stupid things that stupid people do -- part two

So someone compared vandalism of public properties to iconoclasts in Byzantium. He said that the later was eponymous and Indonesian government should have been more sensitive to the beliefs of the people when decorating public spaces.

Byzantine Iconoclasm refers to two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the use of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and imperial authorities within the Eastern Church and the temporal imperial hierarchy.

He was not an Indonesian, so I told him that my example is not religious statues. Those were statues of nameless people cooking, farming, doing everyday things in general.

After all, other cities had built bigger, more famous statues since 1945 with no problems whatsoever, some even of Hindu deities, of which follower is less than 3% (according to the data he gave me earlier, I like to use people's data ;)). I said that smart Indonesian people are not intolerant. These are the majority. Small number of people, stupid ones, unfortunately are loud. And explosive.

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stupid things that stupid people do

There's a city in Indonesia known for its religious nuts people. They covered statues that were freshly installed on city square with dark plastic bags. They also demanded the statues to be removed. The reason? They were afraid their children will worship those statues.

Educate your children, people. To NOT worship random statue they meet on the street. Instead of wasting plastic bags like that. Sometimes how stupid people can be is just beyond my comprehension.

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the 5th wave

We'd better get going. I think Evan Walker is going to blow this place out.
-- Ben Parish in The 5th Wave --

God, Evan Walker's so handsome I need to find a corner and rake dirt.
-- a friend's Path status that made me go watch The 5th Wave, ain't nobody got time to figure out what she meant --

So The 5th Wave is not a singular movie. I actually have told myself that The Hunger Games will be the last multi-part movie I watch. I've been sickened by the way movie makers shamelessly try to add piles of gold coins to their already mountainous treasure hoard.

The movie was intense but the plot was too easy to guess. The main attraction was its lead character, played by Chloe Grace-Moretz. Mainly for straight guys, I think. The great Evan Walker is not that handsome in my opinion.

The movie itself looked like Frankenstein's monster, if Dr. Frankenstein had created movies instead of monsters. Think of it this way: the opening scene was derived from 28 Weeks Later. Then flashback to the main character's high school life and partying of There's Something About Mary. Later we got a disaster movie, maybe 2012 for the first two waves. Third wave reminded me of a movie of which title I cannot recall, about a disease outbreak in a city. Fourth wave was Resident Evil. About Fifth wave... all I can tell without being a spoiler was, fifth wave's been predictable ever since the scene where Ben Parish pushed the button.

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ethnicity and presidency, indonesia

So, how likely is it that people of non-Javanese ethnic will be elected as President of Indonesia?

Indonesian's elected president (Habibie was not elected, he was VP turning into P) has always been a Javanese-born. It's not exactly the problem whether Indonesian people will vote for a non-Javanese ethnic to be their president, it's the road to be a candidate that's harsh.

There are two ways one can be a presidential candidate: through political party or through independent means. Political parties, however big portion they have in mind for people's greater good, can't achieve that if they don't get a seat in the government's forum (MPR, DPR, governor, you name it). The seats are supposed to be won by vote, too. Now if you, as the party's head, have an unpopular presidential candidate, that surely will affect (not in a good way) your party's probability of having many seats, if any, in the said forum.

Like I said, Indonesian's elected president has always been a Javanese-born. There's little chance political party leaders will be willing to break tradition by having someone out of Javanese ethnicity as their candidate.

As for independent path, I personally know someone who's trying to run for major in Surabaya. Basically he did that because he was a supporter for incumbent major, who would be kicked out of office if there's nobody to challenge her in the next (now past) election. Google Risma's controversy for further information, Risma is the incumbent major mentioned above.

This guy said it was hell trying to meet the requirements to run for major. If I'm not mistaken, one of the problem was collecting letters of support. He needed X amount of people willing to sign the letter of support. That was independent path for running as a major. Just imagine how much tougher the hell one must go through in order to run as president by independent path.

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how to introduce yourself, the javanese way

Javanese people seldom be straightforward, even to the point that they generally dislike to introduce themselves to other people. They prefer their new friend finds out their name during the conversation.

How? By inserting their name into a story they're telling the new friend about. I myself personally have observed this behaviour more than once.

First encounter. My masseuser. She told me that a neighbour of hers was going to move and couldn't afford to bring too much stuff to her new place. "Later my neighbour said, 'Annie, I want to sell my cupboard.'"

That time was an aha! moment for me. So my masseuser's name is Annie.

Annie is not her real name, I just used it for example.

Last encounter. A gym-goer. She was telling me how other people at the gym encouraged her to lose weight. "'Avoid fried stuff, Zaskia. And drink lemon juice.' The old Chinese guy at the gym told me."

Aha! So her name is Zaskia.

No, not really Zaskia either. Only use it as an example.

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hotel keys

We heard people accidentally left all kinds of things in hotel rooms they're staying: mobile phone chargers, hair accessories, skin moisturizers etc, but how about the other way around?

During last Golden Week a colleague went to a nearby high land. He rent a big room together with his cousin, their spouses and children. When they checked out of the hotel, his cousin forgot to return the key of the room to the receptionist.

My colleague's cousin only realized it when they're on the way home already. It didn't make sense to drive all the way back up there just to return the key due to traffic. Golden Week, remember?

So the cousin called the hotel and explained the situation. She told the hotel she'll send the key she's holding through a post service. Luckily the hotel had spare keys to the room, so they don't have to wait before renting that room to someone else.

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