LETTER FROM JAKARTA, INDONESIA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Saturday April 30th 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I arrived here on time at about 5.15pm and found both immigration, customs and money changing incredibly easy. My driver and the computer technician met me as planned, complete with a little sign and transported me to my hotel (ATLET CENTURY PARK) built and designed for athletes for some Asian games held here in Jakarta. After a quick phone call home, a shower and a lengthy unpacking I was ready to brave the world. Within two or three minutes of drinking a beer, on my own, I was asked to join an Indonesian 'family' - actually a brother and sister and several assorted 'family members' After an evening of pleasant conversation, I was invited to their home as it was 'only 10 minutes by car' My new found friends ran a hairdressing and beauty business and we arrived after being transported in a 'people carrier' after a journey of about 30 minutes in a very obscure and rather poor area of Jakarta. Here I sat around in the hairdressing salon ( which doubled as the family's living quarters) and drank a glass of water and watched television. All of the female members of the family retired to bed and I indicated to my host I was very tired and it was time to call me a taxi. This took an incredible amount of organising but eventually a taxi was summoned - in the meanwhile, my host changed into shorts and a singlet. As we waited for the taxi to arrive, Iwan told me of his interest in massage and physiotherapy and associated therapies. Still the taxi failed to arrive. Another telephone call. More conversation. Another telephone call (it was now 1.30 and the taxi had been called at 12.05) Iwan who had some English informed me that the colour of his pubic hair was the same as that on his head (i.e. black) - what colour was it in my case ? I pretended not to understand. Would I like to show him the colour of MY pubic hair - I definitely indicated a lack of comprehension. Thankfully a 'Silver Bird' (i.e. expensive) taxi arrived although at that stage I would not have minded what the expense was as I had a premonition that he was going to ask me to spend the night. I made my excuses and left! My introduction to Indonesia - the people here are so hospitable! Sunday, 1st May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I seemed to sleep fairly well, getting to bed just after 2am after the escapade of the previous night. I awoke at 5am and then went back to sleep again until about 10.30 so I must have needed the sleep. I spent some time showering and getting everything shipshape ( I have my room organised into 'domestic', 'office' and 'medical' areas) and then at 12.00 decided to venture out. In particular, I was anxious to explore my immediate environment as Bob Hartley (my predecessor) had told be there was a supermarket some 10 minutes walk away. The hotel is situated on a road which might be thought as the tranverse of an 'H' with the vertical sides representing two major dual carriageways. I walked first to the right and looked in both directions both up and down the dual carriage way - no chance of a supermarket there! So I retraced my steps and walked to the other side of the 'H' and then about 10 minutes or so in each direction. There were many sports stadium but no supermarket. So I retraced my steps to the first leg of the 'H' and turned left and walked for about 10 minutes or so - again, no hope. So I returned to the road junction and thought I would explore in the very last direction by turning right. I had now been walking in the midday sun for about an hour and a quarter and was feeling hot, tired, and thirsty. Evidently, Sod's Law was in operation because the last direction that I explored from the hotel ( and only 10 minutes away from it) revealed a modern air conditioned shopping mall set BACK from the road (which explains why I had not spotted it in my original forage) The complex was cool and spacious and revealed an open and well-stocked supermarket! Needless to say, I appreciated this very much and burdened myself with supplies (water, beer, yoghurt for breakfast, some washing liquid for clothes, water melon, tea, biscuits etc). I had a shower and a belated breakfast (lemonade, fruit) and then fell fast asleep. I had a nap for a couple of hours (which I must have needed) and then got up at five feeling refreshed. I then spent a few hours getting all of my teaching material neatly catalogued so that I knew how many copies I had of the relevant handouts. I then turned my attention to preparing some datafiles and discovered my keyboard needed configuring correctly. A few anxious moments with the manual and messing about with the CONFIG.SYS files got it sorted out and by now it was 9.0pm and I decided to treat myself to some dinner as it was only now that I starting to feel slightly hungry. At dinner, I got into conversation with an independent film producer, Martin Percy, who had been in Indonesia for six months now. He was very friendly and helpful and wrote down a lot of useful phrases in my diary for me to memorise. I liked Martin a lot and we agreed to meet some time other time for a drink and a chat. Martin's view was that the government agencies here were utterly corrupt and inefficient but generally they did not bother you - there was a sharp difference in the types of professionalism that you get in Singapore, say, compared with Jakarta. Monday, 2nd May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I don't know when this day began, really, as my internal 'clock' was still a little disoriented and I got up, wide awake, at about 2.00 and worked until 3.30 preparing some material. I have decided that as we only have four weeks, I will give students a dataset from the 'University Students Transport Survey' and from this they can draw a sample and construct their results. This way, they should all get different results but without having to collect data. I am busy 'making up' data for some 200 mythical responses to the survey. I get up at 6.30 and am prepared to meet Yati at 9.00 but actually get a call from Lina (Derek Lockwood's assistant) at 8.30. I pack my bags with computers and handouts and then we go by car to the office which is beautifully modern and air conditioned. The atmosphere here is so hot and humid that to go IN means comfort and civilisation and to go OUT means discomfort (as Martin Percy told me last night). At the office, I meet Iwan the young computer technician and he introduces me to the computer suite. There are 6 486's, quite well specified, each pair sharing a HP550 Deskjet printer and with its own power stabiliser. As expected, the machines had not really been optimised at all so I set to work optimising the first one to see how easy it would be. With the aid of my own portable, I work out an ideal setup and soon raise the amount of K from 539 to 618 which is as it should be. Evidently, whoever had installed the software had no aware about how to utilise UMB's, loading DOS high, the use of EMM386 or any of the other memory optimising techniques. Having got some good CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files ready on one machine, I then move all of the 'clutter' from the root into subdirectories, 'hide' the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files and then set about installing TURBOSTATS,MICROSTATS,and EZESTATS which all work fine. I give Iwan a tutorial on what I have done and we start to optimise each of the other machines and have done four of them by lunchtime at 2.00 - actually quite a busy morning's work although it doesn't sound like it. I go off with Yati and we have a good lunch and a good chat about things organisational and social until about 4.00. When we return from lunch, the parcel had arrived from England complete with 24 copies of TurboStats (which is good) and we look at the student profiles. I then busy myself constructing a teaching program for the course, an assignment for the students to complete and handouts containing the questionnaire,data and labels files. Then with Iwan I optimise the rest of the machines which takes us until about 6.00 by which time we leave the office. Iwan takes me home by taxi (which takes about an hour because of the traffic!) and I have a quick beer and relax on the bed and am soon sound asleep. I am awakened by a telephone call from Lina who wants to know if arrangements have been made for the next day which they have, as Yati is to pick me up at 10.00 in the morning to go 'sightseeing'. This will be a strange day as my principal work will be at the end of the day (6 until 9) but I of all people am well used to evening teaching. I should really go for a meal but I feel incredibly tired and go to bed at 9.00, feeling that my body must be telling me something! Tuesday, 3rd May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I do not wake up until 8.00 so have slept for 11 hours which seems incredible for me. I suppose the night before I had had only been 3-4 hours sleep so it was compensation. Yati picks me up at 10,0 as previously arranged and we go shopping. I am taken to a large shopping centre where I buy some postcards (mandatory!) and a Batik shirt (Batik=traditional Indonesian design) which is also mandatory as Arthur and Bob had done the same. We have lunch in the centre (lunches start at 12.0 and a lot of people seem to eat at that time) and then head for the National Museum by bus. We have a quick tour around the museum after which Yati returns to the office and I return to the hotel. The afternoon is mine until I teach in the evening so I decided to find the swimming pool. I do ten lengths in a deserted pool and then get into conversation with the one person by the poolside who is Jane, a 50+ American lady who is here with her husband. We shop traveller's tales of which hers is the more gory. A few days ago the taxi driver in which she and her husband were passengers got into an argument with a bus driver. To cut a long story short, the bus driver produced a large knife and stabbed their taxi driver to death, practically in front of their eyes. I think this may have unnerved them a little. I go to the supermarket to top up provisions and then get a message that the driver has come to collect me for YAKSI but half an hour early. I get to the office at about 5.30 ready for the night's teaching and discover that Iwan (computer technician) and the photocopy 'boy' are frantically stapling together my EZESTATS1 booklet. I started teaching at about 6.15 to about 12 students (who include Yati,Iwan,Lina) and I started off on the right note by saying 'Nama saya Mike. Sorry,saya tidak no bisa berhasa Indonesia' ('My name is Mike. Sorry, I don't speak Indonesian') The basic strategy for my first night of teaching was to speak very slowly and to keep the concepts very simple. I distributed the program and assignment, gave them the TURBOSTATS book and then start on the standard 'Measures of Central Tendency and Dispersion lecture'. This I did for an hour and I felt I got just about the right note - they all seemed to understand it, until of course you get onto standard deviation which can be difficult the first time for anyone. Then we broke for a snack (delicious 'pasties' and tea/coffee) after which we had our first laboratory session. The original intention was to divide the group into two but instead people seemed to prefer to help each other on the machines working in 2's and 3's which was fine by me. We started working on EZESTATS1 (i.e. my own tutorial software) which, although I say it myself proved to be an excellent strategy for this group. The slower students could work at their own pace on the first few pages, whilst the 'Test your Understanding' interactive pages meant that they took pains to absorb the contents. The fact that there are not too many words on a page (by design!) really helps students whose first language is not English. A very computerate student, Anton, immediately suggests that I market the program throughout Indonesia - I agree and tell him he can have 5% commission on all sales. I finished off the evening by copying the updated TURBOSTATS onto everybody's disks (as the books had only just arrived the night before there had been no real time to do it beforehand). The majority seemed to have/have access to IBM PC's either at home or at work so they all seemed very happy to have both a book AND the EZESTATS software. When the jokes start flowing, I know that everything is on track. I get a lift back to the hotel and decide to treat myself to a beer. The one obvious 'ex pat' I see and join for a drink is John who is out here for a fortnight, acting as an engineering consultant laying down a new railway line. We have an interesting chat before retiring to our (respective) beds. A good day! Wednesday, 4th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My internal clock is a little strange as I got up and worked from about 3.00-5.30 as I couldn't sleep and then finally got up at 9.0. Today is the day when I think I have to change rooms and I suspect it is going to be a little 'chewy' ( and am not to be disappointed). At 10am I tell hotel reception about the change from a 'Superior' to a 'Standard room' and they take details and say come back at 12.00. Meanwhile I pack everything up in my suitcases which takes some organising and fill in some postcards to send home as well as buying a big (expensive) streetmap of Jakarta. At 12.00 noon they say the room is not quite ready so I go to my room and wait. Needless to say, nothing happens! At 2.0pm I go and enquire and the room is now ready (but they hadn't told me) so I go through the formalities again and finally am ready to change rooms at about 2.30. I move rooms and unpack which takes about an hour and a half as I like to have the room incredibly tidy and 'shipshape' with an office area, domestic (i.e. teamaking! ) area and so on. I couldn't do any work for the rest of the day as everything had been packed away waiting for my transfer! I am starting to plan out what is needed for the day long seminar I am to give on May 18th and realise that 8 hours of continuous teaching singlehanded will take some organising. I work on preparing a copy of a fully prepared 'survey report' complete with questions, results and comments that I can use throughout the day. At 6.30 I meet Anton, by arrangement, and we have a meal in the Japanese restaurant in the hotel which is really excellent. Then, I had arranged to meet Derek Lockwood, the De Montfort University advisor out here in Indonesia. Anton takes me to meet Derek in the Hotel Sahid Jaya and we meet Derek who is best described as a sort of diluted Bernard Ingham (ex Margaret Thatcher's press secretary). We chat about this and that and listen to the band (which is really quite good) and then Anton brings me back to my hotel at about 11.30. Not much more to say about today, really! Thursday, 5th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lina phones me up at 8.15 to offer me a lift into work. As it her birthday today (Derek told me!) I go to the supermarket to buy her some chocolates but unfortunately it was shut so I made a surprise gift of a little keyfob that I had spare. Even the five minute walk to the supermarket and back at 8.30 leaves me wringing in sweat so the humidity must be tremendous. In the office I finish off preparing the program for my seminar and am then invited to have a long discussion with Mr. M. O. Tambunan the YAKSI overall director who is, at it turns out, a social scientist. We spend about an hour to an hour and half discussing subjects such as quality control in higher education. Later, Yati, the driver and myself go for a simple lunch (nasi goreng) and we return to the office. I have decided to prepare some simple worksheets for MICROSTATS in place of the primers and having prepared and tested two pages, I then get then photocopied off ready for this evening. I am working on the Zenith portable in the office but the hard disk on this is giving constant read and write errors so it is just as well that I didn't have to rely upon it but brought my own portable instead. Tomorrow, Iwan and I are going to rescue as many files as we can and then I will try and 'Norton Disk Doctor' the disk, but probably means that the whole disk needs reformatting which means that all the existing software is destroyed unless we save it first. My class starts a little after 6.00 and I have a lot of OHP's prepared on correlation/regression, tonight's theme. There are a couple of new students here tonight - I lecture for an hour on what can be a difficult topic and then collects details of the students' heights/weights in order to perform a meaningful correlation and regression. After a coffee break, the students get to work on MICROSTATS and enjoy the software - they make reasonably good progress and all seemed to get the hang of things very quickly with not much tuition (which is as it should be). Yanti (attending my session for the first time - father is I think a VC of a university), Lina and I have discussions over the viability of translating all of my software into Indonesian and marketing it out here. They seem to think the 'Survey Analysis' book, in particular, will find a market. As it is Lina's birthday, she arrives late BUT with KFC (= Kentucky Fried Chicken) and a sweet for ALL the class members so we finish a little before time to have an impromptu little party. I get taken back to the hotel and find an ex-pat (Nigel Pollitt, the finance director for a division of Johnson Matthey out here) with whom I share a beer. In the middle of our conversation I am 'paged' ( the boys come round with a little board with your name upon it but with little tinkling bells to attract your attention). The telephone call is from Derek Lockwood who tells me that his own hotel has a power blackout - did we have one in the office? He wanted to know if Lina (his assistant) had made it to my class so that he could 'phone her. Derek mentioned a survey that the hotel had asked him to do - as Derek knows about TURBOSTATS he thinks it would be ideal for us to do it together. I agree ! The first time TURBOSTATS has been used for a non-British piece of survey work. Perhaps it is true that prophets are not recognised in their own country because the students, particularly the knowledgeable ones, seem very impressed by the software they have used. Friday, 6th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lina picks me up and takes me into the office which is highly appreciated. Iwan and I install the dBASE IV Sampler disk on all of the machines after some initial hassles. I spent the morning trying to repair the office portable but succeed only in demonstrating that the disk will not be written to and now that I have an additional problem in that the power management system seems to believe that its function is to turn the screen on and off but NOT to turn the machine on and off. A machine that does not respond to the on/off switch or will not reboot via ALT-CTRL- DELETE is seriously sick! I probably cannot afford to spend any more time on this machine but will have to take it back to England to get properly looked at! I am taken out for lunch by the YAKSI director, Mr. M. O. Tambunan and two other (important) gentlemen + woman whose names I did not catch. As only Mr. Tambunan spoke English, I seated myself in the centre of the table and told (non verbal) international jokes to keep them all entertained. After a buffet lunch, we came back to the office and I taught Iwan some assembler (which he was desperately keen to learn) and 'tweaked' the machines so that the virus protection system now worked and also installed RAM disks on all of the machines. We finished at about 4.45 but had a horrendous job trying to get a taxi and only got home after 6.00pm. I make myself some tea and tune it (eventually) into the BBC where I listened to three-quarters of an hour of international news before getting the vital (5 minute) news that the Conservatives had been beaten into third place in the local elections. At 9.00 I go down to the bar and have a drink first with an ex-pat property developer and then with (American) Jane and her husband and a couple of Australians (Jim - in construction) and Linda. Saturday, 7th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I wake up at about 8.00 and wonder what to do today. A leaflet is left lying around advertising day-trips round Jakarta but the one I really fancy ( a morning trip round the old harbour which looks at the old sailing ships) leaves at 8.20. I settle on an afternoon trip round Taman Mini (Indonesia in miniature - a type of theme park) and this is due to pick me up at the hotel at 1.20. I make my way to the supermarket and 'window shop' until the supermarket opens, at which time I refresh my basic supplies of water, beer and yoghurt ( as well as a few other things e.g. a whole hand of bananas for about 50p !) Having got back to the hotel I go for a swim, have a light homemade lunch in my room and get picked up as arranged by the travel company. We pick up a nice Australian guy by the name of Chris and make our way to Taman Mini which was well worth the visit (lots of houses and pavilions built in traditional style). As we make our way round the bird garden, the heavens open and our guide fortunately provides (all four of us !) with umbrellas but we still get pretty wet. The afternoon finishes with a visit to an IMAX projection (giant screen, 'realistic' filming) which again was quite an experience. I do some washing and then telephone home at 7.0pm only to be told of Meg's horrendous experiences with the Indonesian embassy. Afterwards, I go and sample the buffet (as much as you can eat of really quite good food) which is quite good value and then chat with various people in the bar before retiring to bed. I have heard of a famous/notorious Blok M district 10 minutes away by taxi full of bars, pubs, shopping complexes etc. which I decide to give a miss! Sunday, May 8th 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Iwan, my computer technician, picks me up at 10.00 as arranged and we make our way by bus (an awesome experience!) to see a Wayang Kulit (= traditional shadow puppet) theatre. The puppets are made of fine leather and wood and are traditionally shown BEHIND a backlit cotton screen - hence shadow puppets. The shows traditionally start at about 8.00 and go on until about 3.0 am the next day. We are shown round the museum and witness a little of a live performance (but not behind a screen this time) by a guide, Daniel, who is very informative. It has started to rain by now but we acquire some bits of cardboard and put it over our heads to run and see the old town hall of Batavia, built by the Dutch and still very solid and a bit grim looking. Daniel takes us on another guided tour and then as it is midday, Iwan and myself repair to the old Batavia cafe (in an old building, built by the Dutch) which seems very ex-colonial. In fact, Raffles of Raffles Hotel, Singapore seems as much as in evidence here as there and the cafe is full of high lined ceilings complete with 19th C. looking fans. After a leisurely lunch, it has stopped raining so we take some photos and then have a look round a traditional batik (cloth, picture making) centre. Now we catch a train from Kota station to Gambir station. The train is rather 3rd world e.g. there do not appear to be any doors that shut. I ask Iwan if anybody ever falls out and he replies 'Of course not' in a manner that suggests that it was a stupid question. But if you ever seen the teeming humanity clinging onto and inside the buses, I can only imagine what they must be like at rush hour. At Gambir, we decide to see the Indonesian national monument (which my guidebook describes as 'architecturally it is pretty much a phallic symbol topped by a glittering flame indicating the nation's strength and independence ( and some would argue, Sukarno's virility)' and I would agree with that description. The same guide book also describes the many statues and public monuments as 'inspired tastelessness - in the Russian 'heroes of socialism' style and again I would agree with that. The inhabitants of Jakarta have themselves given nicknames to some of these statues which are rather debunking. Two particularly heroic looking figures are described as the '7 up man' and 'the Mad Waiter'! We intend to go to the top but the crowds are enormous and we decide to give it a miss. By the now the drizzle has turned into fairly torrential rain and we have to seek shelter for about 30-45 minutes until it abates. Then we hire an umbrella boy (we have the umbrella, he walks behinds us) as we walk a few hundred metres to the Istiqlal mosque, recently completed (1975) which is reputedly the biggest in S. E. Asia. It really is impressive and after some negotiations with a little mosque policeman, armed with an impressive baton, we go inside and have a look around. Iwan prays whilst I speak with the policeman who only knows about 20 words of English. We negotiate with another policeman to be allowed onto one of the five storeys where we are allowed to take some photos. Afterwards Iwan has planned to go at 4.00 to what he calls his 'informal organisation' This is an English speaking club run by and for university students with good levels of English. They have formal events such as guest speakers, debates, visits to the countryside and so on. This week it is an 'informal organisation' and after considerable hassle getting a taxi we arrive. There is the annual 'singing competition going on ('mainly girls rendering numbers like 'Plaisir d'amour' or however it's translated into English) The standard of singing is pretty naff but the students are appreciative and supportive. I am introduced to the past president, the current president and the compere and am introduced as a guest professor from England. I tell a few jokes and then get the whole of the student audience singing 'On Ilkey Moor b'at hat' My technique is to to teach them the chorus ( at least I have a microphone!) and then I give them the line in English, the line repeated in Yorkshire and then I sing the verse in Yorkshire and get the whole of the audience singing the chorus. Everybody stamps, shouts and cheers after each verse so the whole thing becomes a riot! Nonetheless, appreciated by all although I did tell the students that it was the first time (and the last time) that this particular English professor had ever sung in public! A bit of good, clean fun. Iwan and I negotiate the dark streets to get a taxi to take us back to the hotel where I treat Iwan to a really good meal for all of his time and trouble in guiding me ( and sometimes paying for me) throughout the day. I make a one minute phone call home to check visiting card details with Meg and decide to have an early night after quite a hectic day. Monday, 9th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lina picks me up as usual at 9.0 apologising for being 2 minutes late! There is a law here in Jakarta that all private cars have to carry three people into work or otherwise there will be an 'on-the-spot' fine. Perhaps this is why Lina gives me a lift every day but we also pick up stray youths/adolescents whose function in life seems to be to make cars 'legal' for the cost of a free ride to almost anywhere! In the office, I tell Yati of my plans for Wednesday night and busy myself making a copy of the EZESTATS2 documentation for the students as my one and only copy seems to have 'walked'. I do a cut and paste job and am relieved that it seems to print with no trouble, two 'screen pages' forming one page of written output. Having got that 'into the system' for photocopying, I have another 'go' at the portable and this time succeed in saving all of the SuperCalc V files. I then decide to reformat the machine which it appears to do and then it tells me that it cannot write to the boot sector of Drive C (I could have told it that!) and finishes without having done anything. Suspecting a virus I check it with a couple of virus checkers but find nothing amiss. 'The boy' goes out to get my lunch (chicken and rice, wrapped in banana leaf and then tied up in greaseproof paper) which fills a gap. I run off a copy of the first week of this letter and despatch it to PPMS. Earlier in the morning, I had a strange telephone call from a guy at YATSI asking me for details of the seminar I am to give on 'Technological implications of Computers' in two weeks time. I arrange for him to come and see me tomorrow but communication is difficult as his English is so poor. I confer with Yati who phones him. It transpires that YATSI have circulated details of a seminar that I am to lead and have billed it as 'The contribution of IT in the insurance industry !' This has been circulated to all of the accountancy firms in Jakarta and, so I am told, I am expected to lead a whole day seminar on a subject that I know absolutely nothing about! I must confess to amusement rather than irritation, although if the reports are true then I am going to have to cobble up something convincing -still, the impossible we do at once! We leave the office at 4.30 to avoid the rush hour and my taxi driver gets lost - he can't even follow the map I put in front of his face. We get home eventually and I start work again in my 'hotel office'. Here I finish off the example of a 'complete survey report' which I can use with both the seminar planned for the 18th May and also for my own students on the MBA course. (The female students have already asked Iwan to help them with their statistics!). Then I start to prepare a worksheet for tomorrow night finishing it off at about 11.0 after dinner (on my own - a bit miserable). I look around the bar to find someone to talk to but there is isn't anyone so I carry on working. Lina is picking me in the morning to have a morning's sight-seeing which I feel is quite legitimate after working all tonight and then again tomorrow night. This has been of a work, work and work day with nothing else very exciting to report. I suppose some days are like that. Tomorrow must be better! Tuesday, 10th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I do some washing this morning as I get up and have discovered a new way of drying clothes in this very humid atmosphere. The trick is to get clothes as dry as possible before they are hung up to dry and so I place them on a large bath towel and roll them up which simultaneously soaks up a lot of the excess moisture without creasing the clothes. Lina picks me at 9.00 but the weather is threatening so we are not quite sure where to spend our morning. We go to a huge theme park and leisure complex with lots of fish-ponds, dolphinaria, etc. called 'Ancol'. Here we go to various shows e.g. a show featuring acts by chipmunks (I think!), storks and a bear and then a show featuring underwater ballet (complete with dolphins). We finish off with a a 'conventional' dolphin show, at the end of which the kids queue up to be 'kissed' by the dolphin. Lina insists that I join the queue of children and am photographed being 'kissed' by a dolphin - if the photo turns out! We then have lunch and I am brave enough to try 'fried goldfish' - not particularly tasty and with lots of bones! We make our way back through the rush hour traffic and I arrive at the office just after 2.0. I get the second MICROSTATS document run off and photocopied and then I teach (a) my fellow 'tutor' who is meant to be helping me in the lab sessions - name forgotten (b) Windy who arranged to come in and needs some special help as her first degree was in law and she has never done any stats before. Then I give Iwan and Yati a quick lesson before Leo turns up from YAKSI at about 5.00, complete with business cards! Apparently, I am to lead and conduct a seminar on the subject of 'Computer Technology in the Insurance Industry' - a subject about which I know absolutely nothing! I agree to do it, but stressing that I can only talk in general terms about database design, spreadsheet modelling, good actuarial data, disaster recovery plans and the like. I thought I would conclude with a case study of 'Direct Line Insurance' from the UK. Leo seems more than happy and we agree to keep in touch. I am unsure whether to charge a fee or it is part of my contract .. Derek Lockwood who turns up later suggests that I charge whatever I can get away with! With all the interruptions, I scarcely get a chance to prepare some OHP's and start them at about 5.50 ( a familiar story!). The subject matter is difficult but I simplify 'Central Limit theorem' and the 'Concept and practice of Hypothesis Testing' down to the bare essentials and keep it as simple and direct as I can. Then we break at 7.15 for some delicious food for 15 minutes and immediately start the laboratory session. The students work very,very hard mostly in pairs and achieve a fair degree of success, mainly getting through about 2/3rds of the material which was good (I had over- prepared as usual) There are all kinds of hints about the following day, but I play dumb ( I have a party organised for all the students as its my birthday) There is a horrendous downpour which delays our departure but Derek,Windy,Iwan,A.N.Other and the driver Yopi deliver us to our respective locations. I have a quiet beer (on my own), do some reading and write my diary. Wednesday, 11th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today is my birthday ! After waking up I do some washing and then Lina picks me up as arranged, just after 10.00 and drops me at Manunggal, giving me a card and a present of a large Indonesian fan. The office is a little quiet but I run off my program for the night as well as the (large) 'complete survey' that I am to hand to students as a guide. Mul is despatched to buy me a bit of lunch (rice, chicken wrapped in banana leaf) and then I see one of the students who had had to cancel a previous appointment but who had nonetheless managed to complete most of the assignment, singlehanded, within a day or so of receiving it. I give her about an hour or so of help because she obviously has already done so much for herself. At 5.00 some students start to drift in and so I help them with MICROSTATS exercises until 6.00. At 6.00 or shortly thereafter I start teach 'Principles of Survey Design' (for which I have both handouts already prepared and an OHP) and teach for an hour, followed by about 30 minutes introduction to TURBOSTATS in the lab. Now it is party time! We break at 7.40-ish and we go into the rest-room where there are 20 lunch packs (Indonesian 'take away' food e.g. chicken, spices etc. and some rice and a banana) and ice-cream. I had already arranged with Yati that this be available and had paid for it in advance (no DMU funds involved!) However, there was a huge birthday cake so we had the usual celebrations of cake-cutting and much Indonesian humour and photos. Derek Lockwood comes along and joins in the celebrations. Line gives me another present (a beautiful vase of flowers and a 'Mac' generated greetings card), whilst Iwan makes me a present of some film and Windi gives me a book on English-Indonesian conversation. We break up at 9.00 and back at the hotel I spend a pleasant couple of hours with two Australians, Tom (ex-pat) and Rick (in computing and very boring!) At midnight, Meg rings to wish me happy birthday and I am sorry to learn she has been overworking and has suffered a migraine as a result. Apart from the last sad piece of news, it was a very happy day. Thursday, May 12 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As today was a national holiday, I decided to avail myself of a trip out if I could. As the trips normally collected from the hotels at about 8.20, I reckoned that if I were to see the 'Guest Relations Officer' at her desk at about 7.30 I might be lucky and get booked on a trip for this morning. This strategy worked fine and I was booked on a trip to see the Botanical Gardens at Bodor (some 45 km distant) and then a climb into the mountains surveying tea plantations as we went and with a trip to a safari park of finish off. My three companions were a Spaniard (by the unlikely name of Romeo Casanovas - and I have his card to prove it), Elizabeth (Chinese Malay now living in Australia) and Chung Choi a South Korean journalist. The botanical gardens were actually very interesting with trees and plants from all over the world and not just from Indonesia. The walk was shaded and cool and altogether very pleasant. Outside the gates, the pedlars were hard at work and we all tried our hand at hard bargaining. Chung I think was most gullible and seemed to buy masses of things whist Elizabeth succumbed to a set of ornate tin/silver teaspoons for 10,000 rp (œ3) whilst I bought a couple of traditional hand-painted puppets for 20,000 rp (down from 45,000!) We then proceeded on our way but got a puncture and as we were having it repaired at a wayside market/cafe were besieged by by people selling us all kings of useless junk - American silver dollars, carved statues etc. Eventually we arrived at a place where we were to have lunch and had a very traditional Indonesian lunch of rice, vegetables, sati (skewered meat), preceded by tea and followed by different fruits. Then we made our to the safari park which really was extremely good, with many species of wildlife that I could not really identify at all e.g. deer that seemed like a mixture of deer and horse. The highlight of this trip was to come at the end where I was to photograph some white tigers (almost extinct). I succumbed to temptation and for 1000 rp (30p) I was photographed being hugged and fondled by a couple of orang-utans. I wonder what the photo will turn out like ! Romeo was a camcorder fan and on the journey back he had 'developed' his film and we watched the proceedings of the day played back to us. I get back at about 5.50 and turned to World Service on at 6.00. This is normally a very hit-and-miss affair depending on the static, the position of the satellite etc. but I managed to locate the station and heard the news of John Smith's death. As this would be about 12.00 British time, I wondered if I might have the heard the news before many people in Britain who would only hear the news when they got home from work. The BBC/Star network out here on the TV is (a) poor reception and (b) tends to give exclusively world (i.e. non- British news) and today, overdubbed the story of John Smith's demise with a Cantonese commentary! There is quite an extended news and commentary at 8.0pm local time on the World Service so I fitted in some washing before getting fuller details. Afterwards I go down to the bar and spend an interesting couple of hours with Tom (from England/Australia) and his English boss. Friday, May 13th 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Today should have christened 'the day of the faxes' as will soon become apparent. Upon my arrival in the office, I was greeted by a fax from Sue Owen wondering what had happened to the full-time MBA QMIT marks for the re-marked work. As I only received this the day before I was due to fly out here and was already committed to marking as much as I could of 12 undergraduate projects, I decided not to bring them with me to Indonesia but to leave them in England. I suggested that Pete Lowe might like to mark them although I suspect I know his reaction. Les Galloway also needed to know if Lotus 1-2-3 is installed out here ( it isn't!). I busied myself refining and then running off copies of a detailed 'Guide to the assignment' so that students can be guided at every stage of the assignment - something which I feel is quite legitimate under the circumstances. Around lunch time I have another conversation with the YAKSI director/coordinator Mr. Tambunan and suggest to him that if I were to draft out a paper on the role and benefits of sandwich education, we might like to see if it could be either published jointly in an Indonesian journal (I am sure he has contacts!) or even submitted as a discussion document to appropriate people in the Indonesian Ministry of Education. After a quick lunch (rice and chicken, again) I do some academic planning for the forthcoming two weeks, sketch out a few thoughts for the paper and take a taxi home at 4.30pm. Fortunately, the taxi driver knows the way (which IS complicated as it means heading off in the wrong direction, doing a 'U' turn to get in the right direction, overshooting by a kilometre or so before going round a large square to approach Century Park from the back. I think that many of the taxi drivers are quite skilful at knowing how to approach buildings from obscure directions and using available rat-runs, but you can be disconcerted if you think the driver is going completely in the wrong direction. I get to the hotel at about 4.50 and decide that I hurry, I can just about get to the shops (10 minutes away), do my weekly 'shopping' and then get back again before it gets dark. This may sound a little paranoiac but the streets after dark are definitely not to be trusted and nightfall falls very swiftly. I get my weekly supplies (water, beer, yoghurt for breakfast) and get back to the hotel only to be greeted by a fax from the publishers at Chapman and Hall - can I supply x,y,z (changes to MICROSTATS) by tomorrow so that the book can go to press! This is evidently impossible without a compiler and other software development tools so I am afraid that a fax will have to be despatched on Monday morning saying 'No can do - not at this range') I then receive another fax 15 minutes later from David Wilson (via Carol Hime) advertising the post of a School Director of Graduate Studies - would I like to apply and forms are available from the Personnel Office and have to be in by 20th May. I do not want to be excluded from consideration because I am working abroad for the University and decide to apply but this means that I must ask for an application form to be faxed out to me. I hope that by sending the fax at about 7.00 (1.00 pm British time) there may be time for it arrive this afternoon (or before 11.0 pm Indonesian time). Then I spend a couple of hours writing the first draft of my 'Sandwich Education' idea and achieve a couple of thousand words in two hours. At about 9.30, I go to the bar in search of Tom, my newly found Australian 'soul-mate', and we have a couple of drinks in a rather deserted and soulless 'bar' (everyone else seems to have gone in search of the 'flesh-pots' of Indonesia, which Tom and I evidently do not fancy.) Saturday, 14 May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is to be a kind of 'working day' and not a normal week-end day. Lina informs me that most Indonesians work on Saturday morning (to make up for a day broken up by prayers at a mosque on Friday, I suppose). We go to Gambir station to buy a ticket for my trip to Bandung tomorrow. I am REALLY glad to have Lina with me for this because it requires filling in an application form (name, address, destination etc.) for both the journey to Bandung and for its return. We get this sorted out, obtain our tickets and then go Derek Lockwood & Lina's office in Hotel Sahid Jaya where Derek explains to me the nature of the manpower planning and evaluation work he is doing for the management here. Then I show Derek TurboStats to ensure that he will do the job intended for it and finally we show the system to a couple of people from the Hotel's personnel department. The Hotel employs over 1350 personnel ( which is a 'huge' number when you think of it!) and information has already been collected which it will be necessary to input in the form of data files and so on. We also show the benefits of a database but the two people from personnel had a rather poor understanding of English and therefore I am not really sure how much we got through to them. As the real decisions are made by higher management, this is not the problem it may suggest. We then repair to the restaurant and have some really interesting Indonesian food (noodles and beef). Derek needs to visit someone in Ratu Plaza ( the shopping complex round the corner from Century Park) and Lina and I do a spot of shopping before joined by Derek. I get dropped at the hotel at about 4.0 and decide to get a bit of swimming in ( there is not really much opportunity in the conventional 9-5 working week, unless you swim in the dark!) Then I proof-read and make some revisions to sandwich education document (by now completed and 3,000 words long) and engage in domestic things (washing etc.) A message had been pushed under my door saying that Mrs. Yanti had 'phoned and how WAS my visit to Bandung (planned for the next day). Yanti phones again, fortunately, when I am in the room and I confirm with her that I shall catch the 8.20 train from Jakarta and arrive in Bandung at 11.20 and Yanti is to meet me at the station. She says we won't be able to miss each other - I hope not ! I have some dinner and hope that the British cup-final will be shown here on TV. I get into conversation with an Australian and miss the first half but am glad to watch the second half live and witness Manchester United win 4-0. Sunday, 15th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I get up at 6.00 and just after 7.00 I get a taxi to Gambir station to catch my train to Bandung. I get to the station at 7.30 and the train arrives at 8.0 so I have plenty of time to get my seat (Executive Class) My travelling companion is a middle- aged/elderly teacher of English who is very interesting - except that she is a confirmed Adventist! I skirt around theological arguments but she is very kindly and refuses to leave me until I finally make contact with Yanti and her friend Ki-Ki after I had arrived at Bandung. Yanti had very thoughtfully provided some quick refreshments ('Dunkin Donuts' who have a franchise on Bandung Station and an orange drink) which was very welcome after a three hour journey. First we drive around the campuses of the two universities which are next door to each other (first the University of Padjadjaran and then ITB - Technological Institute of Bandung, which is very prestigious). Then we drive up into the hills and have a traditional Sundanese (West Javanese) lunch of sate (small pieces of skewered meat served with a peanut sauce), chicken and rice and other bits and pieces. After lunch we make our up the mountainside to the Tangkuban Prahu volcano - very popular with tourists here as you can drive right up the mountainside. The volcano is not quite as impressive as Vesuvius ( the only other volcano I've seen) but interesting nonetheless. We make our way in search of a famous waterfall but hearing it is two hours drive we abandon this and make our to the famous 'jeans street' called Jalan Cihampelas. This a street, where according to my guidebook 'stores with brightly painted humongous plaster statues of King Kong and other legendary monsters compete with one another for teenage Indonesian customers. This is the ultimate in kitsch and has to be seen to be believed' Every major make of jeans are made here and shamelessly 'ripped off' e.g. genuine Armanni jeans 'Made in Italy' all over the place. Yanti and Ki-Ki do want me to buy some jeans but I resist and buy a shirt instead. Then we go to Yanti's house and I meet her father (Prof. D.R. Yuyun Wirasasmita) who is a charming man and we have a happy hour discussing university issues over a cup of tea! Then we go to a County Club for a snack before Yanti and Ki-Ki drop me at the station with about 3 minutes to spare! I catch the right train, unlike Arthur, and apart from a baby sitting in the seat behind me who achieved the unparalleled feat of crying continuously but with the crying increasing in intensity for the whole of the three hour journey to Bandung, the journey is uneventful. At the end of the journey, I am shown a great act of kindness by the person sitting in the seat next to me. He finds me a taxi from the myriads of taxis to hire at Gambir so that I do not get fleeced, makes sure that the driver knows exactly where to find my hotel and sets me on my way. I get home at about 10.30, have some tea, fruit and biscuits and 'wind down' at the end of the day. Monday, 16th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When I wake up I do some provisional planning for the holiday Meg and I intend to have at the end of our stay - resorts to visit, hotels to book etc. Lina says she can get me a 'good price through a friend' and that is the way things work out here. At work, Yati is away ill and so I cannot give her my hotel bill for œ3,000,000 rupiah which was pushed under my door on Friday night. I run off a copy of the 'Sandwich course' document and give it to Mr. Tambunan - he promises to read it and we will discuss what happens to it later. I then set about composing a long fax to Chapman and Hall explaining the predicament about my inability to do programming at this long range. I then help Iwan with some English typing he is doing for Mr. Tambunan - a conference paper he is due to deliver in New York on Wednesday (but strangely, it appears to have been written by another author) Periodically throughout the morning, I teach the insect bites acquired in Bandung yesterday but which have come to prominence this morning. Iwan says he wants to discuss something with me so we go and have a simple lunch in the 'canteen' at the basement/back of Manunggal which I have only just discovered. It appears that Mr. Djabir (who I have met briefly last week) would like some type of orientation program to IT and has discussed it with Iwan to raise with me. For a reason that I cannot quite discern, people seem to approach Iwan rather than approach me directly. For example, at least two (female) students have phoned up Iwan for help with their assignment but seem unwilling to discuss it with me directly, even though I am in the room. This then means that messages get filtered through Iwan whose English is adequate but by no means perfect so the possibilities for getting hold of the wrong end of the stick are legion! I think I know what is required so after lunch work on a 30 session program which might fulfill the requirements. I did this today so that Iwan, Mr. Djabir and myself could discuss it today but suddenly Mr. Djabir seems to not there. I get a telephone call from Ingmar Folkman of Chapman and Hall requesting that I get the required changes to MicroStats immediately! I explain that I sent him a fax two hours ago and sense his disappointment/desperation that the new book may not reach its deadline. I try to explain that I have not got all of my compilers/source code out here (whether this meaningful or not I do not know). Ingmar says 'Can't somebody else do it - for example, can't Roger do the necessary reprogramming for me with his copy of the compiled version of MICROSTATS.' I try to explain what is involved in writing a computer program and then compiling it. I don't think he understands that it takes some years of experience to produce high quality software and not just 'anybody' can do it! The book may well to be delayed until I return - so why didn't they contact me about it before I came out here. I AM feeling a little pursued what with first marks (Sue Owen on Friday) and now this. I start to standardise the Windows environment on the machines (everyone is different and a mess) and then Iwan and I get a taxi when the office closes. In the evening, I meet with Tom, his boss and two other Australians (all into BIG contracts out here) and we have some pleasant beers. Tom tells me that he came looking for me on Saturday (when I was watching the football on TV) because UB40 were playing 5 mins away - I think I would have preferred that but Tom only found out by accident. Tuesday, 17th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the office, Iwan gives me the two reels of film that he had developed for me overnight - all of the photos, including the critical ones of the party and the visit to Taman Safari Park had come out particularly well. I confirm with Iwan, in Yati's absence (sick!) that tomorrow's seminar now cannot run because of low numbers which is a certain amount of preparation down the drain. I 'phone Leo to try to get some kind of idea about the minimum numbers required for the 'IT and Insurance' seminar because I am going to do no preparation for that UNTIL we know it is going to run. The telephone conversation is inconclusive and we agree to be in contact the next day. I carry on standardising the Windows environment and teach myself how to my Windows installed in a standard pattern (which actually seemed quite difficult to do). Then Rachma comes, with some problems and I spend about an hour and a half sorting them out for her. We then go and have lunch in the little canteen to which Iwan had taken me the day before - Rachma bewails the money she has been duped out in her failed business ventures. The afternoon is a disaster! First I prepare a 'Lab Sheet' (Instructions for the students' laboratory class this evening) in Write and attempt to run it off! In the first computer, it refuses to print after a certain point ! I cannot see any logical reason why - so I try another and the same thing happens - and with a third. It finally prints out on the fourth (after a struggle!) One of the machines develops a 'General protection fault' in Windows and the only way to cure it is to reinstall Windows. I ask Iwan for the Windows system disks and get the Faulty Towers equivalent of Maคuel's 'Que?' There are NO systems disks for Windows so the whole thing is probably completely ripped off. I start to get a little bit angry and try to explain to Iwan that if we had paid for Windows then we should have Windows system disks and manuals for the whole laboratory - not ripped off copies with no backup. I try to explain to Iwan and I think he understands the gravity of the situation - if machines progressively fail, then the whole of the Windows environment becomes useless and the laboratory facility as a whole is degraded. I then turn my attention to familiarising myself with Excel so that I can teach it the following Tuesday. Having prepared a spreadsheet it refuses to recognise any of the Drives in the machine! I try another, with the same result. I try another with the same result. Needless to say, the copy of Excel is licensed to someone else (not us!) and has no disks/manuals etc. The same story - as the software is probably ripped off, then it isn't properly installed. As it is not properly installed, then it won't function as intended and it is virtually unusable. This then means that Tuesday's class will have to be altered. However, we DO have one copy of Lotus 1-2-3 on the machines and do some experiments to determine the viability of copying over to machines. The experiment works (something goes right at last) and that is a major task for tomorrow. Students start to drift in from 4.30 onwards and I help them whilst periodically troubleshooting on several machines (this is like real computing at last!) In my class, I have already have prepared some transparencies on contingency tables and chisquare, so this session goes alright. I then distribute the masses of documentation on the various refinements to TurboStats and various 'hint' sheets, all previously prepared and run off on different colours of paper (brought with me from England) and need to go through and explain each of these bits of documentation. We break and I show the group my photos. The lab session starts but the Air conditioning unit is not functioning and the temperature seems to rise and rise (many bodies, all the computers working, no AC) until there is an almighty 'crack' and 4 of the computers go dead! We resurrect 3 of them but the fourth stays dead so we are going to have to get some technical support for that. It MAY be just a simple fuse but I suppose the whole of the motherboard could have 'fried' if you look on the black side. At 9.00, we break and I have arranged to meet Tom outside McDonalds (well known landmark in Jakarta) so that we can go to the 'Green Pub' opposite for some Mexican food and good music (I have read about it in my guide book) Yopi drops me at McDonalds and I hang around for 45 minutes waiting for Tom who fails to turn up. As it is Tom's last night in Jakarta, his mates have probably taken him out for a drink somewhere else. I check that Tom isn't already in 'The Green Pub' waiting for me (he isn't) and then just get a taxi home, not wanting to eat/drink on my own. Iwan phones me with a strange telephone call to 'apologise' - I think that he feels the power supply failure was somewhere his fault as he is the technical support around here. I try to reassure him and go to bed. Perhaps tomorrow will be better, but this was certainly a 'low' spot with the things that have gone wrong today. Wednesday, 18th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As soon as I get into the office today, Iwan had 'Fastlinked' Lotus 1-2-3 onto all of the machines! This means that we can do our spreadsheet classes as planned for next Tuesday. I read the documentation in our 'Computer' file and discover that we cannot ask our supplier to supply 6 legitimate copies of Windows, MS Office Professional because we had never ordered it in the first place. The prices per copy being quoted here in Indonesia are absolutely ridiculous e.g. œ100 for Windows alone,œ60 for DOS,œ560 for MicroSoft Office. I start to compose a longish memo to Joan Beaver/John Coyne indicating the scale of the problem (making ourselves 'legal' at Indonesian prices would cost œ4,500 whereas if we were to get the software through the DMU Site License/CHEST the cost would be œ600). Then Iwan says that Mr. Djabir would like to meet with me - the plans I had prepared for an orientation course it turned out were completely inappropriate because Iwan had not told me what was required. What was required was a one-year Certificate course in IT at sub-degree level which is a completely different thing to that which Iwan told me. We adjourn to the laboratory where I sketch out ideas for a course with some 5-6 modules in it, each of 20 hours study and Mr. Tambunan,Djabir, Ivan and I discuss it collectively. I agree to write this up and present it to them as soon as we have time. Iwan and I lunch in the little canteen and then I finish composing the memo so I discuss its implications with Iwan (as he will probably have to do the installation work) Then Yati shows up so I discuss it all over again with her and we fax the memo to England. I brief Yati on developments and on request she gives me a copy of my latest CV. This is very out-of-date so I have to think of everything I have published in the last three years (which is quite a lot) This is needed so that I can update my CV to send off with my job application today (Director of Graduate Studies) I then have a long (and at times heated) discussion with Leo about the seminar on Monday. The 2-hour seminar is now meant to be all day (i.e. 9-5) or 'as long as I want it to be' I try to inform Leo that we must do things professionally and outline three options. These are that the seminar is done professionally and I get the appropriate fee, or that it is cancelled, or that they refund all fees and we run an informal session which I will do for no fee (to preserve goodwill between YAKSI and DMU) We do not finish until 6.0 after all this discussion. Iwan had promised to take me to Blok M and we go to the large shopping centre (complete with Marks and Spencers) This really is very good and stylish and we eat a good meal in one of the many eating places around and I finish off with a very sickly Avocado and syrup drink (this IS a relevant detail). Iwan pays for me to to watch a film but this is not an ordinary film! It lasts for 4 minutes but you are 'imprisoned' in your seats in what is termed a 'dynamic simulator' Those who are pregnant, with bad hearts or bad backs are not allowed to enter. What follows then is the most realistic 'jeep chase' in which the whole of the dynamic simulator upon which you are strapped shudders and jolts in synchronisation with the film in which you are crashing into huge boulders, ramming other cars, ploughing over cliff tops etc. I have never been so relieved to get this four minutes over. After this I buy some film in a supermarket and go back to the hotel by taxi but feel incredibly sick (the combination of the meal, sickly drink and 'dynamic simulator') I feel pretty groggy most of the night and dose myself up on various medicaments without actually being sick. No doubt Iwan thought he was giving me a treat - the advertisement for the 'Dynamic Simulator' said 'The most exciting four minutes of your life' which is not an inaccurate description. I decide to install LOTUS 1-2-3 on my portable and have a look at the tutor (which is really very good!) Thursday, 19th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ As soon as I get into the office this morning, Yati and I get a taxi to go off to immigration to get my visa extended. This is because the '5 weeks' on my visa is taken extremely literally so departing and then leaving on a Saturday is counted as 5 weeks+one day (if you count both Saturdays) We go to three or four different booths, pay some money and then are asked to come back tomorrow. The ONLY reason for this appears to be that the letter of sponsorship for me from Andi Djabir had made a slight mistake in the address of the Immigration service, which they feel invalidates the whole letter. After horrendous traffic jams there and back, we shall have to face it all again tomorrow. The contrast with commercial and government offices is stark - the immigration office is teeming with people and not well-swept or welcoming (reminding one of Galbraith's 'Private affluence and public squalor') Upon my return to the office, Joan has replied to my fax of yesterday, concerned that the computer laboratories may not function. I despatch two faxes to England - the first an application for the post of Director of Graduate Studies (for which I compose a letter of application as well as sending 13 other pages of application) and the second to Joan. Iwan and I lunch in the usual little canteen and I get several overhead transparencies sorted out for Mul to photocopy. Leo phones from YAKSI in the later afternoon to say that Monday's seminar is now cancelled for reasons that cannot be explained, but I can guess what they are! (If I had charged no fee, they would have collected the fees from the participants to pay their own salaries - but if they had to pay me then they might not cover their costs!) Later in the afternoon I start to expand some of the ideas for the Computer course discussed yesterday but the students start to drift in at about 4.30 and obviously I try and give them as much help as I can. This is the last teaching session specifically devoted to the assignment, so I try to give as much help as I can. Lina and I discuss some of the arrangements for the holiday that Meg and I are to have in Bali - Lina has organised a very good price for me but we need to confirm dates, prices etc. She has bought me a magnificent illustrated book on Bali for which I am extremely grateful to her. Back at the hotel, I have a quick beer (two actually, as one of the waitresses I know lets me have one 'on the house') and then I do some washing and go to bed. I am just falling asleep when Meg phones from England, having got back from England the previous night. We have a lot of news to catch up on! Friday, 20th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This turns out to be a day of surprises as we shall see. As soon as I arrive in the office, a letter is typed up and Iwan is despatched with it with my passport and existing visa. To my dismay, he returns in late morning without the passport (or a receipt for it) as they say it will now take until Monday morning. To Western eyes, they are creating work for the sake of it and the numbers of people in the overcrowded building cut by cut by a half if they were to work more expeditiously. I ask Yati if I could have the detailed program for the 'Survey' seminar on Tuesday. She stares at me incredulously and says 'Didn't I know it was cancelled ?' I told her that only the previous day, when I thought it had been cancelled indefinitely, Yati had informed me in the taxi that it was now not cancelled but postponed until the following Tuesday - but nobody had thought to inform me! Most of the day, I was working on Lotus 123 to develop new teaching material for the students. As I am reliably informed that most of them have learnt Lotus in high school, I concentrate on the graphics and wonder about whether to teach them macros. Late on the afternoon, there are couple more enquiries for the seminar on Tuesday and we decided now to uncancel it i.e. run it. I have now had four different decisions in 2 days so I inform Yati that it IS important that things are communicated properly to me. I do not mind what I do or do not do but I must be properly informed and given time to prepare (this was the root of the problem with the YAKSI seminar as well). Tomorrow is an Islamic festival/holiday and I am not sure whether the shops will be open but anyway I would like to get back to the hotel to change rooms. At reception, I am told to come back on Saturday but I don't like the uncertainty and would like to get moved that night. I tidy up my room a bit and ask a different receptionist who this time explains that my room will be ready in two hours ( it is now 5.00) At 7.00 I go down to reception to get my new room key but who do I bump into but Tom (who I thought I was not going to see again) but who had been in Surabaya on an abortive venture. He was back here in Jakarta for one night before going off to Australia tomorrow for a week ( and then perhaps back again) Neither of us had eaten so I promise Tom to change rooms in an hour ( which I did, running from lift to lift with my arms full of shirts - I didn't want them to pack them all away in a suitcase. Altogether it took three journeys - I seem to have the most incredible amount of stuff spread all over) Tom and I then go out to the shopping plaza at Blok M and we eat some really good Indonesian food (beef/chicken in crispy noodles) and have huge bottles of beer before the Plaza shuts down at about 10.0 We repair to the hotel and have several beers and I take the opportunity to take some photos of Tom (and Euis, friendly waitress who has befriended Tom and myself). We finish at 1.00 and I unpack 'properly' making sure where everything is until I drop into bed, exhausted, at 2.0 am. Saturday, 21st May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This morning I have a little bit of a lie-in (until about 9.0am) and then I go out and do my 'shopping' for the week (principally yogurt,beer) but I also need a few washing materials. After this is got back and unpacked, I start to complete the Lotus tutorial for the class on Tuesday. The tutorial is in three parts - elementary for everybody, graphics for most people and macros for the slightly more advanced, si I hope that will please everybody. I have to be especially careful to get the 'macro programming' instructions right although the LOTUS tutorial is excellent. I have a bit of lunch in my room and have practically finished when Rachma phones at about 2.30 (we had arranged to meet at 4.0) Rachma introduces me to Irwin ho is a Marketing Research Manager so I take my computer down into the lobby and I put TurboStats, MicroStats and EzeStats through their paces and then we spend most of the afternoon discussing various publishing/marketing/promotional strategies. They leave at about 5.0 although Rachma is coming back the following day to discuss her assignment. I finish working on Lotus and start working on dBASE4 composing a worksheet and also constructing something akin to a 'real' datafile (of 100) that students can append once they know the essentials. I work until 9.0 and decide to have a meal from the buffet. There I spoke with a young Italian textile quality control officer who was despatched to various parts of S.E.Asia by his company (Lotto) - his existence seemed miserable with all bed and work. At about 10.0 I carry on with dBASE and work until nearly midnight on DBASE. I knew that this weekend was going to be work,work,work and so it is! Sunday, 22nd May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This was very much a work-oriented Sunday- in fact, I didn't set foot outside the hotel all day. In the morning, I finished off the dBASE work, giving students some material to start off with and then a program to type in for the more experienced students and a module on screen design for those who make good progress with the rest. Altogether I have prepared several pages of 'worksheets' for the students - the only alleviation to the tedium comes when I decamp from my room in the middle of the day to have it serviced. At 4.00pm Rachma comes round, by arrangement, and we work for an hour or so on her assignment work before leaving it in a reasonable 'shape' for her to complete. We have a little chat and then Rachma leaves. In the evening, I look over the material that I have prepared for the two classes and the seminar and it looks fine. Iwan gives me a ring to say he is going to Immigration in the morning to get my visa extension and passport and I stress the importance of getting the latter - without it, I cannot even change any money! I go to bed at about 10.0 - this is the shortest entry of this 'letter' but apart from a lot of preparatory work, there isn't much else to report for today! Monday, May 23rd 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This morning I worked on preparing the final drafts of the material in preparation for the seminar the following day. This was prepared using large fonts in Write so that I could simultaneously have a set of good transparencies whilst the students would have a set of lecture notes. After experimenting with a variety of font sizes and orientations, I eventually got what I wanted and ran off a set of master copies. In the course of all this, the bad news started to come through. We received two cancellations by letter and a third came through by 'phone so the planned seminar for the following day (for which I had been preparing all Sunday) was finally to come to nothing. We then tried to print off the graphs in Lotus 123 for the students to emulate but the (ripped off) software did not include the graph printing module and therefore this approach was abandoned. I tried to print out a Print Screen in Dos Graphics mode and this too fails. I then import into Excel but the (ripped off) copy of Excel informs me that it doesn't have enough memory (on a fully optimised machine!) So, the only solution is to attempt to draw the graph by hand which is a job for later. Lina comes round in the late morning by arrangement and I help her with her assignment before we go out for the lunch that I had been promising her for all the assistance she has given me whilst I have been here. After a super lunch, Lina drops me at the hotel and I start work refining the Computer Course which is my next priority. After a late afternoon swim, I meet up with a fellow Englishman named Tony who is a railway engineer. In the evening, we go together to the old Batavia cafe (where I had been with Iwan on my second Sunday here) to listen to some reggae. We have some good food but the music is not so hot so we repair to the Jaya Pub which is full of ex-pats but with lots of (live) loud music and a great atmosphere. We don't leave until after midnight and I get to bed at 1.0 am. Tuesday, 24th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When I got into the office, one participant had turned up for the seminar (nobody had telephoned him to say it was cancelled, Yati being away again yesterday) so I had to tactfully explain that it was not to be. Iwan had finally been successful with my passport, so with great delight I lock it up in the filing cabinet having checked the visa extension is alright. Then I start to spend the rest of the morning producing a full and amended version of the diploma program for Andi Djabir. Anton comes round for some help with his assignment and so I give a full demonstration to Anton, Yati and Iwan which takes about an hour. Anton and I have a chicken and rice lunch in the office and then Anton has to go and I finish off the report and get Mul to run off several copies. Then I show Iwan how the macros work in Lotus and start to check out the final version of the dBASE worksheet for next Thursday. Raki comes in at about 4.0 and I spend about an hour with her showing her the ropes as well. The students start to drift in and I give them all bits of help in turn. At 6.0 I spend about about half-an-hour going through the Lotus worksheets and everyone starts work either enthusiastically going at Lotus or finishing off their assignment, if they know Lotus already. We finish at 9.0 and I get dropped off at the hotel by Yopi with whom we have arranged to have Meg collected on Saturday. Although tomorrow is a Buddhist holiday ('Day of Enlightenment') most of the students and I agree to meet in the office at 2.0 in the afternoon so I can help them with their assignments. Wednesday, 25th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I take the opportunity of a 'morning off' (official) work to work on my copy of the official report governing my four week stay here. This takes me most of the morning as I want to make it a fairly comprehensive document and when completed it is about 2,500 words. To give myself a break I walk to the Hero's supermarket, pausing for a chat with (Australian) Linda on the way. On my return, I have a sandwich in my room and then catch a taxi to Manunggal (= office). I arrive at 1.40 but the students have already beaten me to it and are hard at work. It is incredibly hot and sticky as the air conditioning is not properly switched on as this is a holiday. We work right through the afternoon until after 6.00 with just a short break for some brought in food half way through the afternoon. I get several copies of my report and associated documentation run off which takes some time as there is so much of it. When I return to the hotel, Derek Lockwood had telephoned a few minutes earlier. We arrange to meet at 8.30 at Sahid Jaya, his hotel, to discuss the forthcoming visit of Mike Scott and have a gossip! After some beers, in which Derek takes the floor of the cabaret and performs a couple of numbers, I return to my hotel at about midnight. Thursday, 26th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lina drops buy as arranged and we work on her assignment on my portable in the hotel lobby although the sunlight is a little trying. Then we need to change my dollar travellers cheques into rupia to pay the travel agent for the holiday that Meg and I are planning and after one abortive attempt at one (state) bank who would only change $200 at a time, find another commercial bank who will do the necessary but only after a lot of waiting and some form-filling. Eventually this is done and I busy myself in the afternoon writing the promised reference for Iwan and then documenting the technicalities and the software installation on the computer system so that my successors can understand what is what. The teaching (on databases) starts at 6.00 and we are joined by a couple of Yanti's friends who are here to experience the class! After 40 minutes or so of explanation, we get to work in the laboratory and most of the students performed two of the three tasks allocated for this evening. As is customary, we had a bite of food at about 7.45 and when I had finished this - a big surprise! The students had organised a impromptu party and had collected money between themselves to have a whole series of Wendy's Chickens (fast food) brought in! We push all of the tables together to form a large square and have a party! Anton is delegated to say some words of appreciation which are heartfelt and touching. I respond by telling the students how gladdened I had been by the many acts of kindnesses and hospitality shown to me in Indonesia. We then tell each other some jokes and stories - I recount with great relish my first night's experiences here in Indonesia! We then get everybody lined up and take a photo of the whole group (minus Rachma, who I think was sick) and this rounded off a really enjoyable evening. I came back to my hotel room feeling a little 'tired and emotional' in the true sense of the words! Friday, 27th May 1994 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I intend this to be my last 'full' day in the office and so I concern myself with writing any final notes for Les Galloway/Joan Beaver and sorting through all my (copious) handouts,completing the technical documentation and then spend an hour or so going through varieties of teaching materials so that all the relevant 'spares' are neatly catalogued and labelled. When Andi Djabir and Mr. Tambunan make an appearance, then I feel that I should reciprocate their offer of a meal on my first Friday here. At about 12.30 we go for a meal at the Kartika Chandra at my invitation. Just before 4.0, Lina turns up which is just as well because I have a 'sackful' of masters and other reports to take back to England with me. Then we go to Hotel Sajid Jaya, complete with computer and software, so that I can demonstrate both database applications/TURBOSTATS to the Management here again. The last time we did this to the people from Personnel, Derek and I thought the level of comprehension might have been a bit low but this had got transmogrified through the grape-vine to the effect that we thought their people were incompetent. So a bit of fence-building is called for in which I am happy to oblige. Derek and I have a meeting with the General Manager, a Belgian by the name of Guido Gyde (with very idiomatic English) and we spend half an hour discussing the complexities of introducing organisational change into large organisations such as hotels. I give him a signed copy of the book, after which Lina drops me at Century Park at about 7.0. I do some washing but get at least two 'phone calls from Iwan as students are working desperately on my assignment in Manunggal and need some last minute advice. Although I had not intended to, I may go into the office tomorrow morning because at least three of the students will be there working on their assignment and it will help to pass the time more quickly before Meg arrives! I have a quick drink in the bar and Euis (friendly waitress!) shows me a laser printed (i.e. scanned) portrait of herself and the boyfriend she intends to marry shortly in Holland. Upon returning to me room, I get yet another 'phone call from Iwan - before I go back to England, he would like to formally 'interview' me for my views on various subjects for some kind of college project he is undertaking. When I get back to England, I think I will miss the warmth, the hospitality and the appreciation of the students here who, after all, made the whole of my trip worthwhile. Mike Hart Jakarta Indonesia May,1994. - Concluded -