1. PUPUD -- 1 x 35
1. PUPUD -- 1 x 35
Pupud Saripudin, a dedicated driver
Urip Hudiono
The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Becoming part of the intensely discussed busway project is
more than just a question of pride or making a better livelihood
for a bus driver like Pupud Saripudin.
It is a chance to show the public that a bus driver too
understands what that sacred word professionalism means -- a
conviction born out of his concern about the widespread
impression that Jakarta's bus drivers are reckless and lawless.
"I want to show the public that bus drivers can also drive
with a high level of discipline and expertise, while providing
premium service as well to their passengers," said 42-year-old
Pupud recently, prior to the launch of the TransJakarta Busway on
Thursday.
For sure Pupud's remark will come as a relief for those who
are concerned about the city's poor public transportation service
for it does not come from a smooth-talking politician but it
comes from someone who has in fact spent more than a decade
plying Jakarta's streets.
Pupud, the father of three children, has not a single traffic
violation on his record.
Pupud was one of the 100 bus drivers who was nominated for the
city's best bus driver award last year and the only one from his
Steady Safe bus company, making him his company's number one
candidate to be trained as a busway bus driver. He later joined
the training at the National Police Traffic Training Center in
Serpong, Tangerang, with 115 other drivers for the busway
project.
"I feel honored, and will try to do my best," he said, as he
buckled up before adeptly test-driving one of the buses around
the training center.
Born in Cimahi, West Java, Pupud said that he had little
choice, anyway, than to strive to be the best he could.
"All I am skilled in is driving buses, and maybe a little bit
of engine tinkering. So I might as well give my whole soul to
it," he said.
Like so many other urban migrants coming from small towns to
the big city to try their luck, Pupud came to Jakarta in 1979 to
look for work to put himself through school.
"Since I couldn't afford to pay my senior technical vocational
school (STM) fees, I decided to go find work in Jakarta rather
than burden my parents," he said.
Arriving at the capital, Pupud was lucky enough to get a job
as a mechanic at an auto repair shop through some of his hometown
friends.
"It was an auto repair shop for those American jeeps. You
know, those Willys jeeps," he said, adding that it was there that
he first learned how to drive.
Pupud's driving experience broadened when his employer asked
him to drive delivery trucks for a chemical plant, as well as
occasionally drive buses for his family outings.
In 1985, Pupud's employer gave him a reference to work with
Big Bird, Blue Bird Group's chartered bus division, before he
finally joined Steady Safe buses in 1993.
Pupud worked for 10 years at Steady Safe; seven years serving
the Lebak Bulus-Senen route, before the route was expanded to
Depok-Kota by his company three years ago.
In September 2003, it turned out that his driving was being
discreetly monitored by officers from the Jakarta Transportation
Agency and the Jakarta Police traffic division.
"I didn't know I was being monitored. I only knew when my
company notified me that I was summoned by the transportation
agency but I didn't know what I was being summoned for," he
recalled.
Two weeks of extensive training on traffic regulations,
driving skills and etiquette in October 2003 was what the
transportation agency summoned Pupud for, as they had chosen him
as a model bus driver.
"It was similar to training I received at the training center
in Serpong back in 1995. And afterwards, we received the honor of
being accepted by the governor at City Hall, and were then
awarded as the city's best bus drivers for 2003," Pupud said.
But he did not become complacent after receiving the award, as
he now felt that he had an even greater responsibility of
upholding his professionalism as a bus driver.
"I would feel so humiliated now if I was honked at by other
motorists or if passengers complained about my driving," he said.
Pupud has also become more critical since he received his
training, particularly about certain traffic regulations where he
has direct knowledge and experience as a public transportation
bus driver.
"If the government wants bus drivers and passengers to comply
with Law No.14/1992 on highway traffic that requires all buses to
stop only at shelters, then they have to make sure the shelters
are built at convenient locations," he said.
Meanwhile, concerning the busway project itself, Puput
expressed hope that the public support it, though he also
understood the criticism toward it.
"Please give us a chance to show that we can be good drivers,"
he said, as he stepped out of the busway bus he just test drove.
Residing in a modest house in Bekasi, Pupud admits that he has
high hopes that the prestigious project can also improve his
welfare.
While one should of course keep an eye out for any emerging
flaws of the project, one should also think again before merely
canning it without cause, as many ordinary, or "little people" --
are pinning their hopes on it.
And the dedicated bus driver Pupud Saripudin, is but one of
those "little people".
2. MAO -- 1 x 45
Mao's grandson a big chip off the old block
Jonathan Ansfield
Reuters
Beijing
Mao Xinyu seldom calls him grandpa any more.
He usually refers to his illustrious forebear as Chairman Mao,
or simply Chairman, reserving the full name of China's once-
deified leader for when he cites his political canon.
"In this new century, this new period of history, to publicise
Mao Zedong's thought, to carry forward Chairman Mao's glorious
image, this work is even more important than before," he says,
intoning a well-rehearsed sermon.
More than a quarter-century after his death in 1976, Mao's
continuing status as a global pop icon contrasts with the
increasingly acknowledged bankruptcy of his politics, a pretext
for all kinds of irony.
The burden of reconciling China's past and present has been
thrust on the distended frame of his grandson, who is said to
have grown up sheltered by servants and guards, kidding
classmates about what he'd do when he took power.
In a generation of "little emperors", he appeared to fit the
mould better than any, logging mediocre test scores and tipping
the scales at more than 250 lbs (114 kg).
Today, as an army-trained Mao historian and lieutenant
colonel, Xinyu, 33, remains a ceremonial figure. But while he has
slimmed little, he has matured a good deal.
Sitting back in a voluminous green uniform, swearing to uphold
Mao's guerrilla gospel, he faintly resembles his grandfather --
part country bumpkin, part quixotic bookworm, part sprawled-out
sovereign.
"Aya, there's pressure, there's pressure," he sighed, with a
puffy-cheeked grin, at the end of an interview. "Because the
whole nation's people have their eyes on me."
Moments after Xinyu left, one of his publicity aides at the
Academy of Military Sciences explained that "pressure" was meant
to convey filial respect, all the more so for an ancestor of his
grandfather's stature.
Mao's 110th birthday, Dec. 26, came and went last month,
making no great waves in Chinese public life.
The Communist Party aired the usual television hagiographies
while capitalistic co-sponsors peddled the latest gimmicks, from
books spinning Mao's wartime survival tactics into management
tips to hip-hop music recordings of his trademark theories.
Xinyu, for his part, did a rare run of interviews and book
signings to promote his new anecdotal history, Grandpa Mao
Zedong.
The paperback has sold several tens of thousands of copies,
the Ph.D. replied modestly when asked. Later he suggested, "I'll
give you the rights. You can translate it!"
The Great Helmsman named him Xinyu, or "new universe".
His father, Mao Anqing, the chairman's second son, was a party
interpreter before succumbing to schizophrenia; his mother Shao
Hua, an esteemed photojournalist, is a major-general. His wife is
also in the army.
In China's elite circles today, many so-called princelings
milk their pedigree to find jobs in prize industries, from real
estate (party boss Hu Jintao's daughter) to semi-conductors
(military chief Jiang Zemin's son). Some hold official posts
themselves.
For Mao's heirs, the chambers of party power were seemingly
off limits, the boardrooms of business sure to incur scandal.
So the family -- said to suffer from bad genes and be subject to
bad grudges by elites rehabilitated after the Chairman's 1966-76
Cultural Revolution -- came to depend on the military.
Xinyu insists his clan simply have their own special calling,
to act as "successors" to Mao's revolutionary work.
"As the Chairman's relatives, we must take heed to serve the
people at every turn," he said.
As for those counter-revolutionaries who exploit Mao's image
for personal gain, with kitsch cigarette lighters and so on, he
has a rosy-red outlook: "If you ask to me look at these phenomena
and what they relate to, I believe China's common people want to
have beliefs and spiritual sustenance."
"Since the 100th anniversary especially, I feel that common
Chinese people's spiritual beliefs and spiritual sustenance have
been embodied in Chairman Mao."
That was less than apparent in the capital on Mao's 110th
birthday. While many stopped to snap souvenir photos before the
Tiananmen rostrum, where Mao proclaimed the People's Republic in
1949 and where his portrait still keeps watch, perhaps as many
lined up outside department stores for shots with Santa Claus.
Xinyu said that one reason he wrote his book was to dispel
certain Mao "myths", although he declined to cite examples.
The authorities have banned some books over the years, such as
physician Li Zhisui's notorious portrayal of Mao as a randy
megalomaniac. Even a sanctioned new memoir by another doctor,
Wang Hebin, devotes pages to Mao's pet phrase fang pi -- to "pass
gas".
There are no "fang pi" tales from his grandson, who said his
clearest memory was of the day Mao died. Xinyu writes that the
radical thinker also took frugality to an extreme, preferring to
wear pajamas patched in 67 places rather than replace them.
As with many Chinese biographies of the late Chairman, 90
percent of Xinyu's volume focuses on the pre-1949 Mao, credited
with emancipating the masses after millennia of feudalism. The
Mao blamed for 30-50 million deaths from famine during the Great
Leap Forward and millions more in the Cultural Revolution goes
unmentioned.
But even this self-styled Mao disciple bows to the accepted
verdict in China: Mao made mistakes, but his contributions
exceeded them.
"He was mainly exploring how to build China's socialist road,"
Xinyu said. "In this exploration, it was hard to avoid mistakes."
The party Mao helped found has spent most of the time since his
death trying to unravel his radical collectivist policies, the
latest step a constitutional amendment moderately strengthening
private property rights.
Would Mao have approved? His grandson, echoing the party's
official rationale, said Mao always envisaged the need for a
private sector to forge conditions for socialism.
"So in relation to multiple economic components, this big
issue, I think Chairman Mao would not be opposed to it."
Thus the heir, who writes of his grandfather as "the spine of the
Chinese people", declares his unswerving faith that the present
times are an extension of Mao's own.
"The current state of the country, that it could develop his
work and his thought, I think he would be happy about."
Mao would undoubtedly be amused by his progeny's efforts to
augment his legend. On Mao's birthday, Dec. 26, Mao Xinyu's wife
gave birth to the chairman's first great-grandson.
"The name is not decided," said the blushing father. "But his
nickname is Dongdong."
REUTERS
GetRTR 3.00 -- JAN 14, 2004 08:39:50