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61st Anniversary of Indonesia's Independence Day

A. Fatih Syuhud · 15:21

lingua → zhs · zht

In commemorating the 61st anniversary of independence day, Indonesian bloggers have many ways to celebrate it.

Agusti Anwar highlights the meaning of flag as a symbol of nation and nationalism:

Flag is indeed a formal expression of recognition. To that effect, if a people dispose or pull out recognition of others, accepting or protesting, the flag would do service either way. Protesters of different nationals would burn the flag of the opposed and that has been a full statement at best.

Remember when our founding fathers and patriots fought against the colonial power of Dutch, those brave young heroes ran to the front against the shooting bullets to pull down the red-white-blue colonial flag just to rip out the blue part and put it high again. The red and white was on the air. The red and white is on the air. And that time, patriots fell down in smile.

He reminds us, however, that the same national flag could mean both ways, good or bad:

Yet, when everyday you read news on corruption, that so many of the rich are in fact embezzlers or pirates of national budgets, you may worry that the extravagant red-and-white exhibition simply equals theatrical gambits of falseness. You may then worry that short after the celebration of 17 August, the house owners would be seen in TV with handcuff and sadly bowing heads, being brought to court for corruption trial. However, you may also worry too much.

Sid Bachtiar, an Indonesian software engineer stays in New Zealand, writes an interesting finding about some names of softwares which seems incidentally similar to familiar names in Indonesia:

The name of one of Apache subprojects, Jakarta, is the name of Indonesia’s capital city.

Java is one of Indonesia’s islands.

Java man is not someone who does Java programming.

(more…)

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Bangladesh Blog Buzz:

Rezwan · 12:09

What the Bangladeshi blogs are saying:

* Tourism: Razib at the South Asia Biz lists 12 reasons why you should travel Bangladesh -the land of greenery.

* Education: Rajputro sheds a light on the reason behind the recent student protests in the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, his Alma Mater.

* Business: South Asia Biz reports that in Sitaranpur, a Bangladesh village, human families are engaging themselves for making nests instead of birds for export to foreign countries.

* Politics: Salam Dhaka is critic of the latest debacle between the Executive Chairman of the Board of Investment (BoI) of Bangladesh and the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), an independent research organization.

Shafiur of imperfect | world | 2006 terms the action of the BOI chairman as the Singapore method of taking down opponents.

Nazim Farhan Choudhury of Conversations with an Optimist accuses the civil society of ranting and criticizing at each possible developments. The Bangladeshi civil society fails to name the solution every time.

* Review: ‘The self-realization along with the path of Love and the infinite mercy of God' -this is the theme of the book ‘Master of the Jinn’ by Irving Karchmar reviewed by Sadiq of Inspirations and Creative Thoughts.

* Identity: Sid H Arthur of Serious Golmal discusses the identity issues of the Bangladeshis.

* War: Tazzy of A sunshine too brief has some questions after hearing the news of the imminent cease fire in the Middle East.
Will it last?
Will it even end anything?

* Literature: Shamsur Rahman, the most popular poet of Bangladesh died at 77. The blogosphere mourned the death with the nation. Shahriar Karim of Khero Khata complains that the prime minister and the leader of opposition, nor even the president, had enough time to visit the poet in his death bed.

* Culture: Razib of South Asia Biz tells the way tea is generally made in roadside tea stalls in Bangladesh.

* Weather: Expat blog Akash & Nila coins a list of how tos to stay cool during summer in Bangladesh.

* Bangla Blog: The Bangla language blogging platform Bandh Bhangar Awaaj is growing strong with more than 50000 page views everyday. It is full of activities of more than 2500 registered users with daily postings of news, prose and poetries and lots of comments and criticisms. From contemporary issues like politics, religion to travelogue or reviews of cinemas you will find everything here. If you know the Bengali language you should not miss this site.

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Cambodia: New Story Tellers on the Internet

Tharum Bun · 06:29

lingua → zhs · zht

According to a research report released recently by Pew Internet, most webloggers don't consider themselves doing journalism. In most cases they are not up to what a journalist does. In Cambodian blogosphere, there exists a series of interviews done by digital citizens playing the role of citizen's media.

Chan Bopha, a Cambodian woman in Japan, does a self-interview to tell a story about herself. One among many other questions Chan Bopha asks: “did you have boyfriend?” In her response, she lets us know that Cambodian conservation culturally does not allow woman having boyfriend before getting married, unlike people in Europe.

In August, media student Vanndeth spoke to Cambodian native Lim Borey, who currently is pursuing higher education in Malaysia. The interview provides an insight into Borey's life as an outstanding university student. That is something that you cannot find frequently in local newspapers. (more…)

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