Int’l Gamelan Festival

English Version by the Jakarta Post February 7, 1996

Watching western women in sarong kebaya and men in blangkon playing gamelan in the International Gamelan Festival at Prambanan temple in Yogyakarta recently on television, I felt myself transported to the future.

“Where is Indonesia?” asks a tourist.
I reply: “This is Indonesia.”
“Is it? These are skyscrapers like in Tokyo. That is the Hollywood Inn, the Thousand And One Night Amusement Center. I eat sukiyaki, pizza, hotdogs, pears, apples, grapes. I drink Coke, root beer. I listen to disco music. Where are the rice fields, the tropical forests prided by Indonesia? This is certainly not Indonesia but another country.”

“It is true, I am not joking. The authentic Indonesia with its forests is extinct. Now it is westernized. The blond hair you see is just dyed. If you want to see the real Indonesia you must go to …” and I show him a dot on a map, close to the equator. “There you will find Indonesia in miniature where the original culture is respected and conserved.”

I wake up from my dream with a jolt. What if some day we have to learn our own culture from foreign experts? The authentic Indonesian tropical forest is no longer but somewhere abroad.

Somebody says: “We have no self respect.”

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