Cartoons serve up food from an Asian perspective
Cartoons serve up food from an Asian perspective
By Ingrid Maack
JAKARTA (JP): For most people Asian food might seem to be an
unlikely source of inspiration for a cartoon. However, through
the eyes of Asia's best known cartoonists, it becomes a vehicle
for poignant commentaries on contemporary social issues and the
cultural characteristics of Asian nations. Food in Asia Seen
Through Cartoons is the theme of the Third Asian Cartoon
Exhibition currently being exhibited at the Japanese Cultural
Center in Central Jakarta.
By combining the often absurd with everyday gastronomical
humor, cartoonists can use food as a symbol of inequality,
poverty, consumerism and cultural imperialism.
The exhibition features 80 cartoons by cartoonists from eight
of the world's most populous nations -- Indonesia, Japan, China,
India, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar and the Philippines.
This year's theme follows in the wake of the World Food Summit
held in Rome last November to address the precarious state of the
world's food demand. Similarly, the destruction of forests and
farmland to make way for rapid urbanization and industry is
exacting a heavy toll on the world's ecosystems and systems of
food production. In most Asian nations, food production is
lagging behind rapid population growth.
Chinese cartoonist Shen Tian-Cheng, senior editor of Wen Hui
daily and one of China's leading cartoonists, points out the
dehumanizing effect of mass food production in his work From
Harvest to techno food. In Tian-Cheng's cartoon, technology is
the food of the future, a situation in which farmers no longer
work with nature but with data instead. The cartoon depicts a
farmer harvesting a field, the heads of the crop metamorphosing
into bar codes.
In Gilo-Gilo (Contemptuous), Indonesian cartoonist and
literary editor of Suara Merdeka daily Prie GS voices a cultural
complaint about the encroachment of Western fast food on Asian
diets and culture. In the work, a street seller pushing his cart
cowers at the sight of multinational fast food establishments. In
another cartoon, he mocks the scarcity of water and the ready
availability of soft drinks, depicting an Indonesian water
buffalo drinking from a trough of Coke as the farmer perched on
the animal's back drinks from a can of Pepsi. A not unrealistic
situation in which brand identification exists within the
country's paddy fields.
Perhaps Prie GS' most touching cartoon is The Farmer's
Metamorphosis, a triptych depicting the journey of an Indonesian
farmer to the city. Once a proud farmer riding a water buffalo,
he trades his beast for a car, but does not find fortune in the
big city and is instead reduced to the status of a beggar. A
pattern of emigration and a fate not uncommon in Indonesia.
Editorial cartoonist of the Manila Bulletin Norman B. Isaac
points out the power of fast food advertising in his work The
Hamburgerization of the New Generation, a sinister depiction of a
child literally torn between the grips of hamburger characters
Ronald McDonald and the Filipino Jolli Bee. In another work,
titled Project Coconut Cloning, he creates a parody of current
food technology research, showing a synthetic food scientist
waking from a nightmare in which his team has cloned the wrong
nut, namely Adolf Hitler.
The event is organized by the Japanese Cultural Center and the
Japan Foundation in cooperation with the Association of
Indonesian Cartoonists.
Also included in the exhibition are 20 works from local
Indonesian cartoonists, a feature which the cartoonists'
association president, Pramono R. Pramoedjo, believes will
encourage new cartooning talent.
The message is clear in M. Syaifudon Ifod's cartoon, showing a
Jakarta scene in which a foreign couple queue for traditional
food from a street seller, while a group of Indonesians laugh and
point while queuing for fast food.
Indonesia, explained Pramoedjo, has a cartooning history which
dates back to the revolutionary days before its independence in
1945. Many of these early works were caricatures mocking the
Dutch colonists.
"Cartooning also was influenced by the works of Indonesian
Expressionist painter Affandi. Many of his sketches were not
unlike cartoons, and there also was a satirical message within
many of his works," said Pramoedjo.
Pramoedjo commented that the reform movement and the fast
changing media environment freed, to some extent, the hands of
many of Indonesia's newspaper cartoonists.
"In the past we had to tread carefully, and often use symbols
to represent leaders, but today's satire is much more direct."
The exhibition, which is located on the second floor at the
Hall of the Japanese Cultural Center, Sumitmas building, Jl.
Jend. Sudirman Kav. 61-62, South Jakarta, is open to the public
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Aug. 3.