Hi Jeremy Allan! The Canadian writer who lives in a bungalow in the village of Sari Penting, Jogja.
Jeremy Allan
Canada is far from Indonesia - why did you decide make this archipelago your home?
I took advantage of the war of air transport prices in the late 70s to travel the world when I Shanghaied (or more accurately "Singapored") on a dormitory for backpackers in Bencoolen Street to oversee an oil field investigation team in the forests of East Kalimantan. At the moment I laid off three years later, I realized that Indonesia would provide enough material to sustain a writing career spanning several decades. And he has.
Where did you live before Jogjakarta?
everywhere. Bandung for a few years, fifteen years in Jakarta, some time in Bogor, and seven years in Bali.
You recently moved to the outskirts of Yogyakarta at a village called Penting Sari working on a new book. Can you tell us a little about this work in progress?
is about Jogjakarta during the struggle for Indonesian independence. Penting Sari played an important role during the Dutch occupation of Jogja as guerrilla point hiding in the mountains north of the city staging and provisioning. Hence the name: ". Penting" means important
are you the only 'bule' in the village?
Since Penting Sari is a "Desa Wisata" a tourism- oriented town, foreigners are not a rare sight. In general, I am left alone me, except on festive occasions, when I harbored an inch of my life.
How many books have you written since you moved to Indonesia?
I am the sole author of two books alone, Jakarta and Bali Jive Blues, but I contributed as co-author or contributor to many others.
You are a journalist too. What is your most memorable item?
Actually, I'm not like my cavalier attitude towards verification done disqualifies me from this noble profession. The item generating the most response was probably on behalf of a tandem jump in 1991, in which I sensationalist malfunction minor parachute in a near death experience.
For readers who do not know, your book Jive Jakarta look at the tumultuous events surrounding the fall of Soeharto through the eyes of the inhabitants of Jakarta. What you want to write this book and what kind of reaction is tripped?
One of my heroes is the anthropologist Clifford Geertz, who noted that one of the best ways to understand a community is to examine how people respond to disasters or calamity. Circumstances brought me into close contact with the residents of Jakarta to all economic and social backgrounds levels during the 1998 troubles, then I realized I could apply Geertz's approach to describe aspects of Indonesian society that remain normally hidden. The reaction to the book was generally positive, particularly for Indonesian readers.
What do you like living in Indonesia and, if anything, what do you hate?
Living in Indonesia I, in turn, frustrated, angry and exasperated. But I have never, ever bored.
Last but not least - durian - yay or nay? What if you could describe its consistency in three words, what would they be?
tour guides say durian is an acquired taste. But, to my knowledge, has never acquired a taste for durian. You are either a passionate devotee of the first taste or have a permanent repulsion. And try to describe in three words durian is like explaining the Javanese culture in a second bite of her thirty. The taste of a big durian is a symphony of nuances and harmonics that no description can do it justice.