Museum Tour

"Where do you want to go to this holiday, kids?" I asked my sons with a 'slightly' worried tone.. and I was quite relieved with their answer.. "You promised us to visit the museums! That's where we're going!"

My husband and I were glad that the boys chose the museums for their holiday activity. Amusement parks were surely packed. It would be the same with picnic areas -which are few  around Jakarta-.

I quickly discussed with my husband about which museums we should visit. We came up with two well-known museums; The National Museum and The Museum of Jakarta History. We thought Aza would be excited to see the National Museum as there are lots of statues, while Ariq has been curious about The Museum of Jakarta History, as the other name of the museum is Fatahillah Museum.

Fatahillah originally came from Gujarat, India. He became a resident of Jakarta, and he fought against the Dutch soldiers occupying Jakarta. We gave the name to Ariq as his middle name. We hope it would lift his confidence, knowing that he was named after a hero from his hometown.

We were taking Kyra on the trip, so didn't have to worry about her feeding times.. ;-)

We were a little worried about whether Kyra should come inside the museums. I suggested -since I am the one who loves history-, if the museum looked to dusty or scary, Kyra would stay outside with my husband. My husband agreed, so the biggest problem was solved.

We were staying at my parents' home during the last week of holiday. Therefore, it was half the travel time to the museums, compared to if we were staying at home. We departed at 9.00 and arrived at the National Museum about 9.30.


NATIONAL MUSEUM

We entered the museum from the entrance door and went straight to the open area display, then we headed to the main display section. Both sections are the same as the last time I visited -it was about eight years ago-. While I was taking the boys around and explaining things that they were interested in, I saw something familiar.. my husband and Kyra, who were supposed to be waiting at the foyer.

It turned out that the foyer had started to be very hot -being outside-. Moreover, as more cars passing by, the air was not as fresh anymore. My husband didn't stay in the old section of the museum. He took Kyra straight to the museum new section, which was cleaner and better air-conditioned.

These are pictures from the museum's old section:

After the boys had had enough of looking around, asking questions and having their pictures taken, we went to the new section. This was very different from the last time I went. It was completely renovated into a modern-looking building. All the information was displayed both in Indonesian and English, the same with the signs and directions. It was beautiful.

The new section had five floors; floors 1-4 were displays, and floor 5 was office and admin.

On the first floor, we saw various fossils that were found in Indonesia and the hanging posters with information about each fossil. There was also a display stage with pre-historic family mannequins having dinner.. :-)

On the second floor, there were displays of various equipments and vehicles from different eras.

On the third floor, there were displays of various social/cultural structures and an 'Asia' section.

On the fourth floor, there were displays of various ceramic and jewelry from the old kingdoms' royal families.

Unfortunately, on the 2nd and 4th floors, we were not allowed to take pictures. I couldn't see any potential harm, but I was sure the museum had reasons. So we didn't take any pictures on those floors.

A normal visit would take about 3-4 hours around the National Museum. However, since it was a 'children' visit, the fact that Ariq and Aza were still excited after an hour, was a great thing. They would not object staying longer, but lunch time was coming up and most museums in Indonesia close at around 3 p.m. I shifted the boys' interest to lunch, and we were ready to leave the museum in a few minutes.

These are the pictures from the new section:

We had lunch at a seafood place on the way to the Museum of Jakarta History. The place was very busy, but other places are busier -especially fast food outlets-.

After lunch, we quickly continued our trip to the Museum of Jakarta History.


Museum of Jakarta History

This museum is located in the Fatahillah Square, which was the actual 'city square' during the Dutch occupation. The museum was the home of the Governor General, with an underground jail underneath the museum. The guards' hall was located across the museum's backyard.

When we arrived at the museum, it was about half an hour before closing time. There were many people there, and the sky was getting dark -ready to rain-. Being considered a late entry, and coming in with two young boys -which meant the visit would be a quick one-, the attendants gave us a discount on the entrance fee.. Haha..

It was only Rp 200.00 discount -a few cents-, but I found it funny because it wasn't the first time I had a discounted entrance fee at a museum. A few years back, my sister and I visited the Reptile Museum in Canberra. We took the wrong bus and arrived at the museum half an hour before closing time. The attendant suggested us to come back the next day, but we explained that we came from overseas and was only staying a few days. He, then, gave us a discount on the entrance fee.. :-D

Anyway.. we quickly proceed to the upstairs part of the museum, as the attendants suggested. While we were walking up the stairs, Ariq made a comment, "Wow, Mum! These stairs are strong.. They've lasted a long time with so many people walking up and down everyday.."

Every room on the second floor was kept as it was when the museum was still a home of the Governor General. I wanted to take many pictures there, but there were just so many people in the museum, while Aza was asking to go to the bathroom.

The museum was originally built as an office and a house. Therefore, it has many windows and when the windows were open, the air was very refreshing. That was why so many people came to visit the museum nowadays. More than that, the building is an old one with Dutch architecture, which makes it a lovely site to take pictures -even when you are not a big fan of photography-.

After taking Aza to the bathroom, the boys instantly found the old cannon in the backyard, between the museum and the guards' hall. The cannon used to be placed right in the front of the museum, between the two punishment ponds. When the government declared Fatahillah Square a culture reserve and did a major renovation of the site, the cannon was moved to the museum's backyard.

Yes, you read right! There used to be two punishment ponds in front of the museum, but there were not there anymore now. The ponds were about the size of two bathtubs sitting side-by-side with chest-high depth. The current government was probably worried somebody would fall into the empty space by mistake and get injured. In some ways, I was glad the ponds were not there anymore. They always gave me an eerie feeling, whenever I went to the museum..

As the boys requested, I took their pictures with the guards' hall as the background, with the cannon and with the underground jail cell. I never really felt nice seeing the jail, but I thought it was an important point to show the boys, as it was a part of the building and a part of history.

When they had enough for the day -with a promise for a second visit-, we decided to exit the building and took some picture in the Fatahillah Square. There are several other museums around the Fatahillah Square -the area is maintained as culture reserve-, so we will go back there, we just haven't planned it yet.. :-)

When the wind started to blow harder and sky turned darker, we quickly went to the car where my husband was waiting for us with Kyra -Kyra was asleep when we arrived at the museum, and we saw a lot of people at the museum window, so my husband decided to stay in the car with her-.

Phew.. I was glad our first museum visit last year was so much fun that the boys were asking for another trip. Children learn from everything they experience and museums are places where they can learn about things that are not normally present in everyday life.

From the Museum of Jakarta History, we went straight back to my parents' home. Ariq, Aza and Kyra fell asleep right away  car. They were exhausted and so were we.

We slept well that night and planning to rest the next day, but... unexpectedly something else happened.. and we had to make another museum visit.. I'll write about it tomorrow.. ;-)

See you later!

Why the change??

If any of you notice the change in my writing style.. you might be wondering what has happened to me..

Well.. development, I hope!

The first time native English speaking teacher system was introduced in Indonesia, the teacher I had in my English course was an English lady and my course place was British oriented, so, I learned English the British way..

Moreover, during that time (when I was growing up), the books that were popularly read by teenagers were the series written by English writers, one of the famous ones was Enid Blyton (my sister and I pretty much grew up with her stories)..

However, as time went by, more and more books from the US come into Indonesia, along with the TV shows and movies. This certainly changed the English learning trend in Indonesia.

In case of school curriculum, the difference was not visible, but in the case of everyday use, there was a big difference, as American expressions and slang were becoming more and more familiar with Indonesian youth.

When I graduated from high school, I went to Australia to do my university study and in Australia, both British and American English is accepted in academic are, as long as one method is applied consistently throughout a certain essay/thesis. Since I always tried to write my essays in as simple language as possible, I did not have too many problems regarding language method. Plus, I was an overseas student, which meant, as long as my sentences made sense in terms of topic discussion of the essay, little grammatical errors would not cause me to lose marks.

After graduating from the university, I worked for an Australian institution for about four years, so I did not feel any difficulty regarding my English use either..

I started to feel the difference when I started writing my blog in English.. I tried to do part-time writing jobs, and most clients asked for American English.. which I was not very comfortable writing in, because I would not know whether I was making a mistake or not, and they said I made a lot of grammatical mistakes!

Ouch!

Last week, I received an offer for an online grammar check software. I decided to try it, and I actually think it is a good software.. When I was about to download it, the software asked me if I was going to download the British or American version..

I hesitated for a moment..

Which one should I use? What will happen to me if I consistently change my style to American English? Would it be a problem for me?

I have been trying to be consistent in using British English until now, but I have to admit that people and the world around me have been doing things differently, and I often feel that I can't move on without some adjustments..

Moreover, I have started confusing myself too at times because automated spell checks keep throwing me off my balance!

Will I lose out because I change my style? I hope not.. and really, I don't think so..

I would like to think of this as an enrichment process for my English skills, and a step further in pursuing bigger opportunities in the future..

Will I completely forget British style English? I don't think so either.. people don't easily forget the things they grew up with.. :-)

So.. here I am.. getting my little finger used to hitting the 'Z' instead of the 'S' .. and .. not forgetting to put 'a', 'an' or 'the' before a noun.. -this is just a start- ..

Let's see how this works out.. ;-)

End-of-Year Holiday

I was away from the internet for a little over a week, since my husband and I are trying to make up for Ariq's sad holiday (last end of academic year in June). Gladly both Ariq and Aza have been well this holiday so that we managed to have a wonderful time together...

The best trip was last Saturday to the Miniature Park of Indonesia (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah), where all Indonesian cultures are shown in the park (real size traditional houses with manequins (is it the correct spelling?) wearing the traditional dresses inside the houses with scheduled shows of traditional dances in the open spaces of the traditional houses.

In the park, first we went to see a 4-D movie, where we didn't only see the picture in 3-D images, but also feel some of the effects (like wind breeze and sprinkle of water). The kids were very excited and tried to reach and grasp all the images 'coming out' of the screen..

Then, we visited the Reptile Museum and Komodo Park. Various live snakes, lizzards and crocodiles were displayed. In most of the reptile's cages, there were also a few little chicks for the reptiles' prey. At first I felt pity for the little chicks, but then, I understood that it was the chain of food at work.

The reptiles did not disturb the little chicks at all, even when they were running around and often accidently walked all over the sleeping reptiles. One cobra was freightening the 'all too loudly chirping' little chicks by standing up and hissing for a few minutes, but then, it just pulled its head underneath its curled up body (I associated it with humans hiding their heads under a thick pillow when putting up with kids' screaming and shouting, after trying to tell the kids to quiet down)..

We were lucky to see a komodo dragon, who had just shed, and the keeper was kneeling next to the dragon pulling some of the old skin left unshed. It was an amazing sight that we don't come across every day.. so I took a picture of it and gladly it came out well..

We also had a chance to touch a big live snake (a constricting one), who also just shed and was sleeping deeply.. Ariq and Aza saw the 'touch area' and we thought there would be little non-venomous snakes and tame lizzards for kids entertainment.. How surprised we were when we realized that the snakes they displayed there were big sleeping ones!! Ariq was a little scared of touching the snake, but Aza did not hesitate to lie down, roll around and patting the snake.. .. We kept saying to him, "Gentle, Aza.. Gentle.. you don't want to wake the snake!" ..

The keeper was sitting next to Aza, smiling and saying to us not to worry, as the snake would sleep for a long time and touches and pats would not disturb it at all..

After the kids had had enough playing in the Reptile Museum, we moved on to the Kids' Castle, where there were various kids rides and a fairy tale-like castle. The castle had a upper ground area where people could take pictures with the surrounding areas as backgrounds. Ariq and Aza chose a little fairy hole under a castle tower to have their picture taken..

It was really an exciting and full-of-fun holiday for the four of us..

Oh, a little note for all of you.. it seems like middle of the rainy season (end of year) like this is the time for tropical reptiles to shed and rest. So, if you are considering to travel to tropical places and have a glimpse of reptile lives, this time of year would be the perfect time to plan the trip.. the reptiles' skins are new and very beautifully shiny.. and they are all in very deep sleep, so there is a very good chance that visitors of reptile parks can have an experience of touching or sitting next to the reptiles and have photographs taken..

About Batak...

Last Tuesday, I had to go to the insurance company. Since I left the house after rush hour, I decided that taking the bus would be fine. So I did.

It was quite a nice day, so after I finished what I had to do at the insurance company (which was not far from my husband's office), I called my husband to ask if he had time to have lunch with me and he did.

The challenge of the trip finally happened after the lunch!

As soon as I got on the bus to the interchange, a heavy rain started to fall. It continued until the bus reached the interchange. Gladly all the stops were well covered so I didn't get wet.

As soon as I was on the platform, waiting for the bus home to arrive, I could see the bus, at the far end (entry side) of the platform, not moving! The Transportation Dept. personnel who was supervising the platform quickly approached the bus to see if it was having problems.

When I saw the man waving and pointing firmly to the driver, I knew that the driver was just taking his time, trying to wait for more people before departing. With drivers like this, my trip would not be as comfortable as I hoped, but waiting for another bus could take a long time, especially in a heavy rain like that! (normal buses in Indonesia only have routes with no time schedules).

So, I decided (reluctantly) to get on the bus.. Sure enough, the true-selves of the driver and conductor quickly showed..

Not far from the interchange, an elderly woman asked to get off. The driver, however, was too busy trying to overtake other buses which were on the same route.

I knocked repeatedly on the window and some other passengers shouted to the driver and the conductor to pull over and make a stop, but the driver was far too busy to listen to any of us. He finally made a stop at the intersection which was probably about 200m away from where the elderly woman asked the first time!

The elderly woman said to the the driver, "I kept asking you to stop, why didn't you do it?"

The driver looked at her harshly without answering her question and just said to her, "Quick, quick, quick!"

The elderly woman turned to the conductor, "Help me, take these first!" She spoke as she was handing her belonging, a handbag and a plastic bag, while she was standing at the bus door with her walking stick.

Unexpected by any of us, the conductor swore at her, which she quickly replied to, "Why are you swearing at me? I only asked to be let off and helped while getting off!"

A street musician, who was getting ready to start singing, quickly grabbed the elderly lady's hand and handed her belonging to the conductor. The conductor couldn't refuse anymore, for the street musician was a guy about his size. The street musician helped the elderly woman until she was safely off the bus and received her belongings back.

A little later, the driver and the conductor talked to each other in their native language, which I recognised as my own from my dad's side (Batak -an ethnic group from North Sumatra). I sighed heavily...

It was the moment in my life, when I really regretted that I didn't speak the language almost at all..

I understand the culture of the ethnic group enough to know what I could've said to the driver and the conductor to make them feel sorry of what they have done. However, since I was younger, every time I asked my father to teach me his ethnic language, he always refused because he didn't speak the polite form of the language, which means, if he taught me the language, it would only be the form which I could use to friends and rough workers (not the language to be used to speak to older people).

Batak culture places parents and elders above almost anything else in life, and my father once told me that the worst insult (while children were playing) was to pick a leaf from the tree and let it fall to the ground while saying to the person to be insulted, "This is your father!" Then, stepped on the leaf. This kind of insult was the one known to cause kids to fight the most.

On that bus, I knew the perfect line to say to the driver and the conductor to make them behave better towards the elderly lady, "Imagine if someone does that to your mother!"

The only problem was, if I said it in Indonesian, they wouldn't associate it with their native culture, also, it might cause unneccessary outrage on the bus (from other passengers who witnessed the scene). However, if I said it in their ethnic language, they would be able to see straight away that the person who was saying it understood perfectly where the line was coming from (culturally), and it would have a different/much better effect. Plus, other passengers would not understand what I was saying..

Maybe some of you are thinking why I didn't want people to know what I was saying at those guys.. Again, it is something about Batak people..

People from Sumatra, especially the Northerners (Batak), are known as straight forward people in Indonesia. They are also known to be hard workers and not afraid of being rough workers. The Southeners, which are closer to West Sumatra, are slightly softer in character, although not as reserved as Javanese people.

The good points of these people are hints (especially bad ones) don't get to them. The way they speak is rough and loud, but they don't stay angry for a long time.

In real life, some occupations in Indonesia where Batak people are generally found are; education (as teachers) and; law practice (as lawyers).. Despite what you might think, not that many Batak people are interested in becoming armed-forces or police officers..

The bad points (according to other people), they are known to be bus drivers, bus conductors and sometimes.. bus pickpockets!

In general, no Batak peole takes real offense of these generalisations, but still, Batak people are proud people. They might not care about what people talk about them behind their back (meaning they won't take any drastic measure against it), but when someone non-Batak says something to their face, especially in public, they have to answer accordingly.

At a glance, I don't really look like a Batak person, plus I'm a muslim wearing a headcover, while most Batak people are Protestants. The only way people recognised me as a Batak is when they ask for my name or hear me talking in the language. This was why I held myself from saying the line in Indonesian in front of all other passengers. I was looking for remorse, not a bus brawl!

My father used to tell me that in the past, Batak peole came to Java to study or find work without bringing any money or belonging from their villages. They hid on ships on the mercy of the crew. Therefore, as soon as they reached Java island, they would work in whatever field they could find (my father himself used to be a bus conductor and later on a gardener, while doing his landscape degree).

Javanese people are calm, polite and reserved. Standing on the bus door while shouting to attract passengers were not their best points, while Batak people never have any problem with shouting!

As time goes by, more and more Batak people got married with Javanese people. Maybe they finally found that the combination would somehow bring some balance in general life in Indonesia.. and I happened to be one of the children of these mixed marriages.. My father is Batak and my mother is mix Javanese-Sundanese (Sundanese is West Javanese).

I still think about what happened on the bus yesterday, and wish that I could have said something.. something to bring remorse to the driver and the conductor.. but time cannot be reversed, I just hope that Batak people can teach themselves that roughness does not mean rudeness.. not being afraid does not mean disrespect.. and being strong does not mean being heartless..