Jakartass Home thoughts from abroad. Alien thoughts from home.

Dealing with Indonesia's bureaucracy can be incredibly stressful if you don't know someone who knows someone who ….

Dead Funny?
A teacher acquaintance died some two years ago and, appointed by his mother, another acquaintance acted as executor of the estate. This required notarised documents from the British Embassy and his mother giving her authorisation in order to close his bank account.

All this took over a year. The bank (BCA) then informed her that the death certificate had expired, so she had to get a new one.

Were they thinking of zombies?

———————Or perhaps ….

 

Dead Easy?
No way!

A good friend is considering becoming an Indonesian citizen as a way of overcoming the annual hassles of renewing his KITAS, the temporary resident permit.

Veeramalla Anjaiah has written about the Herculean task involved in achieving this in today's Post.

According to Article 19 of the Citizenship Law No. 12/2006, foreigners who have resided in Indonesia for five years continuously or 10 years with gaps, can apply for citizenship.

I had to go to more than 20 offices, some of them repeatedly, to get the job done. After more than 20 years of staying here, I learned a lot about how to deal with Indonesian officials; many are nice, hardworking and friendly. But some of the rules and procedures are really frustrating.

My main weapons were patience, a smile and determination. I used to carry dozens of photocopies, photos of different sizes, stapler, glue and original certificates for me and my family.

In many offices, people suspected I was a private broker or agent who processed official documents after seeing my bag was full of papers.

Once Penabur have followed the ruling of the Supreme Court, I will be able to  investigate sponsorship by 'Er Indoors. Some details of an Indonesian spouse sponsoring a foreigner can be found here.

Dead Stupid?
Or merely prone to the couldn't-give-a-shit for customers syndrome?

Last night while Our Kid and I were totally engrossed in the "very solid thriller" Unknown, starring Liam Neeson, when – fumf – the lights went off and the TV (and computers, fridge, pump …) went off. At first we thought it was just our house because it wasn't the whole street. But no, it was the house on the right, one diagonally to the left and four others seemingly chosen at random.  We lit candles, all the while praying that we wouldn't be left in darkness too long, yet knowing that there was no chance of discovering the denouement of the movie that evening.

We rang up the local office of PLN, the state electricity office to report the outage, only to be told that they were already doing some maintenance. Apparently, they'd spent three hours doing whatever they do earlier in the day.

Now that leaves one simple complaint: how come no-one had informed us? Are six customers of such negligible importance that they couldn't be bothered to stroll round to our houses to give us fair warning?

Note: President SBY is due to visit Lombok on Friday.

Two years ago, he launched the “blackout-free Indonesia” campaign in Mataram, its capital, but the island still suffers from rotating outages.

On Monday, the provincial spokesman Tribudi Prayitno said that steps were being taken to ensure there would be no disruption to electricity supplies for the visit.

The bureaucrats may be able to fool the President, but they can't fool the masses.

I wouldn't want to see a film of a play about a biblical story, but this still from the film (of a play about a biblical story) has an enigmatic appeal.

—– Original Message —–
From: Lindsay Higgins
To: Jakartass
Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2012 11:39 PM
Subject: Question About "Jakartass"

Hey,

I consult for a prestigious condo development in Montreal, who is looking to expand its presence online. I am interested in having a mention within one of your upcoming blog posts leading back to my client's website, in the form of an unobtrusive text link. I figure that since the community being built is one of the few LEED-ND certified developments in all of Canada, it might be worth mentioning in a post.

If you could help me out, I would be more than willing to compensate you.

Let me know if you are interested.

Thanks,

Lindsay

This is not the first time 'Canada' has been mentioned in Jakartass. I've done a search of my 1900 posts and discovered 24 examples, including these three:
- 24.04.04 Canada warned of a "credible terrorist threat" to western interests in Indonesia's South Sulawesi province.
- 27.04.04 Caravan played at the Toronto Opera House
- 28.10 04  When the late Hunter S. Thompson was asked which country should the United States invade next, and why?, he answered, "Canada. It's close at hand."

The country has also had brief mentions in passing when I've written about environmental concerns, corruption, and that holders of Canadian passports can work as English teachers here – assuming have a Ph.D in linguistics and they're not HIV-positive.

One word that is conspicuous by its absence in Jakartass is "condo", not least because I really don't know what it is.

It's pretty obvious, therefore, that Ms. Lindsay doesn't read Jakartass, not least because my sidebar states quite categorically that this blog is Ad-Free .

And one final point, language pedant that I am, I rarely give space to native speakers who make elementary grammatical errors, especially those who "consult for a prestigious condo development in Montreal, who is looking …." for a freebie.

"Hey" what, eh?

Yep, it's that time of year when elementary, junior and senior high school students face the dreaded Ujian Monyet, the multi-choice exams set by regional and national education authorities.

The tests set by the national Department of Education, which in its (lack of) wisdom or vision has emasculated the English language teaching sector, are sat by students throughout the country. Local governments set 'tryout' practice tests, and students in grades 6, 9 and 10 spend an eternity, which several months can seem to be, learning little new, or of practical use for their futures.

This is what Iqbal Widastomo said three years ago.

We need to change the mindset of many of our educators to first become critical thinkers themselves before they can develop and encourage critical thinking in the schoolchildren.

They have not been given a chance to think and explore as they naturally should have as children growing up and learning. But they need to be able to think and question and challenge ideas for themselves. Our schools, however, still do not encourage this but instead continue to emphasize memorization rather than actual thinking.

I don't believe we should over-blame the schools. It's only been fourteen years since the abdication of Suharto and changing the mindsets of the powers-that-be takes a generation or two. That the élites in the legislatures and their bureaucracies are the self-perpetuating hangovers is a matter for the electorate to determine – and hopefully as soon as possible. However, teachers and parents of current school students are 'victims' of the Suharto era and, with a few notable exceptions, have yet to change their mindsets.

What gets my goat more than anything is that the tests themselves, both locally and nationally derived are flawed. Or, to put it more bluntly, are riddled with errors.

Last year, Our Kid graduated from grade 9 and is now settled in the senior high school regime. He goes to a school which bills itself as a 'National Plus', a private fee-paying school. These schools need a continued intake in order to survive as a commercial enterprise, and recruits qualified, experienced and caring teachers in order to ensure a 100% pass rate.

Image is everything. (That this year's annual wall calendar highlights various teachers including those who are awarded for their "Pucntuality" (sic) is somewhat unfortunate.) However, I do still feel a sense of resentment fostered at his graduation ceremony last year.

Our Kid came home after sitting the English exam and told me that he'd answered two answers (out of fifty) incorrectly. He'd made a note of the questions and the four possible answer.choices, and yes, he had got them wrong. But hey, 96% is an excellent result in my book.

At the graduation ceremony a lass was praised and awarded a month's free tuition for getting 100%. A couple of months later, the official certificate came through and it turned out that Our Kid had been awarded 98%.

Now, given that certificates are computer-generated, I can only surmise that one of the questions Our Kid had got 'wrong', had been a 'bad' question, i.e. had the wrong answer in the marking key. Therefore, the lass had given the 'right' answer according to the government, but was in fact 'wrong' and therefore did not actually achieve 100%.

If you've followed my convoluted thinking so far, consider this question set by Jakarta's (lack of) Education Dept. for this past week's tryout exams for this year's batch of grade 9s.

Q. When will the wedding anniversary be held?
…..A. In the afternoon. ……C. In the evening.
…..B. In the morning. …….-D. At night.

There's nothing wrong with the English, but the question …?

How can you 'hold' an anniversary? The occasion is on a particular day or date, and is therefore of 24 hours duration, so none of the answers are correct. Surely it's a party, a get-together, or soiree that will be held at 8pm.

Then there is the matter of interpretation. 8pm in Indonesian is 'malam', i.e. night, yet to an Englishman such as myself, it's the evening, the gap between work obligations and bedtime.

Finally, the text preceding the one above is below. Your task is to work out how many mistakes you can find in the fourteen words. I'll post my analysis once someone (you?) has found a few.

Today is the day that one full day is added to the calendar year because it's a leap year.

Today will be slightly longer than most because one second will added.

Make the most of it. Manu Pombrol will. 

+ 29 facts for today fr. Diamond Geezer

PT Kereta Api Indonesia (KAI) says it's installing barricades in the form of hanging concrete balls that will knock off anyone sitting on top of an accelerating train.

PT KAI operation area 1 order manager Akhmad Suyadi said that the move was intended to provide safety and comfort to passengers and not to cause harm.