A GEEK IN INDONESIA
Discover the Land of Komodo Dragons, Balinese Healers and Dangdut Music
TIM HANNIGAN
Contents
An Archipelago of Superlatives
Hello Mister!—My Personal Journey
A Laid-Back Nation Where “Face” and Respect are Everything
Relations with The Outside World
Indonesia: The Social Media Capital of the World
CHAPTER 2 Society and Daily Life
You’ll Never Walk Alone: The Super Sociable Nation
A Thirst for Learning, but an Educational System that Often Falls Short
Women in Indonesia: Interview with Devi Asmarani
The Dark Side: Indonesia’s Underbelly
CHAPTER 3 Indonesia’s Vibrant Music Scene
The Musical Archipelago
Dangdut! Indonesia’s Unique Brand of Working Class Pop
Indonesian Rock and Pop Royalty
Indonesian Jazz: Interview with Terry Collins
The Indonesian Punk Scene
Sounds of the Street: A Thriving Busker Culture
CHAPTER 4 Cinema, TV and Media
Tropical Celluloid Dreams: A History of Indonesian Cinema
Channel Surfing: The Indonesian Tube
A Broadsheet Free-For-All: The Indonesian Press Pack
Indonesian Literature: Journalists, Poets and Revolutionaries
Heading For The Hills: Indonesians on Holiday
Indonesia’s Travel Blog Scene: Interview with Vira and Mumun of Indohoy
Sport in Indonesia
Indonesian Soccer: Interview with Antony Sutton
Underwater Indonesia: The Ultimate Dive Destination
A Surfer’s Paradise: Exploring Indonesia’s Top Surf Spots
Into the Wild: Indonesia’s Great Outdoors
CHAPTER 6 Traditional Indonesia
The Ring of Fire: In the Impact Zone
Traders, Raiders and Intruders: A Brief History of Indonesia
A Patchwork of Religions
A Supernatural Menagerie: Spooky Indonesia
Pulang Kampung: A Nation of Villages
Craftsmen, Artists and Performers
More than Just Nasi Goreng: The Joys of Indonesian Cuisine
Cooking Up a Storm: Bakar, Kukus, Goreng, Rebus
Food for the People: Eating on the Street
A Thousand Islands, a Thousand Cuisines
The World of Indonesian Drinks: From Kopi Tubruk to Bir Bintang
Island-Hopping Across the World’s Greatest Archipelago
Incomparable Java
The Enduring Magic of Bali
Supersized Sumatra
The Outer Islands Where Things Get Really Weird and Wild
Traveling in Indonesia: Some Essential Travel Tips
An Archipelago of Superlatives
So let’s start with the superlatives… Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country, and its biggest Muslim-majority state. It has more than one hundred active volcanoes and something like 17,000 islands, making it the biggest archipelagic nation and the most volcanic place on the planet. It is home to more than a quarter of a billion people, but most of them live on Java which is about the same size as Illinois and is therefore, somewhat predictably, the most densely populated island on earth. The distance between Indonesia’s westernmost and easternmost extremities is about the same as that between London and Tehran. Indonesia is also Southeast Asia’s biggest economy, and the world’s third largest democracy.
And that’s usually about as far as anyone gets. It’s almost