A Woman with Two Children

A woman with her two children in the crowd watching the Cap Go Meh carnival on Jenderal Sudirman Street some time ago.

Cap Go Meh Boy

A boy holding a dragon doll on his father's shoulders watching the Cap Go Meh festival attractions on Jalan Sudirman Street some time ago.

Cap Go Meh in the local name of 15th day of the Chinese New Year festivities.

A Friendly Handshake with A Mascot

A little girl is shaking hands with a friendly Super Mario mascot. I snapped this photo at "Rumah Mode," a factory outlet on Jalan Dr. Setiabudi, in the north of Bandung.

Book Wrapper

A book wrapper at work at Palasari Book Market. This man and a couple of others in the area would help you wrap (put paper and/or plastic jackets) on your books for a small fee.

Lawn Trimmer

A worker trimming the lawn at the northern garden of Vila Isola or Bumi Siliwangi in the Indonesia University of Education (UPI) campus in the north of Bandung.

A Leisurely Game of Chess

A Malaysian visitor observing how often he found people playing chess on the streets of Bandung once commented in his blog post that the people of Bandung seem to like playing chess a lot. I don't know if it is true, but his observation is quite accurate.

These two men are leisurely playing a game of chess after the busy morning is over in front of their shops at Ciroyom.

Old Way of Life

No, these are not old photographs. Photoscape (TM) helped me turn these photos that I took on the streets of Kota Gede on our Yogyakarta excursion a couple of weeks ago into antique-looking images.

Some old ways of life are still well-preserved in Yogyakarta, like the Andong buggy (see picture) which is still very much in use as a means of public transportation and the bicyle which is still quite a popular means of transportation, especially in the suburban areas.

Family Fishing Trip

It looks like people don't need to go to the rivers, lakes, or the sea anymore now to go fishing. This family seem to have a lot of fun fishing at Bandung City Square (the 'alun-alun'). Look what they are fishing though: magnetized plastic fish?

Skywatch: High Altitude Worker

Working in high altitude without a helmet and a safety rope is absolutely dangerous. But this worker and the company he is working with did not seem to care about it. Sigh.

It's Friday, and time for the skywatchers to post a photo of the heaven. Check what they have here.

Bandung Beggars #1

"Beggary" (forgive my deliberately inccorect English diction for begging or panhandling) has many forms in this city (as does anywhere else). But all beggars essentially do the same thing: they ask for donation in one supplicating manner or another and do so in public places.

The man with the guitar in the photo is "officially" called "pengamen" (a street performer who performs for tips), but the music/performance is often so bad that it has now become meaningless and secondary to the tip. Practices like this has therefore become a form of beggary than street performance. (See also how he's doing it in the traffic light junction when cars are stopping. It's very unlikely that a good piece of music can be performed in this manner.)

Street baggery is one of the bad sides of Bandung. Unfortunately, the municipal government has not done enough to control it.

Window Cleaner

A window cleaner/washer at work at my office building.

City of People # 19: Tukang Kue Bandros (Bandros Cake Vendor)

Kue bandros (bandros cake) is a traditional Indonesian cake. It's made of grated coconut, coconut milk, rice flour and a little bit of salt. The cake is usually sold by a street vendor like this, and is usually eaten for breakfast or at tea time in the afternoon.

This post is Bandung Daily Photo's participation for the Monochrome Monday meme. To see othes black and white or monochrome photos of the other participants' please follow the link.

City of People # 18: Street Cleaner

Who keeps Bandung streets clean?

Bandung Street Documentary # 8: Responsible Street Behavior

Can cell phones kill?

Yes they can, do, and have killed many. According to the results of a recent study published in the Journal of Human Factors and The Ergonomic Society, cell phone distraction on the road, i.e. talking on cell phones while driving, causes approximately 2,600 deaths and 330,000 injuries in the United States every year. The reasons, as found by the study, are actually quite obvious: Talking on cell phones while driving slows the driver's reactions and retards their alertness. It was found, for example, that cell phone use while driving makes the driver's reaction to brake light 18 percent slower.

One might argue that with the hands-free device, such a thing does not necessarily to be the case. However, two studies at least have found that hands-free cell phone use still do distract drivers. The reason is that the cell phone conversation makes the driver absent minded (they look but don't see).

There have not been any similar studies in Bandung - or in Indonesia for that matter - about how dangerous it is to use the cell phones while driving, let alone riding a motorbike. Referring to the above studies, however, it makes a lot of sense that such a street act is indeed very risky. Unfortunately, I have seen more and more drivers and even motor bike riders doing it here. In that regard, this guy on the photo, I think, deserves a thumb up.

I took this photo a couple of days ago on a Bandung street. I was walking from a bank to a service station when I saw this guy stopped his motor bike to pick up his cell phone and received a call just a few meters in front of me. I was very lucky that I had my pocket digital camera with me when this happened - and so, voila, another street photography photo op caputured.

Gemstones Seller

This man and his gemstones are from the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan, one of Indonesia's richest provinces and main producers of gemstrones.

Bandung is not much of a gemstone producer. However, gemstones from other Indonesian provinces are quite easy to find in this city. Aside from jewellery shops, gemstones are aslo offered at small counters that can be found at almost all of Bandung's supermarkets and malls, and even at street markets, such as Alun-Alun Bandung (Bandung City Square) and Pasar Kaget Minggu Lapangan Gasibu (Gasibu Square Sunday makeshift market), where I took this photo, etc.

Indonesia, by the way, produces quite a variety of gemstones such as onyx, ruby, opal, hematite, amethyst, zircon, and even more precious stones such as jade, diamond, and emerald.

My world: Jaipongan, A West Javanese Cultural Heritage

"Jaipongan" is a relatively new creation dance. The correography of this dance is attributed to Gugum Gumbira, a prominent Bandung artist, musician, dancer, and correographer. It became popular in the early 1980s.

The correography of "jaipongan" is derived from/inspired by older West Javanese traditional folk "socialization" dances such as "ketuk tilu", "kliningan", "bajidoran" and some movements of "pencak silat" (Indonesian traditional martial art). It is called a socialization dance because it is primarily performed as an entertainment (as compared to dances that are performed for rituals or other ceremonial occasions) where members of the audience are invited to take part and interact with the dancer(s) and other members of the audience.

"Jaipongan" by the way is a very dynamic dance with swift, quick, and rhythmical motions and music.

This post is my participation for the meme MY WORLD.

City of People # 16: Wedding Impersonators (Happy People Make A Happy City)

I took this photo of a wedding impersonator couple at a street festival on Jalan Braga, Bandung, sometime ago.

The story behind the photo:
At this festival, the stage managers (masters of ceremony) asked the audience if any of them would like to impersonate a bride and a groom walking the isle in a wedding reception for a prize. Many of the audience seemed to be reluctant to volunteer. So they had to randomly pick this couple from the audience. The girl seemed to be happy, the boy a bit shy. This scene made the audience amused, cheer, and laugh.

Speaking of wedding: I am co-photographing a friend's wedding next week (real wedding!). I have asked my friend and his wife to be if I could post some of the photos I will be taking on this blog. They have agreed. So, next week I am going to share with you a story and some photos of a traditional Sundanese wedding.

By the way, I am not a professional (i.e. money making) wedding photographer, but yes I've done quite a few professional wedding photography "jobs". I'd usually do them for friends or relatives and for free.

City of People # 15: Students

There is nothing more wonderful than seeing young people seriously at work like what these students of mine are doing.

This is the fifteenth post of my "City of People" series. City of People, as you may remember from my previous posts, is a series that is aimed at capturing the photographs of the people of Bandung from different walks of life doing different kinds of activities.

Bandung, by the way, is one of Indonesia's major educational centers. In fact, one of its nicknames is "Kota Pelajar" (City of Students). There are a least 16 universities and 45 academies and professional schools in this city. Bandung is the home of the three oldest and most prestigious state universities in Indonesia: Bandung Institute of Technology or ITB (established in 1920), Padjadjaran University (established in 1958), and Indonesia University of Education (UPI, established in 1956).

Bandung Street Scenes: Exploring Street Photography # 4

Today I visited my friend's blog, Michelle's The Rambling Woods - The Road Less Travelled, and learned about a day that I think all bloggers should know: October 15, the Blog Action Day.

Blog Action Day is "an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day." The aim is, according to this movement's website linked above, "to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion" on issues important to all human kinds. Last year, the issue discussed was Environment. This year, it's Poverty.

Poverty exists in any societies, in the West and East, North and South, and in poorer as well as in more afluent countries. It is a complex issue of which no clear and simple answer has yet been found to overcome it. However, this should not prevent us from playing our parts in helping those who are aflicted in the ways that we can.

Bloggers like us can play our part by raising awareness of this common issue of ours and share ideas and/or reporting efforts being done in our respective communities to aleviate poverty.

With the photo I posted today, I'd like to deliver this message:

Given a fair chance, most people would try to get themselves out of poverty. These street vendors selling toys at Bandung's Kepatihan Street are probably not poor in the absolute sense, but what they do - in my humble opinion - is symbolic of human dignity: Given a fair chance, everyman and woman would try their best to make a decent living and lift themselves out of poverty. Charity is one way to help the poor; but giving a fair chance and, as Indonesian would say, a fishing line is better than giving them the fish.

The Government of Indonesia is currently doing both: It provides BLT (Bantuan Langsung Tunai) or Direct Cash Assistance ("the fish") and creates different programs of microcredits to help them start their own small/home businesses ("the fishing line").

Note:
According to official figures, Indonesian poverty rate currently stands at 15.4 percent (as of March 2008), with poverty being defined as the inability to meet "the daily minimum requirement of 2,100 kcal per capita plus the non-food minimum requirement, such as housing, clothing, schooling, transportation, household necessities, and other basic individual needs." The value of expenditure is counted in rupiah.

City of People # 14: Shop Keeper

My "City of People" series of photographs in this blog began on July 24, 2008, with this photo of night basketballers. Since then I have posted 12 other photos for this series. Today's photo is the 14th in this series.

As you might remember from that first post, the City of People series comes from my conviction that people is the essence of a city, or a place for that matter. Without the people who live in it (and make it alive), a city is just a place or a name on the map. It is people who give birth to a culture, cultivate a civilization, and leave the different interesting artefacts that we see, capture in photographs, and enjoy. Our understanding of these things, therefore, can't be complete without a least some understanding of the people who create them.

So, here it is, another photo of the people of Bandung. This beautiful, friendly, and intelligent girl works as a shop keeper at King's Shopping Centre, on Jalan Kepatihan (Kepatihan Street), Bandung.