Rice steamers, heirloom 'kris' sent to the pawn shop

Rice steamers, heirloom 'kris' sent to the pawn shop

By Gin Kurniawan and Berchman Heroe

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Three middle-aged women walked down the steep
hill in Rongkop district, Gunungkidul regency. They went to the
roadside and waited for hours for the bus that would take them to
Wonosari, the capital of the regency, 40 kilometers away.

Their final destination: a state pawnshop.

"May I help you to get things done fast, Ma'am? What would you
like to pawn?" a woman greeted them warmly as they arrived at the
building.

It turned out that she was only a broker offering her services
for Rp 1,000 per customer. The three women, Poniyem, 55, Sumiyah,
54 and Ngadiyah, 56, agreed. They had come a long way and they
were thankful somebody was there to help.

Poniyem pawned her rice pan dandang (large vessel for steaming
rice) for Rp 25,000, but the pawnshop rejected the request of
Sumiyah and Ngadiyah to pawn their plates. As they did not want
to go home empty-handed, Sumiyah, as well as Ngadiyah, took the
rings from their fingers.

They said they wanted to buy seeds for peanuts and corn, but
had no money at all because of a harvest failure.

"It was a complete failure. Everything was destroyed by rats
and monkeys," Poniyem said.

It is not the first time that the harvest has failed. In the
past, despite such harvest failures, she still had some money
because she used to receive financial support from her children
who worked in Jakarta. But it has been a long time since they
last sent money and Poniyem does not have the heart to ask about
it as she knows they are facing hardship, too.

"They did not even come home during this year's Idul Fitri.
They said they were busy looking for a new job because the
business in their former workplace was over," said Poniyem, whose
husband died five years ago.

Therefore, she had to pawn the dandang. She said she would not
have any problem cooking rice because she still has a small pot
for cooking.

The pawnshop has apparently become a savior during the crisis
as it provides instant cash for clients.

Before the crisis hit the country in July 1997, there were
between 2,000 and 3,000 people who went to the pawnshop in a
month. But now the number is between 3,500 and 4,000. There is
also a wider variety of goods pawned.

The storeroom of the pawn shop is now no longer dominated by
valuables like motorcycles, refrigerators, TV sets, radio sets or
other electric ware, and gold jewelry. Now household articles and
kitchen utensils worth a few thousand or tens of thousands of
rupiah dominate the scene.

There are also heirlooms like kris (ornamental daggers). But
not all heirloom kris can be pawned because only those with in-
laid gold are eligible. "We do not assess the magic power of a
kris but only consider its gold content," said Joko Suryanto,
head of the pawnshop. A gold plated kris could fetch between Rp 5
million and Rp 10 million.

Joko is also picky about household articles and kitchen
utensils. "If we accepted just anything, we would be
overwhelmed."

A dandang is among the kitchen utensils accepted. Almost every
household has such a dandang, which is used on a special occasion
when they need to cook a large quantity of rice.

In one month 500 is the average number of dandang taken by
the shop. The assessed value of a rice cooker is dependent on its
weight and type. Rice cookers covered with soot are valued at Rp
10,000 a kilogram, while new ones fetch Rp 15,000 a kilogram.

The Gunungkidul pawnshop accepts all kinds of cloth. Among the
most-pawned are sarongs and kain jarit (a piece of loose batik
cloth used to wrap around the body from the waist down), bed
sheets and kebaya (traditional blouse).

"Every month we accept an average 1,500 to 2,000 pieces of
cloth," Joko said.

The cloth is priced at between Rp 15,000 and Rp 40,000.

People pawn household articles not only during the monetary
crisis. Joko said it also happens during long droughts and in
times of hardship before harvests. They redeem their goods after
the harvest. "Usually people pawn their goods to buy water or
cattle feed, but now they do it to buy food for themselves," he
said.

Joko said that initially the office allocated Rp 3.5 billion
in 1998. In reality it had to provide Rp 4.44 billion. He
admitted that his agency once ran out of funds in meeting the
demands of the great number of clients. He asked for more funds
from the head office, but was informed that funding was
temporarily suspended. That was why he had to apply the system of
queuing for clients wishing to pawn their goods. With this system
clients had to wait until other clients came to redeem their
goods. Previously clients had to wait a quarter of an hour at the
most to get cash. Now the waiting time was one to two days. The
system has been implemented from the middle until the end of
1998. "Now we do not have any problems because the main office
has been allocating funds again," Joko said.

He said that there are some people who did not redeem the
pawned goods, but that number was relatively small. He said that
the items which were not redeemed were mostly gold, which was
pawned when the price rocketed to more than Rp 100,000/gram. At
that time, the exchange rate to the dollar was almost Rp 20,000.
Now the rupiah is about Rp 9,000 against the dollar and gold is
Rp 70,000/gram.

"We have suffered losses of tens of millions of rupiah because
of the huge amount of gold which has not been redeemed," he said.

Why do people like to go to a pawn shop instead of a bank? The
clients said it is because of simple procedures. They only need
to hand over the items to be pawned and they can get the cash.
The pawnshop also applies low interest, between 1 percent to 1.5
percent a month, or 3 percent to 4.5 percent per three months.

"We won't go to a bank because of the high interest and in any
case we might not be eligible to get a loan. What's more, the
procedures are complex," Poniyem said.

At the banks, the interest rates on credit are more than 40
percent a year. There used to be soft loans for small scale
traders, but the procedures were arduously complex, and now the
program has been stopped.