Devastating Krakatau eruption commemorated
By Joko E.H. Anwar
SERANG, WEST JAVA (JP): Like many hotels around the globe that use historical events to promote their premises, some resort operators in the scenic Anyer Beach area turn to the events of Aug. 27, 1883, when the devastating Mt. Krakatau eruption occurred, to lure guests.
The packages Anyer Beach hoteliers offer differ, but most use local traditions, beliefs and their own versions of the Krakatau eruption in their brochures to attract customers.
The four-star Mambruk Hotel entertained dozens of guests, including foreign and domestic tourists and local officials from Serang regency, on the eve of Aug. 27 with orphans chanting Shalawat Badar (a recital to Prophet Mohammad), a tantalizing magic show and history-telling mixed with folklore, creating a mystically charged atmosphere.
The show started at 7 p.m. From a distance, the silhouette of Krakatau, which killed at least 21,000 people when it erupted 117 years ago, was visible.
A few minutes later, the sound of traditional drums hit by three men and three women, all in their late teens and wearing traditional costumes, mixed with the sound of waves on the beach.
The Rampak Bedug (traditional drum ensemble) show is a traditional Banten performing arts show from West Java and was originally developed from the local custom to hold a drum beating competition at the end of the Ramadhan fasting month.
The event was opened by 20 orphans wearing discolored white robes, who welcomed the guests with flaming torches in their hands and chanting Shalawat Badar.
The orphans, aged between eight and 13 years old, ushered guests to their seats on the beach.
The guests did not seemed very enthusiastic, until three young men from a traditional art troupe, locally called debus, took to the sand stage and forced some oversized needles through their arms, cheeks and other parts of their bodies.
Strangely, no blood was drawn.
"No tetanus or any other infections. Guaranteed," the leader of the troupe, Hasan Basri, 45, said.
The show continued with a man letting his colleagues put a piece of burning fabric on his head and then proceeded to make a sunny-side-up egg in a frying pan on his head.
The guests cheered.
The youngsters continued with more of the same hard-to-believe performances, including dancing on broken glass and eating burning wood.
Despite the daring performance by the troupe, leader Hasan said that the local arts were hard to develop.
"Balinese and East Javanese dancers, for example, have had the chance to perform aboard. Yet for us, it's still very difficult to find audiences outside Java," Hasan said.
Hasan said the lack of local government help to promote local arts had contributed to the slow growth of performing arts.
"This performing art gets almost no promotion. We can't do our own promotions, we just don't have the funds," said Hasan, who once worked at the Krakatau Steel factory in the regency.
He claimed that his group was the most popular among four other troupes in the area.
"Ours does not run very well, imagine how the other four cope," Hasan said.
His group performs every Saturday night at the Mambruk Hotel and is paid Rp 500,000 a night.
"We have to share the income with 20 crew and we still have to pay for transportation. On average, we earn some Rp 15,000 each a week," Hasan said, adding that most of the group members were high school graduates who could not find other work.
He said that local regency officials, under whose supervision the group falls, had become an obstacle for the group to develop further.
"Whenever we get a gig and don't tell them, they get mad at us. But if we do tell them, it means that we have to give a portion of our earnings to them," Hasan said, refusing to elaborate.
Earlier in the afternoon, the manager of the resort, Adrian BS, who seems obsessed with the history of Krakatau, took the guests on a trip around the resort, relating the history of the volcano and mixing it with folklore.
When Adrian was showing a miniature of the volcano, he eerily uttered, "Some genes came from a big tunnel under Krakatau to guide us to create the exact shape of a volcano."
The event ended with guests enjoying cocktails and a buffet while the art troupe gathered nearby awaiting their pay.
The resort is one many similar recreational places which occupy the vast Anyer Beach.
Vice Regent Taufik Nuriman said the local government would suggest that all resorts slightly move back from the beach.
"The presence of the resorts bothers the locals because they use the beach in many daily activities, such fishing," Taufik told The Jakarta Post.
Taufik said the suggestion to hotels to move back from the beach would be put forth after Banten was established as a new province, separating it from West Java province.
House of Representatives Speaker Akbar Tandjung recently said that Banten would officially become the country's 28th province on Oct. 4.