Japan Foundation sponsors three-day cultural festival

By Rebecca Mowbray

JAKARTA (JP): While the Japanese prime minister is busy meeting Indonesian leaders this weekend, Indonesians can sample Japanese culture at the Japan Foundation.

In honor of Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto's first official visit to Jakarta, the Japan Foundation is sponsoring a three-day cultural festival at the Summitmas Tower on Jl. Sudirman in South Jakarta. The festival, opened yesterday, will end tomorrow.

The exhibit ranges from the natural ideals of bonsai, ikebana and suiseki, to a photo exhibit of Japanese life and a Japanese film festival that together offer a balanced slice of Japanese culture.

A tour through the bonsai room is a peaceful respite from the honking traffic along Jl. Sudirman. Tiny trees stand elegantly, their trunks twisting with wisdom atop roots that reach for the edge of their pots with conviction.

Bonsai, the art of clipping and coaxing trees to miniaturized perfection, was started by the Chinese more than 1,000 years ago, but has been cultivated by the Japanese. The idea is to transform an ordinary tree into art.

"It can look like nature, but we can make it even better, the ideal of nature," said Budi Sulistyo, director of the Indonesian Bonsai Association. "It is the expression of how we try to make peace in the world through the creation of art."

The best bonsai have interesting curves that convey wisdom, branches that do not cross, and roots that resemble a hand with outstretched fingers. There should be balance between the roots, trunk and branches, and the overall shape of the tree should be esthetically pleasing, he said.

Creating bonsai can take years, beginning with either a seed, an existing tree or a cutting, a twig from an existing tree. Care for the bonsai requires clipping the roots every two years to keep the tree small and training the trunk and branches to grow in interesting ways by wrapping them with wire.

Next to the bonsai is a room full of ikebana, a Japanese flower arrangement. Unlike the miniaturized soft green world of the bonsai, the ikebana reach for the sky and vary greatly in style and color. The arrangements are brilliantly simple, with lots of space between the vibrant flowers or delicate tree branches, but the space only highlights the stark beauty of their forms.

Some are classic ikebana, with flowered branches balanced in bamboo tubes, while others are modern freestyle ikebana, with plant leaves curled and secured in interesting ways around their vases.

All of these pieces of classic Japanese art are made by Indonesians here in Jakarta. The Japan Foundation points out that it can coordinate instruction in bonsai or ikebana-making for anyone who is interested.

Visitors to the exhibit can also tour modern Japan through a photo exhibit of Japanese life or the Japanese film festival. The photo exhibit features the work of several Japanese photographers who sought to capture the many sides of life in modern Japan. The films to be shown today and tomorrow are the perennial favorites of the Japan Foundation's 100-title film library. All films are subtitled in Indonesian.