Searching for Utopia

Large is the realm of Indonesia. But she is acquainted with grief for every wound she has suffered throughout her span. Another day could mean another wound, as today had proven.

‘She is standing upon the ring of fire,’ some wandering men cried. But some others answered, ‘No, this is merely punishment for the folk’s insolence and folly!’ Some sought counsel in their inmost thought and believed that they were doomed to death.

Whatever betides; is there naught we might do? Shall we wait till we all fall lifeless?

Following is a list of some of the disasters to hit Indonesia from Reuters since the Asian tsunami of 2004:

Dec 26, 2004 - Nearly 132,000 Indonesians are killed and more than 37,000 listed as missing after a 9.15 magnitude earthquake off Indonesia and a tsunami triggered by it in the Indian ocean region. The toll in affected Indian Ocean countries reaches 230,000 dead.
Feb 21, 2005 - At least 96 are killed in landslide that sweeps through two West Java villages near a garbage dump.
March 28, 2005 - Nearly 1,000 are believed killed after a quake of magnitude 8.7 hits the coast of Sumatra.
July 20, 2005 - Indonesia confirms first deaths from bird flu. To date the disease has killed 63 people in Indonesia, the world’s highest bird flu death toll.
Sept 1, 2005 - Landslide on island of Sumatra kills 14 and leaves more than a dozen missing.
Sept 5, 2005 - Domestic airliner operated by local carrier Mandala Airlines crashes in residential area of Indonesia’s third biggest city Medan, killing 102 aboard and 47 local residents in an inferno on the ground.
May 15, 2006 - Mount Merapi volcano erupts with clouds of hot gas and rains ash on surrounding areas.
May 27, 2006 - Earthquake rocks area around ancient royal city of Yogyakarta killing at least 5,000 and destroying or damaging 150,000 homes.
July 17, 2006 - A tsunami after a 7.7 magnitude quake in West Java province kills at least 550 people. At least 54,000 people are displaced.
Dec 30, 2006 - A ferry with at least 600 aboard sinks during a stormy night voyage as it traveled between Borneo and Java.
Jan 1, 2007 - An Adam Air passenger plane flying from Surabaya to Manado with 102 people aboard crashes into the sea off the west coast of Sulawesi.
Feb 22, 2007 - At least 42 people are killed when fire breaks out aboard a ferry which was heading from Jakarta to Bangka Island off Sumatra.
March 6, 2007 - Two strong earthquakes kill at least 31 people and injure dozens in the West Sumatra provincial capital of Padang.
March 7, 2007 – Domestic Airliner operated by Garuda Indonesia crashes in Yogyakarta, killing many of its passengers.

It reads “koruptor“, which means—if it’s not obvious—corruptor. The accompanying words more or less mean: “don’t keep it wet. Just HANG it! So it will dry faster.” [Kompas]

Spread the words!

While googling about Paypal in Hungary, I found this interesting piece on Conics.Net:

Click on the picture for the full-sized picture

Okay, I have heard many times about Indonesian credit card scams. Everyone has their own right not to accept payment from Indonesian credit cards. It is I think the same reason as why Paypal is not available there (I suppose Hungary is getting better in fighting the frauds). But is it okay to call the whole nation as terrorists or THEIVES (sic) as the Conics.Net does? In any case, this one goes out to Conics.Net: It’s “thieves”, sir!

• Ferenc Gyurcsány’s famous words: “We lied morning, noon and night” has succefully taken him to lead the poll for this month’s Bad Democracy Award. To bag the award, he has to compete with the likes of Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin of Thailand, and Japan’s new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. [Open Democracy]

• Index.hu has the list of upcoming demonstrations in Hungary.
1. Kossuth Square, continuously by the Hungarian National Committee. Purpose: forcing the government to resign.
2. Vorosmarty Square, October 4, 2006 by the left wing supporters. Purpose: to express their solidarity to the government (the PM’s party, we could say).
3. Kossuth Square, 4 PM, October 6, 2006 by Fidesz. Purpose: to get Prime Minister Gyurcsány resigned.
4. On the side of the Gerbeaud-house, in the Harmincad Street, 5 PM on October 5, 2006. Purpose: to save the Gerbeaud cukrászda (wtf??)
5. In several places of Hungary, October 6, 2006 by the National Association of Hungarian Farmers Societies and Co-operatives. Purpose: to get attention due to the “impossible” situation of farmers.
6. Budapest (place is not known yet), October 19, 2006 by National Union of Students. Purpose: to demand the government to erase the tuition fee. [Index.hu]

• US President George W. Bush may visit Indonesia next month to meet the leader of the world’s most populous Muslim nation, seen as a close ally in Washington’s global fight against terrorism, officials said Tuesday. Ah, so we are no longer haven for terrorists? [International Herald Tribune]

• Indonesia owes Malaysia an apology for creating the worst environmental crisis in the neighboring country since 1997 with the hazardous haze from the firest in the forests in Indonesia. [MSNBC]

The Prime Minister’s office is covered by the haze

• A healthy chicken could be a carrier of the bird flu virus although it shows no symptoms of the illness, a health official warned Wednesday. Meanwhile, serology tests on 11 dogs kept by the family of the bird flu cluster in Indonesia have shown that dogs could not spread the virus. [Jakarta Post]

• Good news for the guys, Paris Hilton said she’s single again. Oops, wrong blog!

• Since I’m a computer illiterate, you would have to read the piece yourself. But anyways, it has something to do with the next update to AMD’s Opteron Rev H “Barcelona” processors, which is called as “Budapest”.

• Despite the city’s potholes on the road, the state of public transport and lack of cleanliness, Budapest has voted for its same old brand new Mayor, Gábor Demszky—for his fifth term! I thought you guys have had enough of him?

• Inspired by his coalition’s victory in Budapest, Mr. Gyurcsány has vowed to stay in office. Well, let’s admit it—who wouldn’t? Meanwhile, President László Sólyom took the unusual step to condemn the prime ministers’ behavior in a speech on national television.

• I don’t know if it still has anything to do with Mayor Demszky, but Bali is also ranked no.1 for the fifth time as the world’s best island by Travel & Leisure magazine.

• A new poll says most Australians view Indonesia as a threat but only about a third know it is not ruled by the military and fewer still can name its president, and vice versa (yawn).

• Indonesia has again tainted the air of the dream land that is Singapore.

• The mudslide we encountered during our visit to East Java is still going on and on and on. Scientist say that it could last for 100 years.

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the second Bali bombing. Terrorists have actually succeeded in killing the Indonesia’s tourism industry with deadly blasts which claimed lives of 225 victims since the first bombing. Just in case you didn’t know, Bali is a part of Indonesia, “the haven for terrorists“.

I must admit I’m not happy with the tag. Despite the varied judgments, I don’t think there is any man in his right man who would agree with the attacks—regardless his religion. That makes those who have committed the crime certainly should not be freed without punishment.

Here is how I still remember the island of Gods during my visit over ten years ago.

Click on the picture for the full-color version

I am against plagiarism so click here for the original painting. No doubt it has changed since then. The harm was done and the pain will linger, but hopefully Bali and Indonesia for the whole will revive. My thoughts and prayers go to those who have lost their loved ones.

Passengers in Indonesia and Hungary have something in common. They exercise by pushing the bus along themselves. Nice!

Being a Hungarian-Indonesian couple like Zsolt and I, last week had been a series of celebrations. As Indonesia celebrated her 61th Indepence Day on August 17, Hungary had the St. Stephen’s Day on the three following days.

The Indonesian Embassy in Budapest organized a trip to Lake Balaton—which we unfortunately missed—and several other events. I cannot help but miss the palm climbing race which we always had in each village in Indonesia. The concept is very simple. They put various prizes on top of the tree and smear the surface of the wood with oil to make it slippery. Anyone could try to take the prizes. As easy as that; it takes a good coordination among friends to reach the top of the tree. See how they had to climb on their friends. Of course the prizes would have to be shared among them.

And here is a solo player who doesn’t like the idea of sharing. So here he goes to get the whole prizes for himself. Good luck to him!

Click here for more pictures of the panjat pinang.

Sunday morning in Budapest, people were ready for the feast and merriment. The celebration was centered at the Parliament as always—which is only a few tens of meters away from our place. Everything was well in the afternoon. I even managed to take this picture of the Red Bull Air Race World Series 2006.

At 9 PM CET, the fireworks were launch. We were just chilling at home—don’t bother to mention it, I know it sounded silly. Suddenly Zsolt asked me, “Are you cooking? I think the water is boling.”

“No, I have finished cooking,” I said.

“Oh, then maybe it’s just raining outside.”

I opened the curtain and was shocked with what I saw. The huge tree in front of our window was almost blown by the wind. People were running from the Danube as rain water had been flooding the street.”We’re having a big storm!” I told him.

We still had no clue of how serious it was until he turned the TV on. It said that more than a million people were gathering around the parliament and they all ran for their lives. Trees fell, cars were damaged, several ships crashed, three people died and hundreds were injured. The night was closed with a blackout.

For more pictures, click here.

Tsunami on July 17: What lies beyond?

• I was just browsing the internet when I found this hilarious post. Check out that nozzle in the picture below.

Some of you may wonder what is it good for—you can find it next to the toilet in many places in Asia. Why do they need it there instead of toilet paper? It might be difficult to understand and very impractical, but Asians seem to stick with it even nowadays when they are already familiar with the concept of using toilet papers. Why, you cried. The’d ask back, you do wash your hands after using the toilet paper, don’t you? Of course, you returned. If you think the toilet paper is not clean enough for your hands, they said, why would it be for your rear?

• I think PETA’s campaigners can sometimes do the things which common people like us always wanted to do—but couldn’t; like hitting Paris Hilton with flour bombs ; Or showing Beyonce how her expensive fur coat was made. But there are also times when they are nothing more than a bunch of people wanted to strip in public for what they claimed as good cause with names like Traci Bingham, Jodie Marsh, Dennis Rodman and of course, Pamela Anderson . “We’d better bare skin than wearing skin”, they said. Um, whatever! I don’t know if stripping is really the best way to stop people from torturing animals, but those campaigners have some fans. This girl is one of them. Here she was doing what she’s best at: stripping! The target was the KFC on Kiraly utca. Too bad she was busted before finishing her quest yesterday. I’d suggest her to protest against the tax hike next time. Click here for more pictures.

• Budapest hasn’t been busier than the day when US president George W. Bush visited the town last month. The government had made sure that the world’s most famous president would be safe here by having security checks everywhere, including in the sewers, I heard. Dozens or perhaps hundreds of tourists and other visitors being kicked out of their deluxe rooms at the Le Meridien Budapest where Mr. Bush stayed. Trams stopped working and the passengers were told to get off in the morning. Why, because they were setting barricade for Mr. Bush around the parliament. On his not so impressive speech, Mr. Bush drew a direct link between Hungary’s quashed anti-communist rebels of 1956 and Iraq’s struggling leaders of 2006. “We’ve learned from your example, and we resolve that when people stand up for their freedom, America will stand with them”, he said. What’s that saying again: “If you don’t have anything nice to say,…stfu?!” Of course the saying is not for you, kind readers. If you are still curious about what happened exactly, click here.