Yogya’s Southern Beaches: Grasping Business Opportunities while Taking Care of Nature

By: Sri Rahmawati & Vatsya Mallayana

Photos by: Dorothea Gecella Putri Lestari

8 a.m. and we started our trip to explore some beaches in Gunung Kidul, the most mountainous part of Yogyakarta. It took us over two hours by car to get there from Yogyakarta City, not only to take pleasure in its natural beauty, but also to talk business and to learn how people there take care of their beaches.

Our mouths could not stop gaping until a child surprised us with a splash on the surface of the turquoise water. Later, the heat of the sun that had totally burnt our faces could not stop us from creating footprints across the warm, white sand. Strips of giant rocks on the western end of this beach seemed to want to make us believe that we were the subjects of a famous painting.

Doing Business in Indonesia: a Short Guide

By: Julia Tchezganova, first published on Bali Expat

With a population of nearly 240 million people, with more than 17,000 islands, and with a significant political and economic place in Southeast Asia, Indonesia is playing an increasingly prominent role in global economy. As a result, not only is Indonesia clearly of interest to foreign investors, but it also sparks excitement in foreigners who wish to come to the archipelagic state in order to enjoy its beauty and culture while setting up their business in a growing market.

It is outside of the scope of this article to cover every aspect of doing business in Indonesia, however, it will serve as a guide in terms of where to look for information and what to look for. In addition, there will be a closer analysis of business structure options available for foreigners in Indonesia.

Hope in a Javanese Oil Field

By: Nico Haryono

The newborn rays of the sun touch the infertile hills of the village of Wonocolo, Bojonegoro. A pair of sturdy legs move, the toes step and sink into the mud. The muscled hands tightly clutch a lath beam bundled to a strand of steel wire. Inspired screaming sounds several times, and the six men move together to pull the steel wire. From the end of wire placed on the well, the cylinder of 7 metres moves then Saparlan holds the end of a nozel-cylinder and throws the substance up to the drums.

The thick brown liquid they call lantung is caught in a bigger receiving station which is burried in the ground. The gallons of lantung or crude oil is then cooked during 4 to 5 hours to make solar (diesel). The steam of the cooking process is chilled so it transforms into pure petrol and is poured into containers, ready to sell to their subscribed collector. The men manage to collect 4 drums of diesel a day, priced at about 300.000 rupiah per drum. The profit is divided between the 10 to 15 members of the group.

The Indonesian Rupiah: Money with Character & a lot of Zeros

By: Ed Caffin

Indonesian money surely isn’t the most practical. Most people carry many notes around in their wallets, because even for the smallest purchase, you’ll need thousands of rupiahs. It gets worse when you have to pay large sums of cash, and all those zeros start to make you dizzy. Also, well-used notes, like the 1,000 rupiah one, can look so much abused that I sometimes hesitate to pay with them. On the other hand, rupiah banknotes are, unlike those of most other countries, quite beautiful and interesting to look at. The Indonesian rupiah truly is money with character. Here are some facts and figures.

Why are rupiahs called rupiahs? The name rupiah comes from the Sanskrit word for wrought silver, rupya. The name was first used to denote a coin introduced by a 16th century ruler in Northern India. The coin obviously was silver based. From there, rupee or rupiah became a common name for the monetary unit in many countries along the Indian ocean, like India, Pakistan, Seychelles and Sri Lanka. And the name also made it to Indonesia.

Five Things to Love about Kaki Lima

By: Ed Caffin

Not everybody loves them. The Indonesian mobile food-cart, the kaki lima has an infamous reputation. Most people find them annoying and claim they cause even more chaos in the already busy city streets. Others even find them an eyesore. Only some, like me, admire their charm, the way they are built and the way they are skilfully manoeuvred through busy traffic or a swampy rice field. Here are five things to love about Indonesia’s famous Five-Feeters.

The first thing, of course, is it’s name. Kaki lima means five feet, due to the fact that originally these carts all had five legs. That is: two wheels plus back stand plus the two legs of the guy that is pushing it. How could you not love something with a name like that?

Singapore Living Costs: Accommodation, Transportation, Food & Entertainment

By: Farah Ong

Try locating Singapore on the world map and you will see this little red dot tucked underneath Malaysia in the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula. This little red dot may be the smallest country in South-East Asia, but it has now ranked the 3^rd most expensive city in Asia to live in, just after Tokyo and Osaka, beating Hong Kong.

Singapore has transformed from a small, chaotic seaport into one of the richest, cleanest, safest, efficient and most expensive cities to live in. This quick emergence from a third-world to a first-world nation has inevitably transformed the people’s mindset and expectations of worldly pursuits. From the laid-back inhabitants of island people to a city known for it’s materialistic culture obsessed with their pursuit of the 5C’s- cash, car, condo, credit card and country club.

Taru Martani: A Story of Cigars and Indonesia

By: Reza Daffi

While its liking of cigarettes is no longer a secret, the fact that Indonesia produces (and consumes) cigars remains less renowned. One of the country’s cigar factories is located in Yogyakarta, called Taru Martani. As a venture that has managed to survive after decades, Taru Martani has become part of Indonesian history.

How Indonesia Caught Smoking

The habit of “ngobong congor” (burning one’s mouth, Javanese slang for smoking) was already practiced in Java since at least early in the 17th century. A Javanese manuscript from 1601, Babad Ing Sangkal, noted that people began to smoke after the death of Panembahan Senapati, the founder of the Mataram Sultanate of which Yogyakarta was part. It is possible that they were introduced to tobacco by the Dutch who had come in 1596 under the explorer Cornelis de Houtman. By this time, smoking was already common across Europe, tobacco having been imported by Christopher Columbus’ crew from the Caribbean years before.

The Dutch, however, played an important role in spreading smoking in Indonesia. The fact that the Indonesian word rokok (meaning, cigarettes) is derived from the Dutch word roken (to smoke) provides evidence.

Iskandar: a bellwether for improving relations between Singapore and Malaysia?

By: John Solomon

A Thorny Past

While never escalating any issue to a bout of saber rattling, Singapore and Malaysia have not always enjoyed what one could describe as a good neighborly relationship. Since Singapore’s unceremonious departure from the Malaysian federation in 1965, the two countries have had numerous disputes over a range of thorny bilateral issues including the sale of water and the demarcation of territorial boundaries. The problematic relationship between two nations who have much in common culturally and historically was probably best symbolized by the much-publicized verbal joustings between then Prime Ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Mahathir Mohammed in the 1990s.

Warming relations

Relations today however have improved significantly since that period and the Malaysian High Commissioner has recently said that they are at the best they have ever been. This has largely been the result of a conciliatory shift in policy that began with Malaysia’s former leader, Abdullah Badawi. The current Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has continued and extended this approach and Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong has reciprocated in kind.

Leasing Culture: from Cars to Sunglasses

By: Emma Kwee

Malls are the playground for most Indonesians. families, teenagers and couples spend their free time increasingly indoors, (window) shopping, lounging around at foodcourts or loitering around at arcade halls. It's not just window shopping though these days. Those who have visited Indonesia recently will probably have noticed the shiny, spanking brand new wagonpark that cruises the cities' congested thoroughfares. Small Japanese hatchbacks overtake imported 5-door Mercedes Benz, while bajaj (the traditional three wheeled taxi) seem to have become a rare sight.

What has happened? Have Indonesians suddenly all become rich?

The Winding Story of Tea in Indonesia

By: Jacobus E. Lato

Tea has been a traditional beverage for Indonesians for over 200 years, particularly among village women. Men tend to prefer black coffee; enjoying its taste mingling with the aromatic blend of a kretek cigarette, before starting their daily routines early in the morning. The serving process runs smoothly almost like a traditional rite; early in the morning and in the evening alike.

An old woman in Solo in her early 80s told me once;  “When I was a child, my mother always served tea. We had to drink tea before starting our activities in the morning.” Her past and joyful vivid memory seemed to have lived on in her life, as witnessed by her automatic and ritualistic current practice of serving tea: “Until now I always drink tea, as well as my children with their own family members. It is healthy as well,” the lady told me and then recalled her husband as the best man anyone could wish for, preventing her to ever get married again. Her husband passed away when she was not even forty yet.  “My marriage was great and there is and will not be no one like “him” in my life,” she proudly told me.

Actually I wasn’t aware of how our random conversation brought us into intimate family affairs. Later on I realized, the lady was possibly triggered by the advertisement that was running on television at the time. On the screen the tea was served; ending up the family conflict; it supposedly improved their communication as well as avoid any miss-communication.