Man, this must be 'foreign' land

Man, this must be 'foreign' land

JAKARTA (JP): Name a foreign place that you don't need a
passport to get into. Answer: Bekasi, West Java.

At least that is how Minister of Information Harmoko feels
every time he visits the sprawling administrative town, adjacent
to Jakarta, where new housing complexes using foreign names are
mushrooming alongside the growing industrial estates.

"If you go to Bekasi, you'll feel like you're on foreign land.
There's 'lakeside' this, 'highland' that...," Harmoko said on
Saturday.

The minister was speaking to reporters after meeting with
President Soeharto at the Bina Graha presidential office to
report on the preparations for the upcoming National Awakening
Day on May 20.

Harmoko, who heads the committee in charge of the
preparations, said that President Soeharto would be launching a
campaign on the correct use of the Indonesian language.

One aim of the campaign appears to be to reverse the creeping
use of foreign terms.

"Why 'Lippo City', and not 'Lippo Pura'? And why not use
'taman' instead of 'garden'? Why should we go crazy with foreign
terminology?," Harmoko asked. "Take 'Bina Graha' and 'Pondok
Indah', for example. Don't they sound nice?"

The President feels, according to the minister, that promoting
the proper and correct use of Bahasa Indonesia is part and parcel
of the drive to strengthen national unity.

Besides the language campaign, Soeharto will also launch a
national discipline drive on National Awakening Day.

Officials earlier said that the drive would aim to promote
some simple but fundamental forms of discipline, such as queuing,
maintaining cleanliness and showing up for work on time. (emb)