A slice of life with Johnny Andrean<\/p>\n
Bruce James, Contributor, Jakarta<\/p>\n
While the tough may get going when the going gets tough,
\nhairstylist-cum-bread store owner Johnny Andrean is firmly
\nconvinced that it's better to have a plan B at the ready.<\/p>\n
A self-confessed positive thinker, he learned his lesson the
\nhard way in May 1998.<\/p>\n
Professional and private success as one of the country's
\nleading hairstylists and a husband and father of four counted for
\nnothing after 19 of his salons were picked clean by looters in
\nthe rioting preceding president Soeharto's exit from power.<\/p>\n
\"They took everything -- the air-con, the chairs, towels, even
\nthe shampoo sinks. Can you imagine that? In one year, you can
\nopen maybe four or five salons, but in one night 19 were
\ngone ...,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"I told all my employees that we're in this together, and we
\nmoved the employees from the closed salons to other ones. Nobody
\ncomplained even though they were losing part of their
\ncommission.\"<\/p>\n
Tall, lean Johnny, who now wears his hair shoulder length and
\nlooks younger than his 43 years, soon left with his family for
\nthe United States, returning by himself three months later. He
\nand his wife, Tina, a bridal gown designer, now divide their time
\nbetween Jakarta and a home near San Francisco, where his children
\nare in school.<\/p>\n
The panic and anxiety he experienced during those days of
\nmayhem are gone, but the traumatic memories remain, and were
\nbrought back recently by the images of lawlessness in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Still, unlike some Chinese-Indonesians who continue to waver
\non returning to their homeland, Johnny is embarking on a new
\nventure where the cloying fragrance of hair spray is nowhere to
\nbe found.<\/p>\n
Located in cavernous Mal Kelapa Gading in the upmarket North
\nJakarta suburb, Bread Talk is touted as a \"premier boutique
\nbakery\", its gleaming silver racks holding breads bestowed with
\ncatchy names such as \"Crouching Tiger, Hidden Bacon\" and
\n\"Osambal\", the latter so named in dual homage to its spicy
\nfilling and the most wanted man in America.<\/p>\n
Johnny believes the new business is not such a radical
\ndeparture from his usual vocation. For one, the shop, as with
\nhairdressing, is meeting a public need, with Johnny remarking
\nthat more Indonesians are eating bread.<\/p>\n
And it's a boutique after all, its glass-enclosed, open-plan
\ndesign looking more like an Italian fashion store than a bakery.<\/p>\n
\"When I saw this store in Singapore for the first time, I
\nrealized the concept was so different from other bakeries,\" he
\nsaid. \"It's like fashion -- they create the shape, the name,
\nwhich is so unique in itself and has its own story ... And I love
\nfashion and style.\"<\/p>\n
Business has been brisk in the three weeks since the opening,
\nJohnny said, with the rolls and buns selling like, well,
\nhotcakes. It could be put down to the novelty value, with Jakarta
\nresidents always looking to latch onto the latest food trend
\nbefore discarding it for the next flavor of the month, but on a
\nrecent Friday afternoon there were still long queues snaking out
\nof the store and past a neighboring coffee shop.<\/p>\n
Johnny may be cooking up success in the bread business, but he
\nis not about to hang up his scissors at his salons, now numbering
\n187 across the country.<\/p>\n
The son of a businessman and a salon owner, Johnny was born
\none of five children in the bustling city of Pontianak in West
\nKalimantan.<\/p>\n
\"I helped my mother in her salon from when I was very
\nyoung ... The salon part is from my mother, but the business side
\nis from my father, he was a very wise man and both my parents
\nsupported me.\"<\/p>\n
Johnny said he loved the freedom hairstyling gave him to help
\nclients stand out by changing their look. He moved to Jakarta in
\nthe early 1980s, starting small with a salon in North Jakarta and
\nopening a second a couple of years later.<\/p>\n
\"I saw that the problem in building the salon business here is
\nhow to keep the stylists, because mostly they want to have their
\nown business and in Indonesia it's not difficult to own your own
\nsalon,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Johnny's solution was to open training schools, graduating
\nstylists equipped with the necessary skills to move into his
\nexpanding network of salons.<\/p>\n
Apart from the training centers, he emphasizes building
\nrelationships with his employees.<\/p>\n
\"We give them a good salary, a good bonus, a commission, but
\npeople also need care, because other people can always pay them
\nmore. We try to keep close to them, and listen to what they want,
\nso hopefully we can keep them as long as possible.\"<\/p>\n
He credits Tina with supporting him in building the business,
\nwhich also includes a range of hair-care products, and exploring
\nnew fields.<\/p>\n
\"A family, the people you love, motivate you to be the best,\"
\nhe said. \"Other people don't care about tomorrow, what they get
\ntoday they spend, but I have my children, and I have to take care
\nof their future. I have to keep doing the best for them.\"<\/p>\n
Although Indonesia is a huge market for beauty products,
\nJohnny said hairstylists and salon owners needed to understand
\nthe subtleties of keeping the customer satisfied.<\/p>\n
\"A salon is not only the skill of the haircut, but how it
\ntreats the customers, that still needs to be developed in
\nIndonesia. In my salons, I prefer more personalized service, one-
\non-one, so when they come in, we're like friends ...\"<\/p>\n
He said there was also an urgent need for control of the
\nindustry, with anyone able to call themselves a hairstylist and
\nwork through their ambitions on an unwitting victim.<\/p>\n
In general, Johnny is optimistic about the future, believing
\nthat Indonesian society is opening up and becoming more tolerant,
\nespecially the younger generation.<\/p>\n
But it's also a case of once bitten, twice shy.<\/p>\n
\"In 1997, people told me to move my kids to the U.S. or
\nAustralia because something would happen, and I said no, I wanted
\nmy kids with me, and that there were a lot of foreigners in
\nJakarta, it would be protected,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"What happened in '98 really hit me, my positive thinking
\nrebounded on me. I'm still optimistic, but now I have something
\nto fall back on, and not just panic when something happens.
\nThere's a plan A and a plan B now.\"<\/p>",
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