Last term Design: Tengger – Java Ethnic Park

Tourism vs Local People

April 1st, 2013. 01.31 am.

Listening to Yiruma songs. also Black Star & Remember When by Avril Lavigne. Tired but cannot sleep.

I think it start to become a habbit of mine whenever I awake in the dawn, especially around this time, then I am up for a glass of hot chocolate or a big cup of hot tea, and in a sudden, having this kind of mood to write about something. or just anything. Haha.

I still dont know where to begin, so maybe I will just tell you about a story by confessing something. well, one or two weeks ago, I decided to skip all of my class in one day. Yeah, actually I only had one class for that day and it was still the beginning of my 6th term, so I simply think it would be fine. I mean, many of my friends doing the same things eventhough for different reason, right? cmiiw. Haha

My reason for skipping class is because I already had plan to accompany one of my friend to go around in Semarang. Besides both of us, there are two other friends who is literally lived in Semarang since they were kids (local people). The destination of the day is one of the landmark of Semarang itself, the famous Lawang Sewu. I’m sure many of you have heard about this place somewhere. In english, Lawang Sewu can be translated as “a thousand doors”, because the building has sooooo many doors for normal people to count and they simply think that it has thousand doors.

To be said that citizen is must be the one who knows basically everything about their own city, was a missunderstood concept. Some of local people, I mean others friends from Semarang, say that Lawang Sewu will be opened by 11am or something. and because of the lack of trusted information, we believe them. FYI, I look for another source by visiting its website and there said the place open daily from 7am to 12pm. Later, it turns out that the website is right and the informations there are all up to date. Haha.

Sooo, it was still around 8am and we believe on what my friends said, we decide to have breakfast first in one of famous fast food restaurant, not far from Lawang Sewu. We chat about particularly nothing at all. Yep, you know, that girl talks which mainly about boys lol 😉 while waiting for breakfast, we also wait for the 5th person who still on the way. After that, we directly go to Lawang Sewu.

Lawang Sewu – in the afternoon

As in usual tourist place, there is an entry fee that we have to pay. The amount is ten thousands rupiahs for one person. And start from here, the story began. Done collecting money from everyone, I give it to the woman who did the administration. Then she offered us a tour-guide with an additional price. A really warm and good service, I think. I see the guide already stand beside the woman and smile to us. But consider that some of us have been in Lawang Sewu more than once and practically know almost every corner from the building, except the underground prisons of course, we turn down their offers. besides it’s expensive to pay that price for something we already know.

Well, after we say no, the woman start to convince us that this building is confusing and say something like the building is on a reparation and we aren’t allowed to entry without the tour guide, yet we can get lost in there or something. at that time we just laugh and being polite, we say thank you. And guess what? Since that time, they especially the tour guide kinda belittle us. And talk to another guide something about local people in such a not good tone. And even the woman say, “okay, it’s up to you!”. We try not to listen on them, try not to mind that at all. In fact, all of us remain calm till we reach for the entry door. All we see is most of the tour guides sit in front of it and the door was closed. I mean, I saw many people go in before and it was OPEN! Damn. Fortunately, we managed to get in from the exit way.

To be honest, I feel disappointed. I mean, I was satisfied with their services at first. They give choices, warm greeting, certain prices in the ticket box, clean environment, and they are also nicely dressed. But in the end, their attitudes change just because we decide not to use one of their services.

My point is, is that obvious that a tourism place is a public area that anyone can visit freely as long as they pay the entry fee and do not caused any harm to the place? Beside that, the only different treatment that a tourism place allowed to do, between local people and international visitor, mere the amount of entry fee they must pay and the language used, the rest must be equal.

Unfortunately, the implementation in the real life itself is not happen to be that way. our society tend to be more impressed with foreigner and look down to the local people. I dont know why. it just happen. especially, when it comes to the tourism activities, more than once.

Was it bad attitude? Was it lack of experiences and training? I can only guess.

Regards,
Dea

topic for today: Planned and Unplanned Cities

         Hi guys! nice to write here again. lately I find some good-listening song. one of them is Save You by Simple Plan. nice lol :D. but, nothing to do with that song nor its lyrics in this post. I just want to share an interesting topic that my lecturer have taught me this afternoon in class.

          A method call ‘student center‘ have make us, a.k.a the students, to be more active, giving us chance to speak up our minds and of course, being appreciated. a simple way to do that was through discussion session or simply debating others. that’s exactly what happened in my class this afternoon. my lecturer, her name is Mrs. Nurini and she was teaching the city’s morphology and architecture, was explained about “planned city” and “unplanned city“. She explicates its definition, mentions some of its characteristics and asks back to us checking whether we paid our attention or not. just as usual.

          After another part of lesson being taught, she, again, open a query’ session. a response popped up from back rows. due to its subject, it consists of two questions.  first, he asked about which one is better, planned city or the unplanned city. if you choose that a planned city is better than the unplanned city, you have to give an idea of how to tide over the unplanned city. or else, you say that unplanned city was better then you have to give a logic explanation about it. the last question is which one of those is better for being implemented in Indonesia.

          tik tok tik tok.. finally, one of my classmates was going to answer it in the first place. he said that he prefer to planned city than unplanned city, because it’s more well-organized, the other point is that planned city needs a planner like us to create the master plan, form its shapes, and manage the essential rules. so its could one of our benefits in the future, lol 😀 and his response about other question is that he think the condition of Indonesia itself already good. just need a better solution to change it to be somewhat even more better.

          I took the second chance of speaking for debating him. because I have a different point of view. in some cases, the planned city probably become a very nice idea to make and applied. based on the theories itself, this kind of perfect-looking city, purposely set a high priority to efficiency and economic value. a good idea for many specific places as in Chicago, Brasília, the federal capital of Brazil, Rotterdam, main seaport of the Netherlands, Chandigarh and many more. you can see the list of other planned cities by clicking the first link appear next. http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-planned-cities. but certainly not in Indonesia. a country which divided into some big islands and uncounted small islands. a place with so many different cultures and religions and beliefs. where the people were living more into social-religious.

          Well, for me, the planned city is a well-build-architectural city. a beautiful one to see, but its benefits were depends. in this globalization era, despite of the fact that world’s today population is extremely increased, a planned city which offer a ready-to-use infrastructures and public services, great road-connectivity, a strong land use plan also its procedure and many more, has more than reasons I mention before to attract lotta people to come and start living in that place, because its facilities and its convenient were promising. but merely in several decades it will growth into inappropriate shape and doesn’t fit anymore with the original blue print. in the end, because the lack of ideal-place-for-living, those planned city would become just like the unplanned one.

          Moreover, referring to the presentation, the other shortage of planned city is that it has monotone traits and less ability to conciliate with the landscapes and the various elevations when it being implemented which clearly has made it hardly applied in Indonesia due to its multiform landscapes and topographies. That’s why I favored the unplanned city. citizen, however, due to the instinct of human that given by God, will accomplish their daily living needs, such as transportation, infrastructures, public facilities, food, etc. exactly as it did in Indonesia. else, the unplanned city perhaps also give contributions for some new land using in an isolated places.

          Enough  about mine, there is still one other opinion, that stated by my other classmates. a boy and a girl. but their idea was merely the same. they explain about the correlation between specific conditions toward the needs of the area and the citizens itself. it means that both planned city and unplanned city were in the same important level. some things that need to be considered was what a city needs – really needs – to make the citizen feel pleased also convenient. furthermore, the environmental carrying capacity also became one more essential factor that need to be considered on deciding whether a city will need to be planned or not.

C O N C L U S I O N

          Well, decision on applying the planned city or the unplanned city -once again – is depends. there are a lot of aspects that have to be considered. both from the physical aspects, such as environmental carrying capacity, topography; and its social aspects, such as traditions, religions and beliefs, and more.

          but, surely, in Indonesia the concept of unplanned city was preferable. it suits our diversity that we have in ethnics, cultures, and habits as well. better than the planned city did. however, creating and planning a new city is still possible to be done in Indonesia. especially in a new and large area that freely available and have an adequate resources for surviving the citizens living and fulfill their needs.

references:
http://visionbuilds.homestead.com/A-Well-Planned-City.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/city-planning
http://www.newtowninstitute.org/spip.php?article6