Model Olga peddles books and bicycles

A. Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Model and television presenter Olga Lidya is not afraid that cycling through the city's streets would damage her smooth skin and hairstyle.

"I'm not worried at all. Maybe I could try it on Sunday. But the administration should first build special lanes for cyclists as many other countries have done," Olga told The Jakarta Post after a hairstyle fashion show recently.

Olga said special lanes in the city's main thoroughfares were important for the safety of the cyclists, who would have to negotiate Jakarta's acute traffic jams.

The 171-centimeter-tall model supported the recent campaign by the Bike to Work (B2W) Community, saying that the movement could greatly contribute to reducing the city's air pollution.

In a more metaphysical role, Olga is also the spokeswoman for the Indonesian Chess Association (Percasi).

To keep fit, she regularly exercises on a treadmill at home in the mornings.

Born in Jakarta on Dec. 4, 1976, Olga began her career on the catwalk before working in television and film.

A sinetron (TV soap opera) star of Lo Fen Koe, Olga who has Chinese blood, plays a Chinese girl in the progam that seeks to promote ethnic tolerance and integration in Indonesia.

She also acted in the recent horror flick 12 a:m playing in the Cinema 21 group for months this year.

A fan of Sarah Jessica-Parker's character in the television series Sex and City, Olga's obsession is maintaining her lifestyle as an independent woman.

Preferring loose, casual clothes rather than girly dress-ups, you are more likely to find her in a cafe reading books rather than perched in a beauty parlor.

"Actually, in the past I was a tomboy. I like simple dress," she said.

Olga loves reading and has collected hundreds of books in her private home library.

She recalled that when she was an elementary student, her mother was once angry with her because she spent most of her time reading books and often forgot to study.

A teacher once confiscated a novel she was reading, Earnest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, because she was supposed to be learning the state Pancasila ideology.

A fan of Enid Blyton and Agatha Christie mysteries, her current favorite book is Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.

"Although I'm very busy, I always allocate time to read. Reading gives a valuable thing to me: Knowledge."