Gado-Gado vendor in BenHil, Jakarta. On a heated stone, he mixes together peanut, citrus, sugar, chili, and your choice of vegetables, rice cakes, tofu and tempeh to make a delicious lunch.
Hallway of a Rumah Kost in Tebet, Jakarta.
Tags: Indonesia · Jakarta · photographyNo Comments.
In today’s Jakarta Post:
An interview with Argentinian artist Jorge Canale. The interview was conducted by email, and his answers were originally in Spanish. Working on a tight deadline to translate this kind of “art talk” from Argentinian Spanish to a form of English accessible to Indonesian readers was definitely a challenge.
A write-up of a lecture given as part of Italian Design week in Jakarta. I definitely miss hard news. But having to write these kinds of features has pushed me out of my comfort zone, stylisticly speaking, which I think is always a good thing.
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Another shot from my balcony. (Sorry for all the snapshots, but I can only upload very low-res images without breaking the internet, so I’m saving the good stuff until I locate the magic connection.)
Two things of note: The azhan, the call to prayer, rings out five times a day. I actually find I rather like it –I live close to a large mosque (see the minaret?), with a talented muezzin. What I find hilarious, though, is the lackadaisical attitude towards time here. Unlike some places, where the call to prayer swells up simultaneously from all directions, here the mosques start one at a time, staggering their calls based on some unfathomable personal calculation.
Also, check out the helipads on the nearby tower blocks. It’s pretty common here, not just for businesses, but also for luxury residences. Extravagent, yes, and extremely bad for the environment. But perhaps not an entirely unreasonable response to the city’s hellish traffic. Though I, myself, am more of a motorcycle taxi kind of girl.
For those interested in my new incarnation as an arts and entertainment reporter, here are two stories that ran in the Jakarta Post today: one (as promised) on the Pussycat Dolls concert, and one a review of a flamenco performance. Enjoy.
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So, my first serious, hard-hitting piece for the Jakarta Post will be…a review of the Pussycat Dolls concert. I only wish I was kidding.
I believe this is called paying your dues. Though actually, there is something interesting about a group that’s (pretty much only) known for being sexually provacative performing in the capital of a Muslim country.
Just got home a bit ago, will write it up tomorrow, and the story should run Sunday. I’m not so sure I’m going to want it out there, but since I’m sure you’re all clever enough to find it on your own, maybe I’ll post a link.
Tags: journalism · Pussycat DollsNo Comments.
Conversation at a roadside food stall, while waiting for my tempeh to cook (imagine my half in very broken Indonesian):
Bapak: Where are you from? Australia?
Me: No, America.
Bapak: Oh…Obama is from here, you know.
Me: Yeah…
Bapak: He lived in Menteng.
Me: Menteng Dalam, right?
Bapak: Yes. Practically our neighbor.
Me: Do you know him?
Bapak: Hahahah. I know him. But he does not know me.
Tags: daily lifeNo Comments.
NB: I wrote this in Hong Kong airport on Friday morning, only now noticed it didn’t make it onto the site. So, for those who may be interested, here it is.
In the end, my layover in Hong Kong was so long that I decided to go into the city, explore a bit and rent a closet for the night, instead of pacing around the airport for 15 hours, trying to sleep on metal chairs and being miserable.
My “room” in Hong Kong
This meant, though, no wifi. So, I’m still behind on postings, and it looks like my flight to Jakarta will board soon. I actually enjoyed my night in Hong Kong, but I’m happy to finally be heading to Jakarta.
Tags: airportsNo Comments.
I’m settled into a room now, thanks to the kind and patient help of my friends here. It’s humbling how quickly traveling to an unfamiliar place renders me completely dependent on the goodwill of others.
It’s a bit like being a small child. My Indonesian is sufficient to convey basic information and hold simple conversations, but I’m almost completely incapable of expressing nuanced or abstract thoughts. I don’t know quite how things work — from table manners to activating a cellphone. I just have to smile a lot, make very descriptive hand gestures, and hope people think I’m cute rather than irritating.
So far, it’s been an effective strategy. Today was my first day really on my own, and I’ve racked up a few small victories — getting sandals fixed (This shoe is broken. Can you fix it?), getting pants tailored (These are too big, can you make them smaller?), ordering food (Gado-gado, please. Without egg or shrimp crackers), actually remembering the word for scissors (gunting).
It’s my day to run small errands, because I start at the Jakarta Post tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes.
(p.s. I’ve been having trouble uploading photographs. But I’ll keep trying.)
I’m heading out to catch my flight to Jakarta in just a few minutes. And unless SFO has decided to join us here in the 21st Century, I’ll be incommunicado until I reach Hong Kong, where they actually have free wifi.
Yes, I am that cheap.
But really?
I’ll have a nice looooong layover in Hong Kong, so you can probably look forward to some cracked-out, airport-fog and sleep-deprivation induced rantings.
Tags: airports · travelNo Comments.
The slideshows of the Tax Collectors strike leaders are now available with Spanish subtitles at Egipte rera la Barricada.
Well done. (¡Muy bien hecho!)
Tags: multimedia · Tax Collectors · translationsNo Comments.
So, one of my photographs was the lead image on MotherJones.com today. Cool, right? Except they didn’t pay me, ask me, or even notify me. I just followed the incoming link from my flickr account and saw it up there.
Legally, they were well within their rights. Mother Jones is a non-profit news organization and I had the picture up under a creative commons license that allows for non-commercial use.
But it still feels juuuust this side of shady. Mother Jones, last time I checked, was still in the habit of paying for content.
This is not the first time something like this has happened, and it makes me really aware of the uncomfortable divide I’m straddling by being someone who believes in the transformative potential of web2.0 and someone who has bills to pay, no day job and few other marketable skills.
I put a lot of my images out under a creative commons license, and some of them get around quite a bit. These three, in particular, mostly on various blogs and NGO reports (that I know about, at least!):
Waterboarding Demonstration, Berkeley, Calif.
Deforestation near the Burmese-Chinese border
Illegal Wildlife Trade, Mong La, Burma
Waterboarding, deforestation, and the illegal wildlife trade. All significant issues, and I’m genuinely happy that these pictures can play a role in keeping public discussion moving. I keep them out there, available for people to use, and most people are really considerate about it, writing to let me know when they’re using them, checking to see how I want the work attributed. It makes me feel like a contributing member of some sort of global community. When other people are laboring purely out of love, I’m happy to do the same.
I’m resigned to a certain amount of unpaid work while I’m in graduate school. It’s kind of the nature of the exercise. And really, I don’t have much to complain about. I’m here in sunny California on a full ride, with everything from my gear to my rent to my plane tickets to Asia coming out of taxpayers’ pockets. At bare minimum, I think that leaves me with the obligation to be a little bit socially useful.
On the other hand, those pictures represent effort, skill, and risk – particularly the two from Burma. That third picture was shot from the hip in one of the sketchiest border towns on earth, and I very easily could’ve gotten my camera smashed – if not my teeth – for my trouble.
There’s a real reason people expect to be paid for that kind of work. And the minute I feel like somebody else is making a profit at my expense, it puts me on edge. Particularly because of the larger context this is happening in. Publications are popping up left and right, and – fear-mongering aside – there’s still plenty of money being made on the internet. The problem is very little of it is going to the people who are actually out there, boots on the ground, producing content. And by letting people who could afford to pay for photographs use my work for free, I feel like I’m becoming part of the problem. Not only am I not getting paid, but some other photographer also didn’t get an assignment because the art editor just went and pulled something off the internet.
I’m worried that people like me are keeping people like me from making a decent living. But I don’t know what to do about this problem that wouldn’t suck too much life out of the vital people-to-people conversation of the social web.
Thoughts?
p.s. Delicious irony: got this link sent to me while writing this post: Someone Bids $13,000 for Huffington Post Internship
Tags: creative commons · journalism · media · photography · web2.0No Comments.
