Jakarta
The first time I took Mrs. Hoyt to Shanghai, we were having dinner in the old Sassoon Hotel along the Bund, and she noted, “Foreigners built as though they were going to stay forever; only the buildings have remained.” That’s as true of Batavia—er, Jakarta—as it is of Shanghai, though to a much lesser degree.
In the morning, we went to one of those old buildings, a Doric columned old Dutch government office building that screams “Power.” Built to house the Javanese bank (the bank that furnished the financial wherewithal that brought the spices—pepper constitutes 20% of the world’s spice trade even today) to enrich the Dutch, it became the National Bank—and today houses 
a museum displaying both the history of Indonesian economy, and a numismatic approach to its history. I liked both aspects, partly because of the information it contained; the VOC—the Dutch East India company, with its 17 Dutch masters, pictured on the Dutch master’s cigars—went bankrupt during the Napoleonic Wars, and in fact the British under Sir Stafford Raffles, he who founded Singapore, seized the Dutch East Indies and held them until 1815, when, as part of the Congress of Vienna, they went back to the Dutch; the Islands fell to the Japanese in 3 days (2000 miles long, over 17,000 islands) because the Japanese had placed spies in the major cities; and the crisis of 1997 brought a sobriety to the fiscal system that continues today. The building had some fine art deco touches, and, speaking of touches, we got to touch a gold bar, all 13.5 kg of it.
From the museum, we went to the “New” Indonesia, the Lippo group, one of the major Chinese conglomerates that dominate the economy, for a presentation on its operations. The Lippo group is into a variety of businesses (as are so many of the large Chinese companies), including hospitals, property, media, and education. As explained to us, the company has worked out a pattern that will target middle-class families by building schools, hospitals, and malls (it owns or operates 25% of existing malls in Indonesia), followed by the housing. The company sort of builds to order; it announces it is going to build, gathers advance orders (paid in advance), and when it has sufficient funds to cover the construction costs (and as our host explained, cover the cost of the bribes), they build. The current developments are in the Jakarta area, but they are focusing on second- and third-tier cities, such as Samaridan, Kalimantan, where the average income is $16, 500, because it is a mining community, and the raw materials are being purchased by the Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans right now. I should point out that the company also owns funeral homes, making its coverage, as our host explained, from cradle to grave. Given the shortage of good schools and good hospitals, and the fondness of the Indonesians for shopping, the construction of “towns” seems like a good idea. One other item in its portfolio—the Lippo group (one of its leaders, James Reddy, was implicated in a corruption charge—he gave the Clinton campaign what were illegal contributions, as I recall) has a university—with a difference. UPH is a fairly new university on Lippo property that has 7,000 mostly Chinese Catholic students (a rarity in this Muslim predominant country). The head of the group gives required lectures weekly, but the facilities are wondrous, including an archway that proclaims, ‘With God, anything is possible.” One of our participants, a Chinese Indonesian, pointed out that it wasn’t until the 1990s that Chinese were allowed to celebrate the Chinese new year in public, or even to have Chinese names.
The other session today was put on by members of the International Society for Sustainability Professionals, an NGO that was formed in 2012 to help educate people (and businesses) about the need for sustainability. One of their emphases was forests, which was interesting because Indonesia has the second largest forests in the world, and the management of them has been a real challenge. Part of the challenge comes from the use of natural resources to raise the population out of poverty. Over 100 million live on $2 a day or less, which is certainly a sobering fact that should inform everyone who visits Indonesia that the malls (and do they have good food!) cater to a growing middle class but in a society that is still bimodal. Ironically, last week, my Scouts were at Trees for Tomorrow, which the newspaper companies in Wisconsin started to build awareness of the need to replant trees; I still believe that the answer will have to include an enlightened business community at least as much as a concerned government. My roommate, a Dean of a Business School, told me that the accrediting body for business schools in the U.S. has mandated curricula additions dealing with sustainability and corporate social responsibility, perhaps allowing the students we reach to help be part of the solution. I certainly hope that more than Scouts are thrifty with scarce resources.
The 2 ½ ride the 28 km back to our hotel was also about the new—the lack of infrastructure, or at least the proliferation of automobiles.
Then to dinner at a mall. If you want to find out why I love Indonesian food (and it is hard to find in the U.S.), find somewhere that serves coconut rice. That would be a nice start.