2018
Flying through Day 2
26 October 2018
It just gets better and better. I was kinder to myself today, with only five hours of continuous sessions, skipping the last session of the afternoon to take a much-needed rest before an evening one in town. Managed to get lifts between venues with the shuttle and fortuitously in an expat friend’s car. Even had the lovely Ketut stop in the street for us this morning when he saw us and he dropped us at the venue on his way home.
Deirdre, a Sydney friend currently studying in Jakarta, is now with me at Puri Saraswati, as is another Jakarta friend Isla. So good to have breakfast and dinner companions, even if we end up in different sessions throughout the day.
Highlights of the day were Greenpeace, Foreign Correspondents and the feisty young women writers in the session entitled “#Me Too”, from Indonesia, India and Australia. Fell in love with Hanif Kureishi too, of Buddha of Suburbia and My Beautiful Laundrette fame.
The first session was an interview with the Filipino head of Greenpeace SE Asia, Yeb Saño, a deeply passionate and compassionate man who was not out to scare us but had all the vital (scary) facts and at the same time a positive message to encourage us to be kind to the planet and each other - we cannot wait for our leaders and big business to act. It will be all of us who have our children’s future at stake, not seeking short term financial gain, who will act and make the necessary changes. He was away at a major climate conference (at the time a deputy minister in the Philippines Government) when typhoon Haiyan devastated his country and hometown in 2013. He watched on TV his town being destroyed but miraculously saw his brother alive on the screen. Knowing no food was reaching the survivors he fasted the whole 14 days of the conference, determined to bring attention to the climate change factors involved in such massive climate events. He quoted Lord of the Rings to good effect and the philosopher, Hobbes - though I must admit to having forgotten just what Hobbes had to say regarding climate change issues today. Yeb was interviewed by the British Embassy’s climate change ambassador in Jakarta who has been here before. Was so pleased I went to that session. And thank god for Greenpeace - they do not shy away from difficult battles. I cannot be out there on the Rainbow Warrior myself but support those heroes financially when I can.
Deirdre, a Sydney friend currently studying in Jakarta, is now with me at Puri Saraswati, as is another Jakarta friend Isla. So good to have breakfast and dinner companions, even if we end up in different sessions throughout the day.
Highlights of the day were Greenpeace, Foreign Correspondents and the feisty young women writers in the session entitled “#Me Too”, from Indonesia, India and Australia. Fell in love with Hanif Kureishi too, of Buddha of Suburbia and My Beautiful Laundrette fame.
The first session was an interview with the Filipino head of Greenpeace SE Asia, Yeb Saño, a deeply passionate and compassionate man who was not out to scare us but had all the vital (scary) facts and at the same time a positive message to encourage us to be kind to the planet and each other - we cannot wait for our leaders and big business to act. It will be all of us who have our children’s future at stake, not seeking short term financial gain, who will act and make the necessary changes. He was away at a major climate conference (at the time a deputy minister in the Philippines Government) when typhoon Haiyan devastated his country and hometown in 2013. He watched on TV his town being destroyed but miraculously saw his brother alive on the screen. Knowing no food was reaching the survivors he fasted the whole 14 days of the conference, determined to bring attention to the climate change factors involved in such massive climate events. He quoted Lord of the Rings to good effect and the philosopher, Hobbes - though I must admit to having forgotten just what Hobbes had to say regarding climate change issues today. Yeb was interviewed by the British Embassy’s climate change ambassador in Jakarta who has been here before. Was so pleased I went to that session. And thank god for Greenpeace - they do not shy away from difficult battles. I cannot be out there on the Rainbow Warrior myself but support those heroes financially when I can.
Always love the journos’ panels, especially Foreign Correspondents. This panel included Indonesia’s fabulous editor of the Jakarta Post, Endy Bayuni, an LA Times woman and our own wonderfully-named Jewel Topsfield, recently the Sydney Morning Herald correspondent based in Jakarta. The powerful moments in that session were when Jewel, responding to the question on what story she reported on had the biggest effect on her, told us how it was arriving in Jakarta right at the time when the clemency plea of the two reformed drug smugglers, Sukumaran and Chan, was refused by President Jokowi. Who among us SMH readers could forget living through the horrors reported by Jewel over the months leading up to the April executions of those remarkable men who had made such changes to their lives and the lives of their fellow inmates while ten years on death row. Shame on Indonesia!
I did attend one literary session too - books by foreign authors that had an Indonesian connection/setting. But it was not memorable and I could not see any of the speakers from where I was sitting. Admit to having dozed through some of that!
The evening session was a hoot! At the crowded Bar Luna where I have interviewed Ian Burnett on his books in recent years. This was on a book called Retronesia. A zany Indian photographer with a Scottish accent who lives in Ubud has photographed all the kitsch architecture and art of the1950s and 60s he could find across Indonesia, mostly Java. Some of it Soviet-influenced as that was the time Soekarno was flirting with the Eastern Blok. The fast moving slide show and the guy’s accompanying patter took us on a whirlwind drive around the remnants of a past era of ghastly taste - enormous fun!
I did attend one literary session too - books by foreign authors that had an Indonesian connection/setting. But it was not memorable and I could not see any of the speakers from where I was sitting. Admit to having dozed through some of that!
The evening session was a hoot! At the crowded Bar Luna where I have interviewed Ian Burnett on his books in recent years. This was on a book called Retronesia. A zany Indian photographer with a Scottish accent who lives in Ubud has photographed all the kitsch architecture and art of the1950s and 60s he could find across Indonesia, mostly Java. Some of it Soviet-influenced as that was the time Soekarno was flirting with the Eastern Blok. The fast moving slide show and the guy’s accompanying patter took us on a whirlwind drive around the remnants of a past era of ghastly taste - enormous fun!
It is now tomorrow. Or should I say today! I still wake early, otherwise I would never get any writing done.