German Oktoberfest will also open to Jakartans

JAKARTA (JP): On Sept. 29, Jakartans, Germans and Bavarians, and other communities that know the excitement of an Oktoberfest will be celebrating the event in a truly hurly-burly manner, right in the center of this city.

For most Germans and Bavarians living in Indonesia, it will be a sentimental journey back to their first visit to the meadows where the Oktoberfest was held -- carried high up on their fathers' shoulders for a better view of the festzelt.

What's the Oktoberfest all about?

Even though it is cursed and criticized by some, the Oktoberfest, which is a beer festival held in Munich at the end of September, to put it in a nutshell, attracts approximately eight million people every year, and they love every minute of it. None of them get exhausted even though festivities last for 16 days.

Despite the many "ifs and buts", nobody can deny that the Oktoberfest has a certain charm and fascination, which gets under people's skin.

Whatever it is, every year thousands of foreign guests descend on Munich for the 16-day event, which the French call la fete de la biere and the Americans the Oktoberfest. The people of Munich say simply d'Wies'n, which means the meadows, an abbreviation of Theresienwiese, named after Princess Therese von Sachsen- Hidburhausen.

In 1810 the Oktoberfest came into being, thanks to a smart cabbie. Or rather, it came into being again, because in the meadows where the Oktoberfest was to find its home, there had been the centuries-old tradition of a horse race.

The race was called the Red Race because the first prize was a scarlet scarf. A cabdriver named Franz Baumgartner, who was also a noncommissioned officer in the Bavarian National Guard, suggested celebrating the marriage of Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen to the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig (later King Ludwig I) with a horse race, and that's how it all started.

Next week, the Hotel Aryaduta Jakarta will host an Oktoberfest, with the promise of loads of authentic food prepared under the supervision of resident German chefs, Oliver Kreutz and Ingo Maass. There will be sumptuous cooking stations, barrels of beer, music provided by The Bauer Band, specially flown in from Munich just for the occasion, and unrestrained merrymaking.

In the past years, the Aryaduta celebrated the Oktoberfest with their corporate clients only.

"This year," says General Manager Manfred Kalcher, "we will also open our doors to the Indonesian community and our German and German-speaking friends."

This means that you too can go to this year's Oktoberfest, dressed in traditional Bavarian outfits. If you are not the daring type, just play it safe and dress smart casual, and no one will raise an eyebrow when you make an entrance at the Panti Surya Ballroom, where the party is being held.

-- Marianne Pereira