Zetcon
When I was preparing to come to Indonesia, the excitement of being accepted for a university study tour took over. There was so much to see, so much to prepare for... but nothing could have prepared me for Javanese comedian Dodit Mulyanto.
I was standing in a crowd of school students when he told me he loved me. That alone was enough to fill the room with laughter but when I blew him a kiss in return I heard the students squeal. Naturally, his response was cheeky. “We’ll go wandering through the park together.” It’s a Javanese saying I’m told means that we’ll sneak off into the bushes together and do inappropriate things.
Mulyanto was in Surabaya for the Zetizen Convention, ZetCon for short, an East Java youth convention in its 15th year. And as impressed as I was by a 32-year-old comedian, I was more impressed with the students around him. From 12 to 20 years old, these students had created diorama-like stalls for more than 10,000 people a day to walk between.
It was day two for me, day seven for some of these teenagers.
Axel Vareno, 15, from a local Surabaya school created an exhibition which looked at the impacts social media and smartphones have on people’s lives.With his team of other students, Mr Vareno taught guests statistics about social media use and how best to avoid the negative impacts it could have.
“Our project shows what [students] should do. When I [get] home from school I play [on] my phone with headphones, play my games, play my apps.So this [project] wants to make people know about using phones for school things, for study, for information.”
Smartphone addiction seems to be a world-wide issue, especially in younger age groups who have grown up in the technology era, but what was more baffling than any statistic he showed was how intelligent this boy was.
Not only did many of the students speak fluent English, a talent in itself, but they were aware of these worldly issues and had each created a way to educate people.
The theme of ZetCon 2017 was ‘breakthrough’ and these teenagers more than broke through issues of social media. They tackled women’s rights, health, environmental sustainability, cultural identities and drug-related issues. They broke though boundaries of culture, language and age, and showed me just how much the youth of today will break through into the world.
"One ticket to Bromo please"
After five days, two published stories, countless photos and a little bit of flirting with Mulyanto, my official work in Surabaya is done, but official work is only part of the trip. The other part? A journey to Jawa Pos’ printing factory and being stranded on the side of the road when the van breaks down… along with a trip to Mount Bromo.
The 2,329-meter volcano is still active and sees more than 500,000 visitors each year (or, to put that into perspective, more than 1300 people each day). From Surabaya it’s a three-hour bus ride, an hour in a Jeep and a short hike up some stairs, all before sunrise.
A break in the clouds shows a hint of sun and a wave of awe-inspired whispers echoes through the crowd of people. Clouds billow through the volcanic area, across fields below and around distant mountain peaks. It seems to rise like steam.
‘Bromo’ comes from the Javanese pronunciation of ‘Brahma’, the Hindu creator god. The mountain sits in what as known as the ‘Sea of Sand’, a broad, flat sheet of desert in the Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park.
Mount Bromo is not the tallest of the four volcanos in the area, but is the biggest tourist attraction.
Sunrise at the top is an incredible start to the day but it’s just that: a start.
The Jeep takes us to a crater, about a 30-minute ride from the top of Mount Bromo. A three kilmoeter walk (or horse ride) through sand and fog looks somewhat like a zombie movie, and if that’s not enough of a scare it’s followed by more than 250 stairs.
Although I’m slightly put off by people walking up and disappearing into clouds, up I go.
The staircase leads to the rim of a crater. Looking into a deep crater is nerve-wracking, and looking down to where I came from and not being able to see the group even more so, but the experience is one that will not be forgotten.
The People & Their Art
‘Bali Volcano alert raised to highest level’, the headlines say, but we are in Jakarta another week still and so our work continues.
“I’ve been singing since I was 10,” says 16-year-old Andrea Turk. “Well, actually I’ve played piano since I was five but my lazy ass didn’t take it seriously until I was 10.”
The Indonesian singer-songwriter, Instagram icon, YouTuber and feminist is weeks away from releasing her debut album, ‘Who We Are’, but her online videos don’t do justice to her voice.
We sit in the middle of ‘The Reading Room’, Kerang’s local coffee shop / library / place of childhood dreams. The university students around the corner of a bookshelf quieten as Andrea’s sweet rendition of Vance Joy’s Riptide rings through the room.
She says the music industry in Indonesia is changing and becoming more accommodating to women, but there’s a long way to go before gender equality is achieved.
Feminism is a topic not broached often in Indonesia, but experts say art and media are the way to make a change.
An hour after Andrea leaves, filmmaker Eliza Cheisa, 20, sits in the same chair.
“Women are - the term may be - ‘used’, maybe it’s too harsh. There used to be stories that women have to have sex first to get in, with the director or the producer to get in to the industry and that’s really not okay,” she says.
“I think these days it’s not anymore. Women are growing and people realise we are also capable.”
Local Javanese artist Mikhael Rayhan, 20, who’s been drawing since kindergarten, says people need to educate themselves about feminism.
“You have to know something before you can talk about it or you can make an opinion about it. You need to understand what it is about, and you have to understand the people who say they are feminists. Communication is key.”
His art, visual or poetry, is spiritual and has meaning to him, but most importantly it’s honest.
“I feel like nowadays art has surpassed just skill. You have to bring something to the table, like an idea, message. Whether it’s political, spiritual, I don’t know.”
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