Jakarta Fair remains attractive for both adults and children
By Arif Suryobuwono
JAKARTA (JP): From a distance, as dusk was falling, the red neon lights of "Arena Pekan Raya Jakarta", or The Jakarta Fair, shone from their perch atop of the six-story trade mart building in the 44-hectare trade fair complex at Kemayoran, Central Jakarta.
As evening arrived, more and more people came in like ants attracted by sugar. Though clad in their casual wear, they were urbanely dressed. Very few white men but quite a lot of Chinese were seen, perhaps because of the fair's trade element.
The vast compound of the fair ground, however, was not overcrowded and neither were its large parking lots, apparently because that night was Wednesday. Last Saturday, the day the fair was opened by Vice President Try Sutrisno, the visitors totaled almost 72,000. Everything looked neat, new, clean, modern and well organized.
Policemen were seen patrolling here and there. Mulyono S., the chief of the fair's command post, said that during the first three days of the fair 44 people reported being pick-pocketed.
Inside the exhibition halls it was quite difficult to find food stalls. The stink of urine from wheeled public toilets. Blaring lights. Rock music. Coca-cola girls.
No children seemed to be attracted to buy sticks for making bubbles as well as toy parachutes, still popular among children ten to fifteen years ago. The children now rushed to the Dinosaur Park, where they can experience being with robot replicas of the extinct giants for Rp 4,000.
There was also an exhibition of hundreds of rare reptile species coming from all over the world. The exhibition committee had earlier said that it needed 5,000 crickets a day to feed them.
Australia Today
A white-dressed man guarding the entrance to the Australia Today exhibition was calling to passers-by, inviting them to come in. "Advanced technologies inside! See for yourself! Computer monitors which respond to your touch!" the man promoted "Vision of the future".
However, only a few people went in.
Then, the spacious pavilion echoed like a museum, perhaps because the "vision" was no longer new as it was already presented at the 6th Research and Technology Exhibition which was also held there last month.
Next to it was the Taiwan pavilion, featuring various machinery and light industrial products under the auspices of the Taiwan World Trade Center.
The visitors to the Taiwanese chamber were so many that two security guards had to close the entrance door and open it every ten minutes.
The guards told The Jakarta Post they were commanded to do this in order to avoid overcrowding and keep the pavilion comfortable. Why were there so many visitors to the pavilion? Perhaps it was the policy of the Taiwanese chamber to regulate the flow of visitors, which added curiosity and created a crowd in front of the pavilion's entrance.
Some young visitors to the Taiwanese pavilion, when asked why they wanted to see the pavilion, replied flatly they were just sightseeing.
The other foreign pavilions were from Iran and Pakistan. A crowd of people, most of them were men, swarmed the Iranian pavilion which displayed various precious gemstones. A blue sapphire set in silver and marked with the seal of the Iranian government cost Rp 100,000 (US$48), Saeed Javedani, who comes from the Iranian city of Mashhad, told a prospective buyer.
Saeed told the Post that his company would only take part in trade fairs which are held in Islamic countries. He particularly chose Indonesia because "I know that many Indonesian like gem stones".
Anyway, both countries have agreed to boost trade relations and President Soeharto visited Iran last November for the purpose.
The Pakistani pavilion displayed beautiful onyx handicrafts but they did not attract many visitors perhaps because the products are very well known here.
Visitors
That evening of June 22, about 45,000 people visited the 27th Jakarta Fair. Most of them seemed unaware that it was the city's 467th birthday.
It seemed that only those attentive enough to perceive the jovial procession and the sound of rebana (Jakarta traditional tambourine), heralding the arrival of Jakarta Governor Surjadi Soedirja, inquired about this traditional gaiety -- if they had not thought that such procession is commonly found in trade fairs like this one.
Meanwhile a Canadian businessman Solomon Olin told the Post he was irritated by the increasing absence of Indonesian items at the fair.
"There are too many foreign goods here or their imitations. This fair is supposed to be a domestic trade fair, isn't it?," he wondered.
Olin said he didn't quite understand why there were foreign participants. He was also surprised that Indonesians were more attracted to products presented by foreign participants rather than to their own products.
According to Olin, from this fair he got an impression that Indonesians valued foreign products too high and belittled their own products.
Olin might be right but he might not aware that there were pavilions from various Indonesian provinces displaying local products and culture. In the fair you can almost only find modern atmospheres, those of Ancol dreamland, of Mangga Dua and of Pasar Baru shopping centers, the mother city's new, beautiful faces. Oh yes, the older she gets, the prettier.