Would you buy Toyota Prius tagged US$ 58000?

Yesterday I went to a Toyota authorized dealer to ask about Toyota Prius. I'm so interested to get Prius (to replace my 5 year-old car) because its fuel consumption is so low and I'd like to participate in reducing carbon emission. This year Prius is officially entered indonesian market and will have authorized tech support.

I was keeping my hope that the price won't be higher than US$ 27000, but when I received the latest price list, my hope was shattered. Due to little knowledge of the advantage of hybrid cars and corrupted bureaucracy in Indonesia, the price of Prius in indonesia is a staggering US$ 58500!!!
Of course I knew that the car would have been a complete built up but it's from Thailand for goodness sake! It's still just too ridiculously expensive!

By seeing from this case, I don't think the big cities in indonesia will have their carbon emission , from motor vehicles, will reduce in the future. With no effort to urge people for using low emission vehicles, by lowering the price and giving insentive for electric and/or hybrid vehicles, it's only going to get worse and worse and worse.

Even the sermon at the curch can be naive sometime...

Today is the closing of Bulan Budaya or the right translation would be Culture Month, at the church where I am attending. For one month several cultures from Indonesia were introduced and highlighted as theme on each Sunday. I have no comments about it although there were some minor concerns but on today's sermon there was something that disturbs me badly.

During the preach (the theme was about the unity in differences, the country's motto), the pastor suddenly burst with a question, "Who is proud as Indonesia citizen? And those who's not can raise your hand. I see no one is raising hand, so I ca safely assume that we all are proud."
At that point, I felt challenged and almost spontaneously raising my hand. But it was a sermon, why would I do that? It wouldn't make things better and worse, we could have been locked in a useless talk. Nevertheless, it managed to sickens me.
I felt so much intimidated by today's sermon and it didn't give me peace at all. I went home in annoyance and there's a slight regret of not stating my position. Possibly no one will understand it but at least I can tell the truth.
The truth? Yea!!!
That I'm not proud as Indonesian citizen because I believe indonesia is an entity out of naive thoughts, I'm proud of being the world citizen-proud as indonesian citizen is too narrow minded for me, I'll release my indonesian citizenship when I have the chance, I don't believe that indonesia is my place for my end day because my homeland is earth so it won't matter where I die and I never feel like home with institution called indonesia, trust me on that.

Indonesia is almost synonymous with absurdity

When I read Kompas daily today, I notice a large ad (again by the treachery Telkomsel) about submitting your vote (by sending text) to make an indonesian racer, Rio Haryanto, to become the first indonesian Formula 1 racer. Oh well, to me this is so absurd!
Though I didn't doubt Haryanto's talent and skills but if we're talking about Formula 1, he'll need more than that. I'm a Formula 1 fan for a long long time and I realized that this type is racing, although pleasing to international audience, is so much european. Participation from non-european countries are limited to supplying a racetrack, a team and sponsors, but never really a racer itself.

Formula 1 from my eyes is a place for those nations who has the "speed" in their vein. It started in europe so it's normal that F1 can also be said as the byproduct of european cultures. From all champions of F1, most of them are european. I'm not trying to be racist, but if we want to be honest, some things are made this way and like it or not, Formula 1 is one of those things.

Take a look to F1 recent history, we saw Alex Yoong (Malaysia) and Narain Karthikeyan (India). Both were proudly hailed as the first F1 racer of their countries that did not have the "speed" culture as the european and afterwards they got kicked out only after a few seasons due to on and off tracks reasons. These countries like Indonesia doesn't have what needed to produce an F1 driver, the tradition.

I think it's fair to dream but thinking about this stuff? Goodness my fellow countrymen, we are going to have our own F1 drivers, but not now. This nation is not ready yet and may never ready in our lifetime. So please don't waste your money to satisfy this absurd dream, at least after Indonesia or whatever will be left in the future have gained the "tradition" and "speed" is in the vein.

Nevertheless, I wish Rio Haryanto good luck and God speed!

Indonesia?

Today is the 64th anniversary of Indonesia independence day and just like many anniversaries before, I don't want to celebrate or taking any participation whatsoever in the celebration activities. That because since I was aware of myself, I never felt like home in the country called Indonesia. In the later part of my life (and currently) I realized that the facts may have been distorted to legitimize the existence of Indonesia.

The founding fathers of the archipelago independence were undoubtedly smart people. They've succeeded in most of their diplomacy missions, they were able to unite their common goal to oust the Dutch that occupied their homelands (note that I say, homelands). It was something that average people will find it hard to accomplish.
But sadly and unfortunately, they were naive. Some thought the occupied territories is automatically becoming one nation as they suffered the same fate. While some thought after independence they could go home to their respective homelands and live as sovereign nations.
Same thing with the blood shed. Some of them are willing to shed their blood for their homelands and some for the unity of the boundaries left by the occupiers.

History tells us that the first, got the upper hand and now we know something called Indonesia. It was, is and always a fatal mistake because you can not assume that since other people suffered the same thing as you, they'll want to have a union or cooperation after the common goal is achieved.
So with this only one thing is enough for me to believe that Indonesia is one fatal mistake.

ps: I also found it absurd that after 64 years of independence, indonesians are still crying "merdeka" (it loosely means, independence) out loud. Merdeka of what???

There are no straight answers, but it makes life interesting

For the last couple of weeks, my Lord has showed me some interesting stuff. Those that were linked directly or indirectly to some things that I dreamed and asked the Lord for. He gave me the chance to see with my own eyes:

1. The phenomenal (though I have no respect to) indonesian singer called mbah Surip. His reign to stardom was unbelievably swift and it only took weeks for him to became a class A artist (demand wise). I met that guy at the Jakarta airport, escorted by his assistant. I didn't know why I had the chance to see him until days later when he died of exhaustion and cardiac arrest. I pray that my career as musician would go to a stardom realm and then there was this one guy. For days I pondered about it but I'm sure that it wasn't a warning but a case for me to learn and prepare should my big-time days come to me.

2. Two Lamborghini at Shell gas station. It was an awesome sight and God knows that it is one of the things at the top of my wish list. Why did He gave me the chance to see them up-close? I know God wanted me to work for my dreams and He snapped me from my secure feeling.

For sometime I didn't know how to react but I decided to focus on the encouragement from the Lord and it made me stronger in facing all the challenges to fulfill my dreams.

Whatever happened in ten days

As some of you may or may not know, last time I went to Surabaya as a expecting-father and now I'm back in Jakarta as a proud father of a baby girl we named Lúthien Tinúviel Kapriandi. Yes yes...of you who didn't know, we owe the great J. R. R. Tolkien for the name. (if you're still asking after this, it's outrages!)
There are so much to tell about her arrival to this world but I felt so hard to tell since it's so beyond words. I could only tell it is amazing. It also deepen my understanding of life and our (my wife & I) relationship with Jesus.

So after we returned home from the hospital, I had another weird experience. It was the fourth day after we got back and I was looking the sky from the terrace. The day was cloudless, so clear without pollution (unlike Jakarta), then suddenly I saw a white form similar to a passenger jet fuselage, approximately 38-40 thousand feet in altitude, but when I tried to recognize the plane I couldn't see any wings or tail fin and the way it moves was so different than an airplane, it just move smoothly like having no air resistance at all. I tried to focus on that thing, thinking I probably wrong but the more I focus, the more I convinced of its shape. Unfortunately I didn't got a chance to take my camera and take pics or record it since it moved fast, although clearly visible.
I asked my wife wether there are any air traffic on the sky of the area and told me only private jets flew that route. OK so maybe I saw a private jet but I'm still unsure since I remember exactly how it moves. So I here I am, still don't know if I had a close encounter of a first kind or another case of misidentify.

Another exciting thing in my ten days earlier is, I had a chance to feel flying the Boeing 737-800 NG-the latest generation of 737-on my way back to Jakarta. It was awesome and I'm so thankful to Jesus for the chance.