maspulung’s sanctuary

Mohon perhatian…

Bagi ente-ente yang belum mengirimkan ucapan selamat ulang tahun pada saya, masih ada waktu 8 jam lagi waktu Gainesville. Saya juga membuka diri sebesar-besarnya untuk menerima kiriman dollar ataupun makanan Indonesia (peyek kacang plizz). Bagi yang tidak mengirimkan ucapan selamat, siap-siap namanya gua coret dari daftar penerima warisan gua…. (desperate ceritanya)

I do not know whether I should be proud of my school or not… yang penting nomor satu….

Named Number 1 Party School In Nation

GAINESVILLE (CBS4) ―
All that partying, late night drinking and goofing off in general has
finally paid off for the Gators – the University of Florida has been
named the No. 1 party school in the nation.

The
rankings come from the Princeton Review’s annual college guide, "The
Best 368 Colleges," the 2009 edition will go on sale on Tuesday.

UF
also came in first this year in the categories of students who study
the least and students who pack the stadiums. This is the fourth time
the school made the list. In 1998, the Gators were ranked 3rd best
party school in the nation. The following year, they jumped to the
number 2 spot. After a few years of being off the radar, they came in
4th in 2008 edition.

Coming in second was the University of Mississippi, followed by
Penn State University, West Virginia and Ohio University-Athens.

The only other Florida school making the 2009 list was Florida State, which ranked 10th.

The annual rankings also list the nation’s "Stone-Cold Sober
Schools." Topping that list was Utah’s Brigham Young University.

(©
2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated
Press contributed to this report.)

Having discussed my plan with my current adviser and some folks, I decided to decline the University of Illinois’ offer to continue my academic endeavor there. Illinois is really a good school. I feel bad of declining their offer. In the area of tourism and recreation, Illinois is one of the best schools. Some people said I am stupid by declining their offer. Well perhaps I am. I do not feel I will fit with Illinois research scheme. I am not going to spend  3 more years working on something that is not my cup of tea. Today I sent my letter of decline to UIUC. Did I feel relieve? Sort of… somehow I’m still worried that it’s not the correct decision… but I will think about it later on. In the meantime, I still have to answer 3 other offers… To choose something is easy, the hardest one is can I live with that decision.

have a magical day

Abstract submitted to the International Conference 2008 Cultural, and Event Tourism: Issues and Debates November 5-9, 2008 in Alanya and Cappadocia, Turkey

Few studies in tourism have examined the process by which locals can engage in managing culture as a component of planning for tourism. Many studies showed that tensions may arise across a series of interactions between visitors and local community. From the locals’ perspective, the manipulation of their culture may effect their perception of tourism in their community. Thus, identifying cultural themes that the host community desire to share with visitors is crucial to preserve the local culture and promoting culturally responsible tourism. This study employed reflexive photography to gain information about cultural themes that residents want to share with visitors as a component of planning tourism. The use of photographs was grounded in the interactive context in which photographs acquired would reflect residents’ perception toward their daily life. The study was conducted in the village of Sambi, Indonesia, in June-July, 2007. Twenty-eight residents were issued single use cameras and were asked to take pictures of things, places, people, or anything else that deemed important to them in their village. The photographs were developed and interviews were conducted to elicit information about the pictures they took. Data analysis used both photographs and quotes from photo-elicitation interviews. The study used an inductive thematic approach to analyze the data. The study found six major themes that participants desired to share with visitors. Those themes were rural way of life, environmental features, built structures, people, art and festivals, and animals. The study recommended that the development of tourism in the village of Sambi should be based on the identified themes as well as the operationalization of those themes. The implication is that designing routes to connect themes is an appropriate application of such a method of research. The method showed that photographs can facilitate to bridge the cultural distance between local communities and the tourism planners which often became an issue in tourism planning. Finally, the method also resulted in greater interest of the residents to participate in the study, which is parallel with the notion of the Community-Based Tourism initiative whereby local residents become active agents of tourism development.

Ignatius P. Cahyanto (PI)
Lori Pennington-Gray (Co-PI)

Funded by The Center for Tourism Research and Development, University of Florida 2007

     The purpose of this research was to better understand rural Indonesian culture as a means of developing tourism. The study was conducted in the village of Sambi, Indonesia, in June-July, 2007. Three objectives were addressed in this study. The first objective was to explore the meaning of local culture as held by local residents. The second objective was to present themes of what residents desired to share with tourists. The last objective was to provide information gained from the identified themes to the decision makers in the village of Sambi, with the goal of promulgating local tourism development.
     This study was framed with four interrelated research questions: (1) What does Sambi’s culture mean to the people of Sambi? (2) What do the people of Sambi want to share with visitors about their culture? (3) What do the people of Sambi want to hide about their culture from visitors? (4) How do the people of Sambi choose to negotiate themes; which they want to show to visitors and themes that they want to hide from visitors?
     To address the aforementioned research questions, the study employed a reflexive photography method. Twenty-eight residents were issued single use cameras and were asked to take pictures of things, places, people, or anything else that deemed important to them in their village. The photographs were developed and interviews were conducted to elicit information. Data analysis used both photographs and quotes from photo-elicitation interviews. The study used an inductive thematic approach to analyze the data.
     Four major findings were found with regards to the research questions. First, two major themes emerged when participants discussed the meaning of their local culture namely, agricultural village and ritual-tradition. Second, there were six major themes that participants desired to share with visitors i.e. rural way of life, environmental features, built structures, people, art and festivals, and animals. Third, the themes, which some participants wanted to share with visitors, were also the ones they desired to hide. Fourth, participants employed two strategies, time and space alteration, in negotiating themes that they wanted to share and not to share with visitors. These strategies provided room for creative maneuvering in the presentation of the cultural landscape of the village of Sambi.
     The study concluded that reflexive photography could be a powerful tool for tourism planning, especially in rural areas. It was also suggested that the development of tourism in the village of Sambi should be based on the identified themes as well as retention of the authenticity of the themes. This strategy would increase residents’ level of support toward tourism development and maximize benefits for residents of Sambi. Finally, further research in tourism studies using visual methodology was recommended.

Semester sudah hampir selesai… saatnya begadang menyelesaikan setumpuk kerjaan yang due pada waktu yang hampir sama… So this week I have to:

1. Transcribe and analyse verbatim interview. Interviewnya sih satu jam cuma transcribe nya bisa 7 jam… (it reminds me how I hate doing trancribing…) Ini projek untuk kelas Qualitative and Critical Analyis..  selesai transcribe (target senin ini) trus harus buat paper .. aku putuskan maksimal 25 halaman no more… semuanya due December 4

2. Prepare a presentation on " breaking ethnographer frames; a reflexion on the use of Photo-elicitation for tourism studies" for November 27 …

3. Prepare a presentation on "Developing tourism crisis respond plans" for Crisis Institute meeting November 30

4. Reserve a venue plus catering trus buat final invitation letter for faculties at Uni of Florida untuk on-Campus workshop for Tourism Crisis Management which will be held on January 18… cuma semuanya due November 30.. maklum I’m person in charge untuk event ini..

5. Prepare transfer examination assay for Uni of Utah due december 15.. 10 pages about my future research project… belum tahu mo nulis apa..

6. Prepare a persentation abstract for International conference in Anatolia Turkey due December 14… (belum tahu mau nulis apa kayaknya ambil sebagian data dari projekku saja… si prof nih ngasih kerjaan saja)

7. Prepare a presentation on "Re-Imaging Yogyakarta as a tourism destination after Earthquake 2006" for a conference in Toronto Canada December 20

8. As usual nyelesaikan my own research project "The Understanding of Rural Indonesian Culture as a Means of Developing Tourism through Reflexive Photography".. ini due December 14.

9. Nonton 3 episode terakhir Heroes….

Pokoknya sebelum cabut ke Wyoming rabu ini untuk thanks giving break, at least beberapa presentasi selesai…. kalo ndak, bisa-bisa ndak tenang nih makan kalkunnya…..

have a magical day everyone..

The past few days some friends contacted me and asked my opinion regarding the use of the song ‘Rasa Sayange’ for Malaysia “Truly Asia” tourism campaign. Indonesians claim the song belongs to them. Rasa Sayange is believed to have originated in Maluku where it has been sung for generations by people to express their love for the environment. Malaysia, on the other hands, claims the song has been heard for many years, therefore it is not exclusively owned by Indonesia. Within Indonesians communities, this issue creates a turbulence and diverse reactions, from shocked to I –don’t-care reaction.

Why this situation matters?
This is neither the first nor the second time Malaysia “steal” Indonesian assets. A few examples were the Sipadang-Lingitan islands,  and Ambalat case. Not to mention batik cases, many Indonesians do not know that Batik, the Indonesian national costume motif, has been copyrighted by Malaysia.. Surprised? Well don’t be! In fact, when I was in Kuala Lumpur for a conference last August, I saw a huge poster in one of Malaysian biggest malls using Petruk (a character in wayang(leather puppet) as background. So I understand why Indonesian communities are so upset over Rasa Sayange case. It is accumulation of stressed feeling. 
Although the song is claimed by two countries, linguistically there is a clue that the song is originally from Maluku. The /e/ in the end of saying. This is Maluku’s dialect which means “most”.   
Despite the idea of suing Malyasia for the song has been widely sparked, I am not sure that Indonesia will win. The song is a folksong and there is no clue who the author was, in addition, as a folksong, it is passed by generation to generation through oral tradition. I learned to sing this song when I was in elementary school a long time ago and in the song book the author of this song along with hundreds of folksongs only marked by NN (no name/ anonymous). So how we can declare that this song is Indonesian song if we do not know who the author…is?? Now let me give you another example. When Malaysia was asked when they invented batik, they can come up with certain date. In Indonesia, I am sure no one is able to mention certain date because it is passed from generation to generation… not even my grandma who is a batik maker. We just feel happy when people from other countries say it’s beautiful without taking necessary steps to protect it.

What we can do then…
I think what we learned from our history is that we never learned from it. After Sipadang-Lingitan, Ambalat, Batik… what we have done so far? Nothing, we as Indonesians are always upset when someone else takes over our heritage..  But have we done something to protect our heritage e.g copyright our cultural heritage? Or should we wait until the same incident occurs again…Being patriotic means we take good care of our national heritage. We appreciate, preserve, and protect them. Ignoring what we have and got all upset only after some other countries claim ownerships over them is not being patriotic. It’s being careless and stupid. If we cannot force our government to protect our own national treasure, then it is not just the government who is stupid. It’s us because we elected them. We only have ourselves to blame.  I think it is time we change our reactive attitude to a more proactive, otherwise more and more our cultural and natural assets will be disappeared soon. Now do your homework, identify your local heritage assets and report them to the government.

Malaysian version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu-nfKFDSB8

Indonesian version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZabgpWuy-Zg 

The song in Duch movie portrayed

Indonesia

in 1937-1940: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4bZhZIYbwk 

Have a magical day everyone

Although the international community recognizes the plight of thousands of Iranian gay and lesbians, who are either forced into exile or face daily harassment through state-sanctioned discrimination because of their sexual identity

Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad  said:

“In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country…. We don’t have that in our country. In Iran we do not have this phenomenon, I do not know who has told you we have it"

(Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad at Columbia University Sept 25, 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiyLtuzCu0g&mode=related&search=

Of course Ahmadinejad is right. Iran doesn’t have any homosexuals.
Why not?
Because they execute them!

LOL….