Swimming with the fish at Barito Market

Swimming with the fish at Barito Market

By Mehru Jaffer

JAKARTA (JP): There may be others, but it is the market around
Jl. Barito in South Jakarta that seems to be the fishiest place
in town. Yet the market is also one of the most frequented
places, especially for all those who love birds, flowers, fruits
and fish.

With more than 50 colorful kiosks and nearly 200 people
attending to hundreds of species of fish both big and small, the
Barito Market is marked by hustle and bustle all day long. On the
first weekend of every month even the stars are said to come down
to Barito in search of their favorite fish.

It is not unusual to rub shoulders here with the rich, and
famous fish fans, from military generals and tycoons to show
business personalities.

Putut, who services the nearly 100 aquariums owned by Rano
Karno, said the actor-director has the most fascinating
collection of fish in his house.

Putut's own favorite is an African variety but many people are
crazy about the colorful koi.

Koi is none other than the common carp whose ancestral home is
thought to be Iran. The wild carp was carried to Japan, China and
Western Europe by traders about a thousand years ago. Along the
line it became the national fish of Japan, where it was called
Nishikigoi, nishiki being the local word for a highly colored
cloth. The fish can be seen today in many ancient paintings, its
representation adorning utensils, pottery, sculptures and
carvings from Asia and the Far East.

Koi was bred in Japan in the 1820s in the town of Ojiya, where
rice farmers introduced carp into their irrigation ponds to
supplement their diet of rice. Color mutations, involving red,
white and light yellow, were first noticed in the early 1800s and
the eventual cross-breeding of red and white carp produced the
koi as it is known today and that has over the years come to
symbolize good luck and prosperity.

Yadi, 27, a koi specialist at Budi's kiosk, says that a rare
variety of the fish can sell for as much as Rp 8 million. The
Indonesian variety can be bought for as little as Rp 15,000.
While the koi is kept in a pond by pet lovers, the equally
expensive arwana is an aquarium fish.

Apart from bringing luck both the fish are also considered
status symbols among the nouveau riche. The favorite fish of the
not so wealthy is the lively koki.

Yadi, a high school graduate, has been selling fish for 10
years and his dream is to have his own kiosk. He earns a Rp
500,000 wage and receives a 10 percent commission on the sale of
fish for the entire month.

He said his profession is lucrative enough.

"It all depends upon me. The more I sell, the higher my income
is," he said.

Each month he is able to make sales of between Rp 6 million
and Rp 10 million. When luck favors he sells even more.

Marcus earns much less but he loves being with the fish. Born
in the Banda islands, Marcus came to Jakarta in 1952. He worked
all his adult life with a pharmaceutical firm. Upon retiring a
few years ago, he set up a portable kiosk at Barito, selling
knick-knacks like cigarettes and repairing pumps for aquariums.

"And this is all that I want to do as long as I am alive. It
also prevents me from feeling homesick about my island where I
first learned to love fishes," said the jeans-clad Marcus,
grinning from ear to ear as his snow-white hair blew freely in
the wind.

Heri Santosa, a graduate in fishery from Kalimantan, has a
more lofty plan. He hands over a three-page printed proposal for
a farm for breeding koi in Indonesia instead of paying millions
of extra rupiah for imports. Heri needs Rp 100 million to start
the project.

"It may sound like a dream at the moment but I will make it a
reality someday," says the young man who works at a golf course
for the moment to make ends meet. Whenever he has time off he
promptly comes to spend it at the fish market.

Teddy, 49, a former resident of the area, recalls swimming in
a lake that flowed a few decades ago in exactly the same spot
where the Barito Market stands today. The first shops to come up
here were those selling flowers and fruits, positioned on stilts
in the lake that was full of a vast variety of fish.

Over the years the lake dried up and about 15 years ago kiosks
equipped with fish ponds and stacked with different kinds of
aquariums sprouted up, making it one of the most magical markets
in the city.

Sitting on plastic stools outside a kiosk, the boys working at
the Barito are full of fishy tales which they tell over a glass
of warm coffee or a chilled bottle of cold drink. It seems that
there are more fish on earth than birds or mammals; that new fish
are discovered all the time and there may be 28,000 different
species. The discus fish feed their young on mucus they excrete
from their bodies, goldfish if cared for well can live as long as
70 years old and that Tennessee in the U.S. has the largest
public freshwater aquarium in the world, measuring 130,000 square
foot.

Their knowledge is extensive but their lives, after all, are
devoted to caring for these beautiful animals.