Word: indonesianness
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...surest signs that you're in a developing country is the trash beneath your feet, which has less to do with bad habits than the fact that arranging garbage pickup and disposal is a low and expensive priority for a poor government. And the Indonesian island of Bali, despite its breathtaking natural beauty, is no exception...
...guess John Andreas' profession, the words "fine-art auctioneer" would probably not come to mind. There's no bespoke suit or Etonian comportment. Instead, the burly Andreas sports cheap slacks, an off-the-rack polyester shirt and the mercantile mannerisms of a hard-bitten trader. Yet the former Indonesian shipping agent happens to be the founder and CEO of Borobudur Auction; in October his four-year-old company fetched $6.89 million at a Singapore sale of contemporary and modern Southeast Asian art. The figure was just $200,000 less than the highest figure taken at similar sales by venerable auctioneers...
...show Dreaming Republic discussed why the nation was no longer the regional sporting powerhouse it was during the 1980s and '90s. Actors impersonating leaders past and present blamed the 1997 financial crisis, before appealing to the live audience and viewers at home for more funding to help prepare Indonesian athletes. One of the show's most popular characters, impersonating former President Suharto, had a simpler solution: "Just return me to power...
...Routines like that have turned the production - loosely modeled on U.S. news parody The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - into one of the most highly anticipated programs on Indonesian television each week, with a viewership estimated in the tens of millions and spanning all social strata from politicians to parking-lot attendants. The actors are ostensibly members of government from a parallel Indonesia - the "dreaming republic" of the show's title - where everything is the same apart from the spelling of leaders' names. Cast members always refer to Indonesia as "the neighboring country," introducing a modicum of libel defense that...
...Gazali insists that his new show is mindful of societal norms. "We won't be vulgar and have to keep Indonesian culture in mind," he says. "But we won't shy away from dealing with hypocrisy when we see it." But more than adroit scriptwriting, it is reformasi - the popularly cherished climate of political and social liberalization that has developed since Suharto's fall in 1998 - that has protected the show from interference. Indeed, Dreaming Republic has emerged as one of the great triumphs of reformasi. "The show really is one of the best examples of democracy in action," says...