than that, I was awed and humbled by the strange sort of friendship that the Indonesian volcanoes have extended to me.

Some notes on Borobudur

I was a little disappointed at having gone to Borobudur without knowing much about it.  I was even more disappointed when I read about it after my visit and realized that I would have had a better appreciation of Borobudur had I know more about it to begin with.

I put together the few things I learned about Borobudur in this article for you.  Just in case you decided to go there, these tidbits of information may help you appreciate Borobudur more and prevent you from become, like me, disappointed at not having read about it beforehand. (more…)