"penguin dance"

Penguin dance is part of the alun-alun series. (You can identify it from the tag.)

Alun-alun is a park at the heart of the city. Despite the title, it actually looks more like a market than a park. It's lively but like many traditional markets, it's also dirty and messy. Shamefully, it all happens right in front of the grand mosque (located adjecent to it in the west) and under the mayor's eyes and nose whose official residence is located just to the southern edge of it.

misplaced

In a system, one misplaced thing leads to another and another.

all is quiet

It's raining. And up there, everything's quiet. Empty. Cold.

inner city

semi-feral

City cats: instinctively wild, partly domesticated.

keeping informed

Stationery vendors in front of Kantor Pos Besar Bandung (Bandung Grand Post Office). Business is getting quiter for them as fewer and fewer people are sending mails through the post. More and more people prefer emails, text messaging and other faster ways of keeping in touch with one another.

"jajan"

Jajan: (1) noun. various snacks or drinks usually sold on the treets by street vendors. (2) verb. the act of buying such things.

"viking bonex"

Viking is the name of PERSIB (Bandung Soccer Association) supporters club. Bonex (also Bonek), which stands for bondo nekat (have nothing to lose), is the name of PERSEBAYA (Surabaya Soccer Association) supporters club.

The latter is notoriously known for being ruthless hooligans. I'm not sure if the former is any better. Its members are known to be destructive too in many occasions.

Those riding on the train roof are Vikings on their way to PERSIB's home game against PERSISAM (Samarinda Soccer Association) yesterday.

This post is linked to Monochrome Weekly. Please check other participants' photos there.

tire - 0

A street full of tires. Jalan Stasiun Timur.

unforgiven

On the corner of Jalan Ir. H. Juanda (Dago) and Jalan LLRE Martadinata (Riau) one afternoon.

irony

It's a place where "don't" means "please do". [Written there is "Don't throw garbage here."]

Under the Cihampelas section of the city's icon of pride, the Pasupati Flyover.

in tandem

That man is a cigarette vendor, carrying the things he is selling in a wooden box. That young girl could be his granddaughter. Together they were roaming Jalan Ibu Inggit Ganarsih (formerly Jalan Ciateul) to make a living.

monkey see monkey do

Jalan Pasteur. Under the Pasupati flyover.

converging corner

desperate equation

Read the black ink only:
"Do not pee here unless you are a stupid monkey"

where

lightmen

Lightmen taking a break on the corner of Jalan Ir H Djuanda (Dago) and Jalan LLRE Maradinata (Riau). They were advertising incadecent light bulbs and compact fluorecent lamps.

autotrian or sideautolot?

The English language may not have a single word to name this phenomenon. There is pedestrian which, as a noun, means a person going on foot; or, as an adjective, something related to walking. Then there is sidewalk, a paved walk for pedestrians at the side of a street. There is also the parking lot where motor vehicles are supposed to be parked. But in this chaotic city, these things are never differentiated, all at the the risk of the pedestrians' safety.

How do we name the blending of these things then?

What about: autotrian or sideautolot?

floodpreneur

Some people make the flood. Some people get the benefit from the flood. A lot of people are suffering from it. Welcome to the mountain city of annual flood.

off track

The KRD commuter train does not come on time most of the time. Waiting is expected. This boy and his mom are just trying to kill the time and their boredom, not themselves.

"pitnah"

Pitnah is the Sundanese word for slender, libel, or backbiting.

location, location, location

Big or small, location is one of the most important things for a business to thrive or just survive. If most best locations are slotted for the big players and none cares to give the small ones their due attention, then they (the small ones) may have no other choice but find and claim them on their own, wherever it may be.

punk feet

The dictionary says they are young, rebellious, and members of a counterculture group. But more than that, they are a symptom of a larger problem that not many of us care to admit: that of social inequality and injustice.

multiple perspectives

In a world so compartmentalized, we rarely see beyond our own chambers without some sort of reflective distortions from our own.

traffic like dancing

If traffic was a dance, it must be a delicate one.

as only a mother can

On board KRDE Baraya Geulis commuter train one quiet afternoon.

jalan purnawarman

I have previously raved about pedestrians having no rights in this city. And I didn't mean it as an overstatement.

In a lot of places in this city, there are either no sidewalks or the existing sidewalks have been invaded by street vendors and/or other usages.

Jalan Purnawarman (Purnawarman Street) - a busy commercial area featured in these pictures - is just another example. Bandung is generally not a walkable city, except for the brave citizens who have been so used to it and/or those adventurous souls who are willing to risk their lives on the streets.

Sadly, the city's government has never done anything consistent about this problem.

privileges

In a country with no effective law enforcement, everybody can have their own privileges. The president, the ministers, and the legislators are free to determine how much public money they will get (in terms of salaries and other facilities: luxury cars, houses, etc.) withouth much concern of the people's poverty. The judges, attorneys/public prosecutors, and the police are free to determine how much money they can extort from the legal cases they are handling. And once one is convicted of a crime and sent to jail (at a bargained sentence), he/she can buy his/her jail privileges if he/she can afford the prices set by the wardens.

Why should becak (pedicabs) not have their own privileges, then?