The Great Transition

 

Witnessing a symptom of a degenerative disease to unfold is not a good thing and it left with an almost irreversible impact for many. Rapid change happens in short time. The same eerie feeling could be witnessed in many malls worldwide. The video above was taken recently in a once very popular mall in Jakarta. It was located in a very strategic location. Its traffic intersection is one of the busiest in Jakarta. The mall is surrounded by three major universities, three private schools, four government schools, main bus terminal, more than 20 apartment buildings, and a population of more than 100,000 permanent residents within 2 km of its radius. 

In its glory days, which was not long ago, the mall was packed with people, in any days, at any time, even after closing hours, multiple announcements have to be made to ask people to leave the mall. It is not the end time for malls, as many malls now have adapted well with the change, and it is still packed with people. It may last, or it may not. As a famous quote once put it well, “The Only Thing That Is Constant Is Change.”

Useful household items links (Indonesia)

https://tokopedia.by/ekristanto81

Useful, time-saving, practical household items

2019

Indonesia's property outlook: Will it goes up indefinitely?

Property industry in general, especially in Jakarta/Jabodetabek area, is generally still really high.
In my opinion, there are 3 options that may happen in the near future:

1. It will be flat for several years, and when the conditions are good/stable later, so it will go up, but it will drop afterwards.

2. It will be flat for several years, and will never go up again. Must wait for a large cycle of bullish property sector (can be more than 10 years)

3. It will be flat for several years, then prices continue to rise indefinitely.

I think no.1 is most likely to occur. Why?

Property in Jabodetabek area was in continuous rise for many years (from 2000-2013, maybe not the exact timeline, but close to that). Many property companies/ speculators made a lot of fortune at that time.

Property sales /contractors are very certain that property price will never go down, because in Indonesia the population is still growing. Hence, more people need houses. As long as people still want to have a child, they will still need a home.

But there is one important fact that is not considered. The land around Jabodetabek area is still plenty.

If this is in Hongkong / S'pore / Tokyo, it makes perfect sense to say that property price will go up forever.

Then, if we learned from what happened after the 2008 US subprime mortgage crisis, property price did fall. The market there is more mature. We can learn the economic cycle from there. More often than not, big economic cycle will always repeat itself (in different time/format).

Other thing is to consider the new generation. They may not necessarily think that they have to buy a house and settled in one place for the rest of their lives.

Well, it's just an opinion. Nobody knows the future. We could only learn from historical economic cycle; while it could still not be predicted, it always repeat by itself in the end.

IEF Jeju 2018 제주 국제 스포츠 축제

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDml6c5jPKk

The Krakatau

I don't know why I liked the drama/documentary about the Krakatau mountain. Usually I only watch a more modern documentary. It is intriguing as it portrayed the events leading to the eruption.

I remember one of the scenes where villagers were confused on the low tide. Kids ran to collect as many fish as possible. Not knowing that a giant curtain of tsunami waves is approaching within minutes.

In another unrelated scene, there was this one Dutch ship which was supposed to sail to Lampung/Sumatera when the volcano erupted.

Soon after the explosion, the captain of the ship decided to continue the journey/ even sail closer to the mountain. A decision that was instantly protested by everyone on board. The captain must be losing his mind, they said. But they didn't know that he actually saved everyone in the ship, as they survived the tsunami.

If they had sailed away or returned to port, their ships would be smashed to the land along with all the debris. He saved everyone, and after the incident, probably months or years later, Dutch queen awarded him with an honor.

Maybe the whole point is that Krakatau had once exploded. And now, it is rising up again, to about a third of its previous size. It keeps growing with the speed of around 20cm per day if I'm not mistaken.
Even a Bbc/Natgeo documentary once reported that they were confused why the Indonesian govt didn't have any disaster plan for people who lived nearby the mountain, even made it as a tourist spot.

As they know, scientist/volcano experts know, and now we all know, that this mountain had once caused one of the biggest tsunamis ever recorded on history..., and unfortunately yes, it would explode again...

Maybe the decision to move the capital to Borneo is a wise decision after all.

The Pale Blue Dot

Imagine the whole life journey is like climbing the everest, and throughout the climb, the ups and downs, the struggle, the sadness, the joy, the loss, the grief, the awekening, that we know, that we are nothing but a tiny dust in a pale blue dot of the universe.

“The Pale Blue Dot” by Carl Sagan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of planet Earth taken on February 14, 1990, by the Voyager 1 space probe from a record distance of about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles, 40.5 AU), as part of that day's Family Portrait series of images of the Solar System.

In the photograph, Earth's apparent size is less than a pixel; the planet appears as a tiny dot against the vastness of space, among bands of sunlight reflected by the camera.

Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan.

Property market: Could it be in the start of a "bull trap"?

I often ask to people who understand the property market in Indonesia about the chance of property price to fall. Most, if not all, would say it's impossible, it will keep going up. Now is even the best time to enter, as it's stagnant for quite some time.

But this is my view:
Many young people nowadays aren't thinking too much about buying a house as their main investment concern. It may already be too expensive for them.

And in the future, the next (after Z) generations, may prefer to spend their money on travelling, while working remotely or away from city centre (as the trend starts to unfold now). As such, the demand to stay within the big (or expensive) area would decline.

Then, it's fairly reasonable to say that there are many vacant lands nearby the surrounding Jabodetabek area.

In comparison with Singapore/ Hongkong/ Tokyo, where there's very limited land; it would make sense for the property price to go up even further there.

Meanwhile, there is still vacant land here (though not in the city centre, but it's realtively not too far away),thus logically, if there is supply, and prices continue to rise, it means that one day it must go down in order to continue its rise. As simple as that.

In Indonesia, it seems that the only time the property went bust was in 1998, and it was also a very quick "correction". So it shouldn't be considered as a proper correction at all.

Nobody could precisely predict the market, any type of market. But maybe we could learn from other more advanced or matured market.  In America, it fell in 2008, and it took several years to rebound to its previous position. It's arguably not the same market and situation here, but when we are exposed long enough to the dynamics of equity and market as the whole, we surely know that it may... and will be repeated.

The Heaven's Gate

I count there was like about twelve escalators like this one (each may be about three/four levels height). Still wondering how could those escalators built inside the cliff next to the Tian Men mountain.  

As we have to follow the tour's schedule, we didn't really climb those steps to the gate, but instead with a cable car we arrived at the top instantly, and then by escalator, we were down too immediately. 

It's like an instant package, and we lose the "sensation" of the difficulties to reach the "heaven's gate". Also there's at one place where we took a super fast lift to the top of the cliff, and we went down by cable car quite fast too. 

It's like all in an instant movement. But most of the participants in our group are senior citizens too, who may not want such "experience" anymore. 

These moments

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Indonesia’s Automotive Components Sector

Being the world’s fourth most populous country, Indonesia is currently facing a time of uncertainties. There are various contributing factors, from sudden changes of policy from the local government, to the major economic slowdown of the giants, the US and China.  In this article, I will elaborate specifically on the impact towards Indonesia’s automotive components sector.

Looking at the current situation, Indonesia is in the right track of accelerating its automotive sector. The massive infrastructure development program across the country is now being constructed, major highways are built from Sumatera to Papua. With these highways, and the possible series of cut in fuel prices, the demand for automobiles and its supporting components will inevitable increased too. There is a great hidden opportunities that is about to be seen by companies within these sectors. But is it really true?

If we look at the following chart of auto production within the ASEAN region from the first three quarters of 2015, Indonesia only ranked second. It’s a surprising fact that apart from the massive number of Indonesian produced cars, and of course motorcycles, running in streets in all major Indonesian cities, the country still rank second after Thailand in auto production.     

Some of the challenges faced by industries are the human resource, infrastructure and materials required to produce a competitive product. In fact, the high demand for automotive in Indonesia is still not supported by adequate transportation facilities currently. Local companies are still waiting for the realization and completion of those infrastructure projects. Apart from that, according to Mr. Hamdani Salim, the director of Astra Otoparts, the lack of raw materials have caused Indonesian-made automotive components are not as competitive compared to countries such as China and India, as these countries have the processed raw materials needed to produce the components.

Local investors are also concerned on the sudden change of policy that is now displayed more often by the Indonesian authorities. For example, the policy for increasing the progressive tax rates of vehicle’s ownership. Another concern is that the slowing global and domestic economy is affecting the purchasing power of most Indonesian customers. While the foreign investors and institutional fund managers, at least in the recent weeks, show more interest towards the consumer and banking sector, instead of automotive and its supporting companies.

However, apart from all those uncertainties and challenges coming ahead, a research show that Indonesia will become the largest auto market in ASEAN in 2019, surpassing Thailand which currently dominates the region. And if we look at the chart below, we can easily spot the ever growing demand of auto market in Indonesia within the past 10 years. 

After a significant slowdown in 2015, the world’s economy is entering a great volatility in 2016, signified by declining oil prices and increased uncertainties in global politics. With the upcoming election and the rise of “controversial” presidential candidate in the US, more missile tests from North Korea, and the ever increasing military spending in China, the financial market is now in the brink of great recession, or if we look it from the positive side, in the beginning of great recovery. Either way, some countries will benefit from it. And Indonesia is definitely one of those countries.  With the proven resilience of Indonesia in overcoming several major financial crisis in the past, we can be assured that the minor crisis or “correction” happened in 2015 will not affect the growth of Indonesian economy, specifically the automotive component sector. And when we are still struggling with traffic jams everyday, we should be optimistic that things are actually going on well, and as time will prove it, it will.      

Christmas is coming (2016)

This is not a sequel from the previous post with a same title. http://lostnightingale.blogspot.co.id/2015/11/christmas-is-coming.html

Looking back to the previous post, I haven't really accomplished the things that I have planned last year (or even many years back).

In a more positive note, I travel a lot this year. A total of 8 flights, 4 countries, and 7 cities. The most number of destinations that I have visited in such a short time (for my time frame). For many people, those destinations are not many. But for me, it's really a lot. I have made my shoes damaged in less than a year. Ok, it was actually a cheap and low quality shoes.

I have recently watched a clip, "Pursuit of a memorable life - Dustin Garis". I have yet to make the remaining days of my life to be positive and memorable.

I have recently received a letter from the children in an English centre. I was surprised as I (or other teachers) have never taught them to write a letter. It's memorable.

My Director of studies at EF once said to me that students could teach you too. I have experienced it a lot. I am really grateful to know and meet so many students/participants that have taught me a lot too. There's a quote, "Every person you meet in this world has something to teach you."

As a lecturer/teacher/instructor, I have always hoped and prayed that my students/participants could use their English abilities to improve their quality of life. And in the end, they could have a positive and memorable life too.

The Amazing Race

I just have the chance to watch the series of The Amazing Race season 24. By far this is the best TV program that I have ever watched. Until now, I still think this is the best TV show ever created.

I notice that the race is similar to real life. It's unpredictable. Some teams who were left behind initially and seemed to be hopeless (by physical/chances), could be the winner in certain phase.

In my life, I'm left behind compared to my peers now. If this life was also a "race" (and maybe it is), I would be eliminated long time ago. But since I haven't been eliminated yet by God, there may be some hopes to at least move forward.

And as in a marathon, we may not aim to win the race. The satisfaction received by completing the race is more than everything. We don't have to win over everyone else. We are winning over ourselves. To be a better version of ourselves.

The assignment

Inspired by Prof. Rhenald Khasali, I assigned my students last semester to write a post in their own blogs about their holiday.

Because of that, I feel obliged to write my own post too.  As usual, I had this plan for quite a while, but never really take any action to do it. So I would write this post as a draft and complete it from time to time.

I had the chance recently to go to Taiwan with my father to attend my brother's graduation ceremony. If there hadn't been any graduation ceremony, I wouldn't have traveled there too. I have always thought that if I have to travel to some country far away, it should be for a more permanent immigration purposes. That I would find a job there, not just a temporary holiday.

Taiwan was the furthest country from Jakarta that I have ever visited in my life. For me, I knew that it would be a new and exciting experience. And it was.

 The biggest canteen that I have ever seen. Possibly the biggest monastery canteen in the world.  

Supposedly the most beautiful MRT station in Taiwan.  But the locals are quite skeptic about it. 

Besides Taiwan, we had the chance to visit Hongkong too. It was a great country too. Lots of tourists. And great landscape. And similar with Taipei, they have a really great subway system.  All of my life I have thought that subway system in KL/S'pore was really good. And now I get to experience something even better. Maybe one day if I get to visit the Tokyo subway, I would say different thing again.

We visited the Big Buddha, the biggest Buddha statue (sitting position) in the world. Although I am not a Buddhist, I have always wanted to visit this statue. Saw it from a scene in the Amazing Race TV series. It's amazing. The stairs are like those in the temple in Kungfu Panda movie.  It's really great.

Next statue should be the Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, or the Garuda Wisnu Kencana in Bali, once it is completed, it will be the biggest statue in the world. Just search in Google that there is a Spring Temple in China with the current biggest statue in the world.