Frenchman markets new map of Bandung

Frenchman markets new map of Bandung

By Kafil Yamin

BANDUNG (JP): Marc Le Moullec knows Bandung. The young
Frenchman has been driving his 1971 Honda motorcycle through the
streets of the West Java capital for the last four years. The
result: a reliable and user-friendly city map.

For those of us who do not know the ins and outs of the city,
Bandung's seemingly countless one-way streets can drive people's
internal compasses out of whack, even for many of more than 1.8
million residents living there. Your destination may be only a
couple of short kilometers away, but infuriating one-way signs
may force you to roam many times that distance before you can get
there.

Le Moullec's map can make driving for the uninitiated a lot
easier because it marks the directions of these one-way roads. In
fact, no other map of Bandung does this.

The map also includes the city's latest developments, names of
roads in new housing complexes, new offices and new alleys etc.
The extent of the detail makes Le Moullec's product the most
comprehensive map of the city.

Bandung is fast becoming more confusing even for Bandungers
themselves. Developers name new housing complexes without
consideration. "Developers name their housing complexes after the
name of an area that is actually far away from the development.
It causes a great deal of confusion," said Haryoto Kunto, who was
dubbed Kuncen Bandung (Bandung's elderly resident) during the
launch of Le Moullec's map here on Aug. 31.

One developer named his housing complex Cipaganti Graha -- a
name that would make most Bandungers think that it is situated
somewhere near Jl. Cipaganti in the heart of Bandung. But that is
not the case. It is actually located 35 kilometers away from the
street.

Such confusion prompted Le Moullec to produce a map of his own
after he found himself lost in a corner of Bandung four years
ago. The map he was using then offered him next to no assistance.

Following this experience, Le Moullec decided to get a feel
for the city: he drove along canals, broke through bushes, traced
ascending and descending paths and learned which streets went in
only one direction.

A look at Le Moullec's map would make most of Bandung's
elderly residents realize just how little they know about the
area's new developments. But many of them shrug it off.
"Businessmen name their projects what they like. The names have
no cultural link with the original names of the places," said
Haryoto Kunto.

Ask a Bandung taxi driver to take you to a place such as
Istana Regency, Kumala Garden, Mega Raya or Melong Green Garden
and most would ask you for directions before they would even know
which way to start driving.

Sundanese have their own way of naming places. They typically
use ci (water) in names like Cicendo, Cihampelas, Cicaheum and
Cimindi, or babakan (kampong) such as in Babakan Tarogong. They
also identify a flat plot of land with ranca, like Ranca Ekek,
Ranca Bentang and Ranca Balong.

"When Sundanese people hear of a place named ranca, they will
assume that it is in a flat area," Kunto explained. "The current
property businessmen, however, instead favor prestige and
commercial gain when naming their projects," he added.

Le Moullec and his team are poised to market his new map to
distant places, even to Europe, in a move that has made Bandung
officials happy because of potential new exposure for the city.

The French adventurist next plans to produce a map of
Surabaya, the East Java capital. "I think I can do it in a year,"
he said, adding that the city was much less complicated than
Bandung, though much bigger.

But why did a Frenchman do this project? Why not a local? An
easy question to ask, but not easy to answer. Indonesia's oral
culture can help explain this. "When you get lost in Indonesian
cities, you can ask around and people will be happy to point you
in the right direction," said Le Moullec.

"You can do the same thing in European cities, but most people
do it hesitantly. People are usually in a rush, so you can feel
pretty uncomfortable if you ask too many times."

Such a strong oral culture here can be seen from the way taxi
drivers get around while transporting their passengers. Most
don't have a city map with them. If a driver doesn't know where
the place a passenger wants to go, he would rather ask street
vendors, local residents or fellow drivers for directions if the
passenger also doesn't know. Such a practice, though, is time
consuming and often inconvenient.

Some foreigners complain of being taken to wrong places by
taxis, especially when a problem with communicating occurs. This
could be avoided if drivers are equipped with reliable maps.

Le Moullec is not the only foreigner to produce map of an
Indonesian city. Previously, Gunther W. Holtrof, a German,
produced a map of Jakarta that has been quite popular for its
comprehensiveness.

Le Moullec himself is a man of adventure. Born in Paris 32
years ago, he has been visiting distant places since he was 20
years old -- the motivation possibly stemming from the fact that
his father was a sailor.

Sumatra's eastern waters and the island of Nias were his first
places of wander.

Fascinated by their natural beauty, he returned to France to
study Indonesian at the Institut National de Langue et
Civilization Orientale (INALCO) in Paris. He also studied
ethnology and anthropology in Sorbonne.

He was raised and has studied to be a traveler and has visited
isolated areas in Africa, Asia and the Pacific.

Indonesia, though, has impressed him since he was a teenager.
"In my imagination, the Indonesian archipelago was like a magic
intersection in the world to me. Navigators departing from the
South and from the North meet there, an archipelago with 13,000
islands," he recalled.

Now, he said he was happy to have created a map of a place he
had long hoped to visit. But Le Moullec attributed his success to
his Indonesian team.

"Without the help of my Bandung friends, this would have been
impossible," he said.

He won't get lost anymore in Bandung. Even if he doesn't have
his map with him, he has adjusted himself to the oral culture
enough to be able to easily ask questions -- something made
easier by the fact that he has studied Sundanese at Padjadjaran
University.

But one of the things that makes him most pleased is that new
visitors to Bandung will be less likely to get lost if they arm
themselves with his map.