Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Many Museums

    Our weekend has been nice. Yesterday we went to two museums: the National Museum and the Wayang Museum. The national museum is pretty neat. They have tons of artifacts, examples of material culture like clothes and tools, and ancient pottery from all over Asia. The single greatest part, though, is that they have the actual femur and skullcap that Eugene Dubois discovered in 1889-90 in Central Java: this is the famous “Java Man.” It’s crazy…the actual thing is just sitting there in a regular old glass case; it’s not a cast or anything. The entire museum is not airconditioned, so everything is exposed to heat and humidity and air pollution, which is probably the worst part. The courtyard is full of stone tablets, sculptures, and relics engraved in Sanskrit (or maybe Pali), Old Chinese, Javanese, and Arabic, with fun sculptures of the Garuda, Ganesha, hippos, and lots of bulls.

    The Wayang Museum was a cab-ride away in the old city, Kota (a.k.a. Old Batavia). Here’s a brief introduction to what a wayang is. Wayang means “shadow” in Indonesian, and traditional Javanese and Balinese cultural practices feature many kinds of shadow-puppetry. There are three kinds of wayang: wayang kulit, wayang kolek, and wayang wong. (There are probably a bunch more, but these are the big ones.) Wayang kulit are flat, intricately patterned figures made from the dried hide of water buffalo. When held up behind a screen and backlit, they produce amazing shadows for viewers on the other side of the screen. Wayang kolek are made from wood, and hence are 3D and don’t require a screen, we think. We’re going to have to read more about them. Wayang wong are people in costumes.

    All three kinds of puppetry relate stories from Javanese and Balinese mythology, including things like the Maharabhata and the Ramayana. The puppeteer can add topical commentary throughout the performance. Performances also present a means to express social and political commentary, and puppeteers often created (and still create) new puppets and stories to relate current events, from the arrival of the Dutch to Suharto’s greed. Famous works from Indonesianists like Clifford Geertz and Benedict Anderson interpret these as metaphors for understanding Javanese and Balinese conceptions of power and politics.

    In between our two museums, we stopped for a coffee and tea at the Cafe Batavia, near the Wayang Museum in old Batavia. Books like Lonely Planet always say that you have to see it to believe it, and this is quite true. It’s a true slice of colonial life, with dark teak furnishings, lazy fans, a view of palm trees and pure white buildings, embarrassingly deferential waiters, traditional musicians, pictures of 1930s movie stars everywhere, and a drink list approximately ten miles long. It is extremely expensive, meaning that it’s about equal to American prices. We had two cups of coffee and one iced tea, and the bill came to $6. For comparison, we got into both museums, paid a hefty camera fee, and ate lunch for less than a dollar.

    We have some pictures to post from both of these outings tomorrow.

  • Take 2

    We got to watch the first hour of the second debate, although we were watching on BBC World, which went down every minute or so and prevented us from actually hearing some of the comments. We believe that Georgie did much better this time than the time before. He just has a way of connecting with the people that John Kerry doesn’t have. That being said, we both think that Kerry did do better than we expected. We liked his taking the offensive on issues.

    One thing that I would like to clear up (this is tp talking now). When we talk about tax cuts as a demand stimulus, it’s important to think about how we make these tax cuts work. I take the principle of decreasing marginal utility of money as a given: rich people value a dollar far less than poor people because a dollar makes more of a difference for a poor person. It follows that poor people will change spending patterns more readily, and drastically, when given money than will wealthy people. The probability of tax break money being actually spent is higher for them. Increase consumption means increased demand, which leads to higher production, which strengthens the economy, which is the goal of the tax breaks. The increase in money in the economy does lead to inflation, but in aggregate, real earnings still increase for those people. Tax breaks for wealthy people are more difficult to understand. Increasing the supply of money for rich people may lead to increased investments in productive capacity, but it is less likely to do so because it has less influence on their spending patterns, and does nothing for the ability of regular folks to consume the things produced. If anything, it reduces the real value of their wages, since the supply of money in the economy is greater. This is, yes, stagflation. If Bush is committed to jumpstarting the economy through tax breaks, he should be directing them towards the people who are more likely to consume. Oh yeah, and he shouldn’t increase non-defense discretionary spending.

    You will notice that nothing that I said here is “democratic” or “republican.” That is all.

    (JM) Whew, I’ll say. Don’t worry if you didn’t understand parts (or all) of that. I get running commentary and have a personal tutor and I still get confused sometimes! That being said, this stuff really is interesting if you take a moment to try and work it out. More on our real life adventures tomorrow….