daripada diERRATA, mending gini deh:

SUMPE INI ENTRY KAGA PAKE SENSOR2AN. KALO ADA ISTILAH2 YANG NGGA BERKENAN AYE MINGTA MAAP DEH YEEE... KAGA USAH DILANJUTIN AJE BACANYA KALO TERSINGGUNG MAH.... HEHEHEHE.... GUE CM PENGEN NOTES2 GUE BENERAN RAW ADANYA.

Daripada gue bengong ngga kelar-kelar di depan papan jadwal keberangkatan demi mlototin halaman-halamannya yang sumpe deh cepet banget brubah ke Bahasa Thailand-nya... mendingan gue narok pantat di deket wilayah yang berbau kopi Italia, seperti biasa.

Akhirnya selesai sudah rehat (heh?? Rehat kok malah capek, kontradiktif ah! --- BRISIK!) gue setelah gecak-gecaknya ikut konferensi di Khon Kaen. Sebagai penutup laporan perjalanan (yang sebenernya adalah lampiasan napsu ngomel dan ngoceh serta meracau, berhubung ngga punya ‘teman’ seperjalanan yang juga hobi meracau), gue memutuskan untuk mencoba tidak memasukkan Bangkok ke dalam itinerary perjalanan berikutnya. Kenapa?

Karena (yang keSATU): buat gue sama aja pindah dari Jakarta ke Jakarta (iya! Nggak salah tulis kok gue...) dan keadaan distrik gue yang sumpah persis banget kek Poppies Lane di Kuta dan/atau super crowded Gili Trawangan bikin gue ingat >> “Miss, Miss, would you like to have an affair with me?” atau “Masssaaaaaaaaaaaage... masssaage, yuk maaaaaaaaaas...” NAH LOH! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrh.... I should’ve stayed in Phimai instead. Or maybe Ayutthaya or Sukhothai. Ya! Next time, kota2 itu yang jadi tujuan gue. Kalo pun harus ke Bangkok, lebih baik Cuma buat transit. Chiang Mai dan Chiang Rai juga gue denger bagus...

Karena (yang keDUA): perlakuan orang lokal yang selalu mengira gue JUGA orang lokal tadinya gue pikir nggak masalah. Tapi, lama kelamaan bikin nae pitam jugak, meski gak meledak. Terutama orang-orang di deket hostel gue nginep (sumpe gue nggak balik lagi ke hostel itu... kepepet sih, jadi trima aja konsekuensi minep sana LIMA hari.......... tududududududud). Contoh kasus: gue pengen beli kotak extra buat buku2 yang ngga masup ke dalem tas. Di sebelah hostel ada kantor kargo gituh, yang sumpah ye, mbak2nya musti gue ajarin cara SENYUM. Dengan slogan Thailand “Land of smiles”, ini mbak2 harusnya dicabut kewarganegaraannya!! Bok... ngerokok pinjem korek gue aja bukannya pake makasih dan senyum dikit kek.. nyengir, mungkin.. ato jungkir balik.... mungkin dia ngga update aja kalo slogannya Thailand adalah “Land of smiles”. Truuuuusss yang bikin paling bête adalah (trutama si MBAK ini.....) kalo nglayanin bulek2 putih senyumnya baru muncul... dikit sih, tapi MUNCUL!!! Ternyata dia punya GIGI, sodari-sodara!!! Perlakuan beda antara bulek putih sama bulek ireng kek gue ini (berdasarkan pengalaman slama lima hari), hanya berlaku di kantor2 nyang pake erkondisyoner. Tapi kalo di kaki limaaaa, ik yang ireng ini BERJAYA!!! Apalagi urusan tawar menawar.... ampe bencong aja gue towel2 biar dapet 50B bwt 3 biji anting2.... hahahaha... maap, ye, Bencoooong....! (Jadi inget smsnya Ruly yang bilang gue kudu nowel satu benciong kalo lagi di redlightdistrict..... well, Ruly, malem itu, gue keasikan nongkrong sama Cho, jadinya kita batal ke RedLight!! HAHA, maap yaaa. Towelan Patpongnya gue tunda.... adanya bekas towelan benciong Khaosarn yang ya udah lah gitu adanya...). Fenomena orang ‘aneh’ kedua adalah mas2 bencyong (kalo bencyong gue sebut ‘Mas’ itu pantes nggak sih????? Ya, masak, ‘Bu...’) di lobby hostel gue yang keknya selalu PMS.. mungkin suntikan hormonnya lebay juga, jadi dia tuh marah2 muluuuu... ampe suatu malem, di kala gue dan cowo Itali ganteng itu sedang online mojok di deket tangga (doski mo telp nyokapnya di sono, tapi laptop doski ngehang, minjem punya gue...dengan pick up lines: ‘hmm, hey, is the wifi working on your laptop? Because it isn’t on mine...” sambil ciripcirip mata senyum manis.. Italian bangsaaaaaaaaaaaaat!! Sok atuh, pinjem laptop gue!! Tapi, bagi rokok! HAHAHAHA. Buat Alberto Romero... Slamat Malam, BANG!!! Dangdutan ngapahhh!), kami dikezzutkan dengan treak2an yang aduhaiii melengkiiiiing skali dibarengi dengan treakan2 yang super bass berbahasa Inggris. Okeh, kembali ke bencyong PMS. Iyah, jadi ada cowo yang nanya toilet di mana... gue juga ngga tau apa yang terjadi sampe akhirnya beneran si cowo bulek ini mo nggebok si bencong.. dalam hati gue, ‘GEBOK BANG, GEBOOOOK!’ emang ngeselin sih si bencong. Ohhhhh.... God!! There was supposed to be bloodbath over there.....!! Tsk! Tapi si mas bulek akhirnya Cuma gebrak meja dan pergi, sementara yang satu lagi masi ngoceh2 dalam bahasa Thai. Oh well... ampek lupa ada abang ganteng duduk di sblah gue lagi pake leptop gue bwt nelpon emaknya.... how sweeeeet...

Tuh kan, gue scatter-brain lagi nulisnya... aseem! Bikin malu aja.. Tadi topik kita apaan sih?

OKEH, INGET!!

Karena (yang keTIGA): gue jatuh cinta sama Phimai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kudu BANGET minep sana, at least LIMA hari. Sbnrnya itu kota dikiderin sehari juga kelar. Gedenya ngga lebih kek Onrust gitu.... tapi aduhhhaiiii..... plazanya, apa lah yaaaa yang bikin ini tempat berkesan banget buat gue, dan brasa kek pertama kali gue liat Kairo diterangi lampu cilik2 di atas pohon, trus ada yang maen akordeon di pojokan jalan. (Loh ini Kairo apa Paris, sih?) Nggaaaak, gue serius.. benerannnn.... hahhahahaha... Jadi, keknya next time, Bangkok tersingkir dari daftar tempat berkunjung, KECUALI transit.. sempet tergoda sih untuk naek bis ke Siem Reap besok-besok, via Bangkok juga. Gak papa gue rasa kalo cuma transit, ngga nyakitin kuping, dan ngga nyakitin hati juga karena gue lebih ireng dari turis-turis lainnya.

All in all, gue puas pergi kali ini. Pertama kalinya pergi solo lagi, setelah sekian lama terbiasa nggak solo. Hahaha. Meski kangen sama travel companions gue yang astaga okeh2 (e.g. Dinda, Bunga, tim Krakatau, tim Pangguyangan 2012, tim Sosrowijayan 2010-2011, etc.) , tapi memang sekarang harus mulai dibiasakan travelling solo lagi. Sekarang udah di gate, dengan bauk balsam eyangnya syapa gitu dan kelakuan penumpang Indonesia yang ngga bisa duduk di tempat yang disediakan dan/atau antre pada masa yang ditentukan. Gue heran deh, sama budaya ‘nggak bisa antre’ ini... padahal kan di tiket udah ada nomer urut duduk masing2... trus korsinya bakal lari gitu kalo kita ngga buru2 duduk di situ, atau bagasi kita bakal kabur sama gebetannya yang ketemu di kabin bawah, kalo kita ngga buru2 claim baggage? Sungguh budaya yang aneh. Kalo lagi malu banget gue biasanya ngakunya dari Filipina aja deh, atau Mexico. Hahahahaha....

Anying (kalo kata Ruly lebih sopan gini....), final note aja panjang beeng.. Hakhakhak... marilah.... 2012 mungkin gue bakal jarang di rumah, setelah 2011 ngerumah mulu gara2 gusar dan galau.. hahahaha.. sekarang, galaunya gue bawa ke negara lain, ke tempat lain, dan brusaha buang sial dan buang galau, tapi apa daya..... bahkan sekarang galaunya ngikutin pulang... pag-syet nga talaga namaaaan!!! Okay na, dapat na ako umalis ngayon. See you, Thailand. Thank you for the wonderful two-weeks for being galau alone. Mmmmmuuuahhhhh.

Ps. Next stop: Siem Reap? I’ve found a 40,000 Rupiah/pppn nearby the Old Market @ SiamReap. Wanna??? Call me!

xoxo

Dee on the road.

Day Three was a BLUR!!! LOL. I have this bad habit of forgetting about date and days during my travel. So no wonder this happens again. The only hint was that I was already in Bangkok, after a long tiring night of hostel hunting and desperation to take a hot shower.

The next day, I went to the Museum Siam nearby Wat Pho and I was amazed by the almost-colonial style of the building. My colleague said that it was (possibly) an ex-Ministry of Commerce building. I mean, even the police station has wonderful Ionic architecture, here... No wonder if this Museum has wonderful architecture as well. And I got lucky, because I arrived at the museum around 5pm, I got to go inside for free... yay! I love my luck! So, they got me wearing this sticker on my shirt and showed me where to go. They sat me down in a small AV hall (that is Audio-Visual, not Adult-Video!!!) with large screen and said that the movie is going to last 5 minutes. Wondering what sort of crap movies they’re going to show me, I sat down quietly.

The movie tells a story about what is a true Thai, what is it made of, mostly questions about identity of a Thai or things Thai. There were people with different professions featured in the movie being asked the same question, are the things you’re doing Thai? Is the food you’re selling Thai? What make these things Thai? And then the scene flashed back to the early times (playing some sort of reincarnation plot here) when the people were someone else in the past. I believe this was meant to show how Thai are the things they are doing now. The final scene showed a little girl in a car heading to school asking her daddy if she’s Thai, because her friends told her that she doesn’t look Thai. What is Thai? What makes you Thai? These are the main ideas of the exhibition on the museum. Awesome movie, I cried.

I cried because I am embarrassed. I questioned myself a lot whether I am Javanese or not, because few things that I do in daily life can be considered Javanese although my bloodline says so. The nationality column on my passport tells everyone that I am Indonesian, but what I do every day, might not be Indonesian at all. For example: this essay is written in English and not in Bahasa Indonesia; I crochet, which is so French or other western countries that it refers to...; I drink tea and I have bread in the morning which is so English; I dressed up in tshirt and jeans – which is totally not Indonesian (but considered as modern in any cultures); I master plenty of Italian food, but few of traditional Indonesian food; I bake cupcakes, instead of making nogosari or arem-arem, etc, etc.

After the short movie presentation, we were led to the first exhibition which showed things identical to Thailand today; tuk-tuk, street vendor food, 7-11 (oh yeahhh! You find almost 15 7-11s ONLY in Khaosarn Road), elephants, the traditional dance, spirit houses, and so on. Next, we were led to the third floor with exhibitions of archaeological evidence found in Thailand and hoped to explain the early ages of Thailand. There was this HUGE poster display of burials found in Ban Chiang, Khok Phanom Dee, and some more sites. The main piece of this exhibition is the story about a shaman woman of Khok Phanom Dee, found in a burial adorned with beads, bangles of bronze, and wrapped in garb of cloth. One small glass box exhibition would lit up into a short movie about the shaman woman, showing how she was buried and then flashed back to when she was alive. She would stand up in front of you and tells you the story of who she was and why was she important to the community she had lived in. Don’t worry, she did spoke in Thai, but the movie always have English subtitles (well, possibly not only because this is a permanent exhibition, but because they do expect foreigners visiting wouldn’t be lost in translation as well. I’m glad that they don’t sell the ‘this exhibition has no English translation because it’s not permanent’ or ‘we don’t expect much of foreigner visitors coming to this exhibition’ craps like I used to hear before...). If I could give the actress who played the shaman woman a standing applause and/or a large bouquet of sunflowers and roses, I would. She had even gone breasts bare topless for the shooting of the movie. That is what I call awesome dedication and in-depth character building. Not to mention, she is soooooo pretty, like Southeast Asian pretty. Then the scene in the movie moved to the time when she was dead, and was being buried by the people of her community. Wrapped in cloth, adorned with beaded necklaces and bangles, and someone put a stack of bronze bangles next to her upper left arm. Someone also spread some flower petals over her wrapped body before finally closing the grave pit. Then she went on the screen again and said, ‘That is my story. I am here to be found by you and to be a part of your history.’ The light on the box went off and it dimmed on and off several times, then what made me yelped and cried was the appearance of her exact replica of burial on the far back of the exhibition box. It was heart rendering and touching. As an archaeologist, it would be awesome to have your life’s work to be interpreted like that in a museum, to be a part of the community, to give knowledge and information to the community about what have I been doing in the field. It was a lovely interpretation of the burials found in the surrounding area of Thailand.

Moving to the right side of the exhibition, you will find Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej (i adoooore her!! Hahaha! Talk to her and you’ll know why) as an interactive model explaining what is archaeology, why are we doing archaeology, even to the explanation on how to deal with the local beliefs during archaeological projects, especially when dealing with burial data. You can almost ask Prof. Shoocongdej ANYthing there, of course, digitally. And again, don’t worry, she spoke in Thai, but her answers come with English subtitles. Very meticulously done. Awesome exhibition team!!!! I am soooooooo jealous... would they do some for Indonesian history? I bet it would be expensive to hire them! There were also interactive excavation boxes, complete with the brushes which say that you have to brush on the box to experience working on the field. When you have discovered 50% of the artefact, the screen would say and explain about the kind of artefact that you have just brushed on. Again..... 10,000 thumbs up!!!!! I LOVE THIS EXHIBITION!! (please do not copy the idea.. it’s so ORIGINAL, that it is EMBARRASSING if we do the SAME thing in Indonesian museums, that is if we do have the guts and will and money and sacrifice to DO the same type of exhibition! *smirk.... lirik lirik*)

Anyways, do you ever question if you’re Indonesian at all? What makes you Indonesian? What makes ME, Indonesian?

Do any of Indonesian museums ever display some heart rendering and eye opening exhibition at all? To be honest, I have never cried inside any of Indonesian museums to express that I am impressed and touched by the exhibitions. Why should I cry on this when I am abroad and reflecting back to what is NOT happening in my country? Is it so poorly executed that it doesn’t impress me much to cry and be touched?

I say the culture of Indonesian has been a melting pot for quite some times. We have Dutch, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, and Portuguese vocabularies, culinary, habits, etc, etc. So, what makes Indonesian, Indonesian? How would any of YOU who know museum studies better than I do would interpret this melting pot into one identity that says a true Indonesian?

I only know stuff about excavation techniques, osteological lab routines, analyses, report writing, article writing (although am VERY lazy executing one...), glue-ing skeletal remains, identifying human and non-human bones, ante-mortem, peri-mortem, and post-mortem wounds. I do publicly admit that I know NOTHING about exhibitions, display, or concept making before the exhibition is installed. But I know it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE to make such exhibition, too. It is not easy, indeed. You have to go through a lot of brainstorming processes and administration issues to put up with. Plus technical tidbits that you have to fix and install. True dedication and will and passion are needed to make it all worth while. You see, that actually passing information to the public is not an easy job, huh? You have to sort out the stuff that you want to pass along to public and it all depends on your choice of interpretation so then the public gets the message and leave the museum/exhibition with more knowledge or even more questions. Isn’t that the most wonderful job of all? As the one who make the concept of an exhibition, you can also play tricks with kids’ minds. You see, not only magicians can do that by pulling up rabbits from his hat. If I do have the passion to carry on an exhibition and creative ideas like kids nowadays (if they’re even using it, when not distracted by mobile phones or playing AngryBirds on iPad, is it iPad, or iPhone? Grrrh... gadgets are sickening me!), I would love to do one also. But I have to admit, I AM NOT CREATIVE (Ask Anja who witness me drawing an owl which turned out to be a tamarind).

In my innermost imagination, I would love it so much if one day someone would interpret something that I do in a way that would make someone actually think and cry and would let the experience seeped through the vein of every visitor; because what I do and what you do defines what is the true meaning of being Indonesian. Amen.

p.s. to whoever is going to make the exhibition, please please do consider the variety of visitors that you’re going to expect. If you cannot provide the exhibition with French, Danish, Dutch, Arabic, Thai, or Hindi, just put Bahasa Indonesia and English version on it. It would be representative and thoughtful enough to the visitors, and whether it is a permanent exhibition or not.

p.p.s. again, I shall tell you that these essays weren’t made to cause ignition among us, only to rant out the thoughts in my head and if you don’t like it, you can always comment, untag yourself (as Facebook always provided us with) or if you like, you can punch me in the face whenever we meet just to let me have it, if you really hate my essay. Haha. No, I am not joking. Punch me.

xoxo, Dee

Thailand, 31st January 2012.

[also published in Facebook's note]

To begin the personal notes, I have to admit to you that this is my first ever international conference as an osteoarchaeologist-wannabe. I came by the opportunity to join by chance and I was already surprised on how intriguing and interesting the issues raised during the conference. I didn’t even realised it was a whole-day seminars with more than ten papers presented. I came alone as a delegation from the Southeast Asian Archipelago. The aim of participating in this conference is to test the water after a year of absence on contacts with skeletal remains.

The first papers presented were concise and had given me general outline about what is going on in the world of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia. I must admit that I have not been updating myself with news related to the subject, especially in Southeast Asia. General papers like updates on bioarchaeological researches in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, were something that I personally have never heard about. I have known several sites only when I came across their individual history of research when I was doing my undergraduate thesis and was using these sites as general comparison to prehistoric burials found in Pondok Selabe-1 Cave, Padang Bindu, South Sumatera. It is partly embarrassing to realise that I have not been updating myself, but I think that it is about time that I will pay all the loss of information along the way.

The most intriguing issue raised within the forum discussion was when I was sitting face-to-face with today’s community of Ban Non Wat who actually play a huge role on researches, conservation, and preservation of the large Neolithic-Bronze Age site in the mainland Southeast Asia. I have tried to find more about Ban Non Wat on the internet and found very few information that could give me a broad overview or general perspective about the site and its speciality. What was more intriguing was when I realised that the problem presented to my conscious was something that I have been talking about with a dear colleague of mine nearly a year ago.

Public archaeology is the issue.

What is public archaeology? Logically I would think that public archaeology is when archaeology is about the people and for the people. Who are the people? This may include the excavators, scientists, and local community. Especially the local community. But sorry, I do not have enough time to do lit-research on this subject; it's late at night and my brain is just itchy bitchy until I get this thought out... :P

As archaeologists, when we came to one particular site bearing the will of excavating, we mean to destroy the land to gain information under the soil and use them as archaeological data. This is the perfect timing to say that the data will be used to reconstruct the past life of some community. Most of excavations use local people to help us dig and not very rare that the team would pay some amount of money for the ‘service’ that the locals have given. One experience with an excavation somewhere in Java made me wonder and said quietly, do we even treat them as hosts whose place we visited? Do we actually respect local customs and beliefs during the excavation? Have we been nice, polite, and proper to our hosts? Like it or not, the fact that we’re the one who came into their territory made us the guests. But what happened afterward was I realised that in the end is all about transaction of money and service that they give us, without even actually acknowledging; let alone involving them into the excavation that is being held within their land.

Dr. Nigel Chang and Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej pinpointed the importance of local community’s involvement before, during, and after the research is done. Dr. Chang especially invited a group of people to the stage and introduced them as the possible living descendants of the Ban Non Wat prehistoric village. By the time they went up the stage, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately remembered the essay written by that colleague of mine on our archaeological mailing list (which by that time received less replies than he would imagined; as he imagined the topic would be very intriguing and interesting to be discussed about) and the intense conversation I had with him discussing about the same manner of treatment in an infamous paleoanthropological-archaeological site in Java. A year ago, he addressed to me of his concerns on how we treated the locals not only as helpers of our researches, but also as friends, family, and the people who actually live there and would helped to maintain, preserve, and conserve the essence of importance of the site. He was ranting about giving trainings or local educational packages to get the local people to understand the importance of the site, therefore would encourage them to participate on preserving the site.

This time, Dr. Nigel Chang spoke of the same concern, only different site to represent it. He brought the local people of Ban Non Wat in respect to let them know what the scientists have done in progress about researches being held at their residence. He also explained that these people helped a lot on the research projects and how it is important to give local people understandings of the importance of a site like Ban Non Wat. I couldn’t help but got my eyes quite watery. Compared to my country, what Dr. Chang did was indeed thoughtful and meaningful in purpose. Inviting them to the conference and letting them answer the questions from the forum were the best idea ever.

One of the conference participants asked the Ban Non Wat locals about how do they feel of being possible to be the direct descendants of the skeletal remains that they have been helping to excavate. This question sent jolts of electricity to my spine. One simple question but has deeper meaning than it was said. I looked at the local people in anticipation of the answer. They speak only Thai, and I spoke none of Thai. After the interpreter got hold of the main idea of the answer, he said, “Yes, we are indeed proud to have been participating in such important events of excavations. Those people might or might not be our ancestors, but they are the part of our local history.” Listening to this answer, I feel done. I am done for the day, I wanted to run to the toilet and cry my heart out. I was so touched. These people might not have higher education like most of us who are lucky. But that genius answer made me feel embarrassed and somewhat sad. Sad because in my honest opinion, in my own country, the appreciation of the help of the locals is way too minimum. It’s not only the matter of paying them for the day after the excavation is over. It’s not about how much we have to spend on their strength and time wasted helping us digging on a trench, while they could go somewhere to actually make a lot of money. But it’s the appreciation of having them as a part of the excavation’s team member, which is certainly more than just an acknowledgment in the preface of a final report (!!!!). In Bahasa Jawa, this is called “nge-uwongke”. Not many people know how to do this properly, not even me. I may or may not have done something (directly or indirectly) insulting to the locals, too.

Funny that I should mention the concept of basic Javanese lifestyle has become a huge concern among the bioarchaeologists in Southeast Asia (yes, I am exaggerating and overvaluing this....). It’s more than the bonding between us during the excavation, but how they are going to treat the site when we’re done with the research. Again, my colleague was correct, and it took me a year to have finally seen it with my own watery eyes.

The questions now:

1. Are we going to start to treat them as equally important as us who have the higher education?

2. How low would you go in terms of explaining complicated jargons of archaeology and other subjects to make them understand the importance of preservation and conservation of a site?

3. Are we going to start it on the next excavation available?

4. Are we going to start to value them more than the amount of money that we pay them daily?

5. Are we going to be honest to ourselves that we actually need these people to carry on and maintain the availability of data for future researches?

6. And to you, my successors, who actually get public archaeology as a subject in the class, are you ready to put your mind and stimulate your brain to be able to participate and applying your knowledge to the community? You should have known better than my arbitrary ramblings, because you obviously get the concept of public archaeology explained in the class. All you have to do is to apply it on the field.

I might not be as poetic or metaphoric as my colleague, but I tried my best to put this thought that has been bothering me during dinner party as it is. That’s it for tonight’s rambling. I’m a bit tired and I still have a workshop to do tomorrow. My brain is exhausted from today’s brain boost since 9am to 5pm. It’s a good thing though. Let’s just hope that tomorrow I won’t be mistaken tibia from femur. I have been away for quite some time.

Goodnight!

among the mist of cold wintry Central Thailand (it's fecking COLD heeeeree!!!!)

27th January 2012.

p.s.: I KNOW i recognised this guy when he was introduced as a delegation from Vietnam!! He’s the guy who said, “Although the job is difficult, we don’t receive much money while travelling in remote mountainous areas. So if we did not love the job we could not pursue it.” -- Dr Nguyen Lan Cuong - Vietnamese palaeoanthropologist. A very passionate, active, resourceful man ever! I wrote about him on my previous notes, if you even bother. *smirk....*

p.p.s.: I apologise for the insensible manner of how this 'essay' was written. The aim was to rant, to ponder, not to cause ignition nor troubles among us. ;) I'm tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.... ciao!

daripada diERRATA, mending gini deh:

SUMPE INI ENTRY KAGA PAKE SENSOR2AN. KALO ADA ISTILAH2 YANG NGGA BERKENAN AYE MINGTA MAAP DEH YEEE... KAGA USAH DILANJUTIN AJE BACANYA KALO TERSINGGUNG MAH.... HEHEHEHE.... GUE CM PENGEN NOTES2 GUE BENERAN RAW ADANYA.

Daripada gue bengong ngga kelar-kelar di depan papan jadwal keberangkatan demi mlototin halaman-halamannya yang sumpe deh cepet banget brubah ke Bahasa Thailand-nya... mendingan gue narok pantat di deket wilayah yang berbau kopi Italia, seperti biasa.

Akhirnya selesai sudah rehat (heh?? Rehat kok malah capek, kontradiktif ah! --- BRISIK!) gue setelah gecak-gecaknya ikut konferensi di Khon Kaen. Sebagai penutup laporan perjalanan (yang sebenernya adalah lampiasan napsu ngomel dan ngoceh serta meracau, berhubung ngga punya ‘teman’ seperjalanan yang juga hobi meracau), gue memutuskan untuk mencoba tidak memasukkan Bangkok ke dalam itinerary perjalanan berikutnya. Kenapa?

Karena (yang keSATU): buat gue sama aja pindah dari Jakarta ke Jakarta (iya! Nggak salah tulis kok gue...) dan keadaan distrik gue yang sumpah persis banget kek Poppies Lane di Kuta dan/atau super crowded Gili Trawangan bikin gue ingat >> “Miss, Miss, would you like to have an affair with me?” atau “Masssaaaaaaaaaaaage... masssaage, yuk maaaaaaaaaas...” NAH LOH! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrh.... I should’ve stayed in Phimai instead. Or maybe Ayutthaya or Sukhothai. Ya! Next time, kota2 itu yang jadi tujuan gue. Kalo pun harus ke Bangkok, lebih baik Cuma buat transit. Chiang Mai dan Chiang Rai juga gue denger bagus...

Karena (yang keDUA): perlakuan orang lokal yang selalu mengira gue JUGA orang lokal tadinya gue pikir nggak masalah. Tapi, lama kelamaan bikin nae pitam jugak, meski gak meledak. Terutama orang-orang di deket hostel gue nginep (sumpe gue nggak balik lagi ke hostel itu... kepepet sih, jadi trima aja konsekuensi minep sana LIMA hari.......... tududududududud). Contoh kasus: gue pengen beli kotak extra buat buku2 yang ngga masup ke dalem tas. Di sebelah hostel ada kantor kargo gituh, yang sumpah ye, mbak2nya musti gue ajarin cara SENYUM. Dengan slogan Thailand “Land of smiles”, ini mbak2 harusnya dicabut kewarganegaraannya!! Bok... ngerokok pinjem korek gue aja bukannya pake makasih dan senyum dikit kek.. nyengir, mungkin.. ato jungkir balik.... mungkin dia ngga update aja kalo slogannya Thailand adalah “Land of smiles”. Truuuuusss yang bikin paling bête adalah (trutama si MBAK ini.....) kalo nglayanin bulek2 putih senyumnya baru muncul... dikit sih, tapi MUNCUL!!! Ternyata dia punya GIGI, sodari-sodara!!! Perlakuan beda antara bulek putih sama bulek ireng kek gue ini (berdasarkan pengalaman slama lima hari), hanya berlaku di kantor2 nyang pake erkondisyoner. Tapi kalo di kaki limaaaa, ik yang ireng ini BERJAYA!!! Apalagi urusan tawar menawar.... ampe bencong aja gue towel2 biar dapet 50B bwt 3 biji anting2.... hahahaha... maap, ye, Bencoooong....! (Jadi inget smsnya Ruly yang bilang gue kudu nowel satu benciong kalo lagi di redlightdistrict..... well, Ruly, malem itu, gue keasikan nongkrong sama Cho, jadinya kita batal ke RedLight!! HAHA, maap yaaa. Towelan Patpongnya gue tunda.... adanya bekas towelan benciong Khaosarn yang ya udah lah gitu adanya...). Fenomena orang ‘aneh’ kedua adalah mas2 bencyong (kalo bencyong gue sebut ‘Mas’ itu pantes nggak sih????? Ya, masak, ‘Bu...’) di lobby hostel gue yang keknya selalu PMS.. mungkin suntikan hormonnya lebay juga, jadi dia tuh marah2 muluuuu... ampe suatu malem, di kala gue dan cowo Itali ganteng itu sedang online mojok di deket tangga (doski mo telp nyokapnya di sono, tapi laptop doski ngehang, minjem punya gue...dengan pick up lines: ‘hmm, hey, is the wifi working on your laptop? Because it isn’t on mine...” sambil ciripcirip mata senyum manis.. Italian bangsaaaaaaaaaaaaat!! Sok atuh, pinjem laptop gue!! Tapi, bagi rokok! HAHAHAHA. Buat Alberto Romero... Slamat Malam, BANG!!! Dangdutan ngapahhh!), kami dikezzutkan dengan treak2an yang aduhaiii melengkiiiiing skali dibarengi dengan treakan2 yang super bass berbahasa Inggris. Okeh, kembali ke bencyong PMS. Iyah, jadi ada cowo yang nanya toilet di mana... gue juga ngga tau apa yang terjadi sampe akhirnya beneran si cowo bulek ini mo nggebok si bencong.. dalam hati gue, ‘GEBOK BANG, GEBOOOOK!’ emang ngeselin sih si bencong. Ohhhhh.... God!! There was supposed to be bloodbath over there.....!! Tsk! Tapi si mas bulek akhirnya Cuma gebrak meja dan pergi, sementara yang satu lagi masi ngoceh2 dalam bahasa Thai. Oh well... ampek lupa ada abang ganteng duduk di sblah gue lagi pake leptop gue bwt nelpon emaknya.... how sweeeeet...

Tuh kan, gue scatter-brain lagi nulisnya... aseem! Bikin malu aja.. Tadi topik kita apaan sih?

OKEH, INGET!!

Karena (yang keTIGA): gue jatuh cinta sama Phimai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Kudu BANGET minep sana, at least LIMA hari. Sbnrnya itu kota dikiderin sehari juga kelar. Gedenya ngga lebih kek Onrust gitu.... tapi aduhhhaiiii..... plazanya, apa lah yaaaa yang bikin ini tempat berkesan banget buat gue, dan brasa kek pertama kali gue liat Kairo diterangi lampu cilik2 di atas pohon, trus ada yang maen akordeon di pojokan jalan. (Loh ini Kairo apa Paris, sih?) Nggaaaak, gue serius.. benerannnn.... hahhahahaha... Jadi, keknya next time, Bangkok tersingkir dari daftar tempat berkunjung, KECUALI transit.. sempet tergoda sih untuk naek bis ke Siem Reap besok-besok, via Bangkok juga. Gak papa gue rasa kalo cuma transit, ngga nyakitin kuping, dan ngga nyakitin hati juga karena gue lebih ireng dari turis-turis lainnya.

All in all, gue puas pergi kali ini. Pertama kalinya pergi solo lagi, setelah sekian lama terbiasa nggak solo. Hahaha. Meski kangen sama travel companions gue yang astaga okeh2 (e.g. Dinda, Bunga, tim Krakatau, tim Pangguyangan 2012, tim Sosrowijayan 2010-2011, etc.) , tapi memang sekarang harus mulai dibiasakan travelling solo lagi. Sekarang udah di gate, dengan bauk balsam eyangnya syapa gitu dan kelakuan penumpang Indonesia yang ngga bisa duduk di tempat yang disediakan dan/atau antre pada masa yang ditentukan. Gue heran deh, sama budaya ‘nggak bisa antre’ ini... padahal kan di tiket udah ada nomer urut duduk masing2... trus korsinya bakal lari gitu kalo kita ngga buru2 duduk di situ, atau bagasi kita bakal kabur sama gebetannya yang ketemu di kabin bawah, kalo kita ngga buru2 claim baggage? Sungguh budaya yang aneh. Kalo lagi malu banget gue biasanya ngakunya dari Filipina aja deh, atau Mexico. Hahahahaha....

Anying (kalo kata Ruly lebih sopan gini....), final note aja panjang beeng.. Hakhakhak... marilah.... 2012 mungkin gue bakal jarang di rumah, setelah 2011 ngerumah mulu gara2 gusar dan galau.. hahahaha.. sekarang, galaunya gue bawa ke negara lain, ke tempat lain, dan brusaha buang sial dan buang galau, tapi apa daya..... bahkan sekarang galaunya ngikutin pulang... pag-syet nga talaga namaaaan!!! Okay na, dapat na ako umalis ngayon. See you, Thailand. Thank you for the wonderful two-weeks for being galau alone. Mmmmmuuuahhhhh.

Ps. Next stop: Siem Reap? I’ve found a 40,000 Rupiah/pppn nearby the Old Market @ SiamReap. Wanna??? Call me!

xoxo

Dee on the road.

Day Three was a BLUR!!! LOL. I have this bad habit of forgetting about date and days during my travel. So no wonder this happens again. The only hint was that I was already in Bangkok, after a long tiring night of hostel hunting and desperation to take a hot shower.

The next day, I went to the Museum Siam nearby Wat Pho and I was amazed by the almost-colonial style of the building. My colleague said that it was (possibly) an ex-Ministry of Commerce building. I mean, even the police station has wonderful Ionic architecture, here... No wonder if this Museum has wonderful architecture as well. And I got lucky, because I arrived at the museum around 5pm, I got to go inside for free... yay! I love my luck! So, they got me wearing this sticker on my shirt and showed me where to go. They sat me down in a small AV hall (that is Audio-Visual, not Adult-Video!!!) with large screen and said that the movie is going to last 5 minutes. Wondering what sort of crap movies they’re going to show me, I sat down quietly.

The movie tells a story about what is a true Thai, what is it made of, mostly questions about identity of a Thai or things Thai. There were people with different professions featured in the movie being asked the same question, are the things you’re doing Thai? Is the food you’re selling Thai? What make these things Thai? And then the scene flashed back to the early times (playing some sort of reincarnation plot here) when the people were someone else in the past. I believe this was meant to show how Thai are the things they are doing now. The final scene showed a little girl in a car heading to school asking her daddy if she’s Thai, because her friends told her that she doesn’t look Thai. What is Thai? What makes you Thai? These are the main ideas of the exhibition on the museum. Awesome movie, I cried.

I cried because I am embarrassed. I questioned myself a lot whether I am Javanese or not, because few things that I do in daily life can be considered Javanese although my bloodline says so. The nationality column on my passport tells everyone that I am Indonesian, but what I do every day, might not be Indonesian at all. For example: this essay is written in English and not in Bahasa Indonesia; I crochet, which is so French or other western countries that it refers to...; I drink tea and I have bread in the morning which is so English; I dressed up in tshirt and jeans – which is totally not Indonesian (but considered as modern in any cultures); I master plenty of Italian food, but few of traditional Indonesian food; I bake cupcakes, instead of making nogosari or arem-arem, etc, etc.

After the short movie presentation, we were led to the first exhibition which showed things identical to Thailand today; tuk-tuk, street vendor food, 7-11 (oh yeahhh! You find almost 15 7-11s ONLY in Khaosarn Road), elephants, the traditional dance, spirit houses, and so on. Next, we were led to the third floor with exhibitions of archaeological evidence found in Thailand and hoped to explain the early ages of Thailand. There was this HUGE poster display of burials found in Ban Chiang, Khok Phanom Dee, and some more sites. The main piece of this exhibition is the story about a shaman woman of Khok Phanom Dee, found in a burial adorned with beads, bangles of bronze, and wrapped in garb of cloth. One small glass box exhibition would lit up into a short movie about the shaman woman, showing how she was buried and then flashed back to when she was alive. She would stand up in front of you and tells you the story of who she was and why was she important to the community she had lived in. Don’t worry, she did spoke in Thai, but the movie always have English subtitles (well, possibly not only because this is a permanent exhibition, but because they do expect foreigners visiting wouldn’t be lost in translation as well. I’m glad that they don’t sell the ‘this exhibition has no English translation because it’s not permanent’ or ‘we don’t expect much of foreigner visitors coming to this exhibition’ craps like I used to hear before...). If I could give the actress who played the shaman woman a standing applause and/or a large bouquet of sunflowers and roses, I would. She had even gone breasts bare topless for the shooting of the movie. That is what I call awesome dedication and in-depth character building. Not to mention, she is soooooo pretty, like Southeast Asian pretty. Then the scene in the movie moved to the time when she was dead, and was being buried by the people of her community. Wrapped in cloth, adorned with beaded necklaces and bangles, and someone put a stack of bronze bangles next to her upper left arm. Someone also spread some flower petals over her wrapped body before finally closing the grave pit. Then she went on the screen again and said, ‘That is my story. I am here to be found by you and to be a part of your history.’ The light on the box went off and it dimmed on and off several times, then what made me yelped and cried was the appearance of her exact replica of burial on the far back of the exhibition box. It was heart rendering and touching. As an archaeologist, it would be awesome to have your life’s work to be interpreted like that in a museum, to be a part of the community, to give knowledge and information to the community about what have I been doing in the field. It was a lovely interpretation of the burials found in the surrounding area of Thailand.

Moving to the right side of the exhibition, you will find Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej (i adoooore her!! Hahaha! Talk to her and you’ll know why) as an interactive model explaining what is archaeology, why are we doing archaeology, even to the explanation on how to deal with the local beliefs during archaeological projects, especially when dealing with burial data. You can almost ask Prof. Shoocongdej ANYthing there, of course, digitally. And again, don’t worry, she spoke in Thai, but her answers come with English subtitles. Very meticulously done. Awesome exhibition team!!!! I am soooooooo jealous... would they do some for Indonesian history? I bet it would be expensive to hire them! There were also interactive excavation boxes, complete with the brushes which say that you have to brush on the box to experience working on the field. When you have discovered 50% of the artefact, the screen would say and explain about the kind of artefact that you have just brushed on. Again..... 10,000 thumbs up!!!!! I LOVE THIS EXHIBITION!! (please do not copy the idea.. it’s so ORIGINAL, that it is EMBARRASSING if we do the SAME thing in Indonesian museums, that is if we do have the guts and will and money and sacrifice to DO the same type of exhibition! *smirk.... lirik lirik*)

Anyways, do you ever question if you’re Indonesian at all? What makes you Indonesian? What makes ME, Indonesian?

Do any of Indonesian museums ever display some heart rendering and eye opening exhibition at all? To be honest, I have never cried inside any of Indonesian museums to express that I am impressed and touched by the exhibitions. Why should I cry on this when I am abroad and reflecting back to what is NOT happening in my country? Is it so poorly executed that it doesn’t impress me much to cry and be touched?

I say the culture of Indonesian has been a melting pot for quite some times. We have Dutch, Arabic, Indian, Chinese, and Portuguese vocabularies, culinary, habits, etc, etc. So, what makes Indonesian, Indonesian? How would any of YOU who know museum studies better than I do would interpret this melting pot into one identity that says a true Indonesian?

I only know stuff about excavation techniques, osteological lab routines, analyses, report writing, article writing (although am VERY lazy executing one...), glue-ing skeletal remains, identifying human and non-human bones, ante-mortem, peri-mortem, and post-mortem wounds. I do publicly admit that I know NOTHING about exhibitions, display, or concept making before the exhibition is installed. But I know it is NOT IMPOSSIBLE to make such exhibition, too. It is not easy, indeed. You have to go through a lot of brainstorming processes and administration issues to put up with. Plus technical tidbits that you have to fix and install. True dedication and will and passion are needed to make it all worth while. You see, that actually passing information to the public is not an easy job, huh? You have to sort out the stuff that you want to pass along to public and it all depends on your choice of interpretation so then the public gets the message and leave the museum/exhibition with more knowledge or even more questions. Isn’t that the most wonderful job of all? As the one who make the concept of an exhibition, you can also play tricks with kids’ minds. You see, not only magicians can do that by pulling up rabbits from his hat. If I do have the passion to carry on an exhibition and creative ideas like kids nowadays (if they’re even using it, when not distracted by mobile phones or playing AngryBirds on iPad, is it iPad, or iPhone? Grrrh... gadgets are sickening me!), I would love to do one also. But I have to admit, I AM NOT CREATIVE (Ask Anja who witness me drawing an owl which turned out to be a tamarind).

In my innermost imagination, I would love it so much if one day someone would interpret something that I do in a way that would make someone actually think and cry and would let the experience seeped through the vein of every visitor; because what I do and what you do defines what is the true meaning of being Indonesian. Amen.

p.s. to whoever is going to make the exhibition, please please do consider the variety of visitors that you’re going to expect. If you cannot provide the exhibition with French, Danish, Dutch, Arabic, Thai, or Hindi, just put Bahasa Indonesia and English version on it. It would be representative and thoughtful enough to the visitors, and whether it is a permanent exhibition or not.

p.p.s. again, I shall tell you that these essays weren’t made to cause ignition among us, only to rant out the thoughts in my head and if you don’t like it, you can always comment, untag yourself (as Facebook always provided us with) or if you like, you can punch me in the face whenever we meet just to let me have it, if you really hate my essay. Haha. No, I am not joking. Punch me.

xoxo, Dee

Thailand, 31st January 2012.

[also published in Facebook's note]

To begin the personal notes, I have to admit to you that this is my first ever international conference as an osteoarchaeologist-wannabe. I came by the opportunity to join by chance and I was already surprised on how intriguing and interesting the issues raised during the conference. I didn’t even realised it was a whole-day seminars with more than ten papers presented. I came alone as a delegation from the Southeast Asian Archipelago. The aim of participating in this conference is to test the water after a year of absence on contacts with skeletal remains.

The first papers presented were concise and had given me general outline about what is going on in the world of bioarchaeology in Southeast Asia. I must admit that I have not been updating myself with news related to the subject, especially in Southeast Asia. General papers like updates on bioarchaeological researches in Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand, and Vietnam, were something that I personally have never heard about. I have known several sites only when I came across their individual history of research when I was doing my undergraduate thesis and was using these sites as general comparison to prehistoric burials found in Pondok Selabe-1 Cave, Padang Bindu, South Sumatera. It is partly embarrassing to realise that I have not been updating myself, but I think that it is about time that I will pay all the loss of information along the way.

The most intriguing issue raised within the forum discussion was when I was sitting face-to-face with today’s community of Ban Non Wat who actually play a huge role on researches, conservation, and preservation of the large Neolithic-Bronze Age site in the mainland Southeast Asia. I have tried to find more about Ban Non Wat on the internet and found very few information that could give me a broad overview or general perspective about the site and its speciality. What was more intriguing was when I realised that the problem presented to my conscious was something that I have been talking about with a dear colleague of mine nearly a year ago.

Public archaeology is the issue.

What is public archaeology? Logically I would think that public archaeology is when archaeology is about the people and for the people. Who are the people? This may include the excavators, scientists, and local community. Especially the local community. But sorry, I do not have enough time to do lit-research on this subject; it's late at night and my brain is just itchy bitchy until I get this thought out... :P

As archaeologists, when we came to one particular site bearing the will of excavating, we mean to destroy the land to gain information under the soil and use them as archaeological data. This is the perfect timing to say that the data will be used to reconstruct the past life of some community. Most of excavations use local people to help us dig and not very rare that the team would pay some amount of money for the ‘service’ that the locals have given. One experience with an excavation somewhere in Java made me wonder and said quietly, do we even treat them as hosts whose place we visited? Do we actually respect local customs and beliefs during the excavation? Have we been nice, polite, and proper to our hosts? Like it or not, the fact that we’re the one who came into their territory made us the guests. But what happened afterward was I realised that in the end is all about transaction of money and service that they give us, without even actually acknowledging; let alone involving them into the excavation that is being held within their land.

Dr. Nigel Chang and Prof. Rasmi Shoocongdej pinpointed the importance of local community’s involvement before, during, and after the research is done. Dr. Chang especially invited a group of people to the stage and introduced them as the possible living descendants of the Ban Non Wat prehistoric village. By the time they went up the stage, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately remembered the essay written by that colleague of mine on our archaeological mailing list (which by that time received less replies than he would imagined; as he imagined the topic would be very intriguing and interesting to be discussed about) and the intense conversation I had with him discussing about the same manner of treatment in an infamous paleoanthropological-archaeological site in Java. A year ago, he addressed to me of his concerns on how we treated the locals not only as helpers of our researches, but also as friends, family, and the people who actually live there and would helped to maintain, preserve, and conserve the essence of importance of the site. He was ranting about giving trainings or local educational packages to get the local people to understand the importance of the site, therefore would encourage them to participate on preserving the site.

This time, Dr. Nigel Chang spoke of the same concern, only different site to represent it. He brought the local people of Ban Non Wat in respect to let them know what the scientists have done in progress about researches being held at their residence. He also explained that these people helped a lot on the research projects and how it is important to give local people understandings of the importance of a site like Ban Non Wat. I couldn’t help but got my eyes quite watery. Compared to my country, what Dr. Chang did was indeed thoughtful and meaningful in purpose. Inviting them to the conference and letting them answer the questions from the forum were the best idea ever.

One of the conference participants asked the Ban Non Wat locals about how do they feel of being possible to be the direct descendants of the skeletal remains that they have been helping to excavate. This question sent jolts of electricity to my spine. One simple question but has deeper meaning than it was said. I looked at the local people in anticipation of the answer. They speak only Thai, and I spoke none of Thai. After the interpreter got hold of the main idea of the answer, he said, “Yes, we are indeed proud to have been participating in such important events of excavations. Those people might or might not be our ancestors, but they are the part of our local history.” Listening to this answer, I feel done. I am done for the day, I wanted to run to the toilet and cry my heart out. I was so touched. These people might not have higher education like most of us who are lucky. But that genius answer made me feel embarrassed and somewhat sad. Sad because in my honest opinion, in my own country, the appreciation of the help of the locals is way too minimum. It’s not only the matter of paying them for the day after the excavation is over. It’s not about how much we have to spend on their strength and time wasted helping us digging on a trench, while they could go somewhere to actually make a lot of money. But it’s the appreciation of having them as a part of the excavation’s team member, which is certainly more than just an acknowledgment in the preface of a final report (!!!!). In Bahasa Jawa, this is called “nge-uwongke”. Not many people know how to do this properly, not even me. I may or may not have done something (directly or indirectly) insulting to the locals, too.

Funny that I should mention the concept of basic Javanese lifestyle has become a huge concern among the bioarchaeologists in Southeast Asia (yes, I am exaggerating and overvaluing this....). It’s more than the bonding between us during the excavation, but how they are going to treat the site when we’re done with the research. Again, my colleague was correct, and it took me a year to have finally seen it with my own watery eyes.

The questions now:

1. Are we going to start to treat them as equally important as us who have the higher education?

2. How low would you go in terms of explaining complicated jargons of archaeology and other subjects to make them understand the importance of preservation and conservation of a site?

3. Are we going to start it on the next excavation available?

4. Are we going to start to value them more than the amount of money that we pay them daily?

5. Are we going to be honest to ourselves that we actually need these people to carry on and maintain the availability of data for future researches?

6. And to you, my successors, who actually get public archaeology as a subject in the class, are you ready to put your mind and stimulate your brain to be able to participate and applying your knowledge to the community? You should have known better than my arbitrary ramblings, because you obviously get the concept of public archaeology explained in the class. All you have to do is to apply it on the field.

I might not be as poetic or metaphoric as my colleague, but I tried my best to put this thought that has been bothering me during dinner party as it is. That’s it for tonight’s rambling. I’m a bit tired and I still have a workshop to do tomorrow. My brain is exhausted from today’s brain boost since 9am to 5pm. It’s a good thing though. Let’s just hope that tomorrow I won’t be mistaken tibia from femur. I have been away for quite some time.

Goodnight!

among the mist of cold wintry Central Thailand (it's fecking COLD heeeeree!!!!)

27th January 2012.

p.s.: I KNOW i recognised this guy when he was introduced as a delegation from Vietnam!! He’s the guy who said, “Although the job is difficult, we don’t receive much money while travelling in remote mountainous areas. So if we did not love the job we could not pursue it.” -- Dr Nguyen Lan Cuong - Vietnamese palaeoanthropologist. A very passionate, active, resourceful man ever! I wrote about him on my previous notes, if you even bother. *smirk....*

p.p.s.: I apologise for the insensible manner of how this 'essay' was written. The aim was to rant, to ponder, not to cause ignition nor troubles among us. ;) I'm tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired.... ciao!