Sundanese stalls pushed aside

By Ambrosius Harto and Harry Susilo

The pop of firecrackers pierced the silence of the night in a Kota Bunga residential compound in Pacet, Cianjur, West Java. The flares lit up the nighttime sky and animated young Middle Easterners. They cheered in Arabic.

Not far from where the firecrackers were set off, a group of Middle Eastern youths stepped on the gas of their motorcycles, making a ruckus on the empty streets of Kota Bunga at 10:30 p.m. Vroom! They rode around at high speed, sans helmets.

Such scenes occur often these days, since visitors from the Middle East started coming to Kota Bunga in large numbers. Before, nighttime in Kota Bunga, Sukanagalih village, was a silent affair. Sukanagalih chief Dudung Djaenuddin said Middle Easterners had started coming to Kota Bunga eight years ago but their numbers had taken off in the last two years.

"Their behavior here can get a bit too much," Dudung said.

Mansour, 39, a tourist from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said Arab visitors enjoyed setting off firecrackers at night because of the beautiful colors and loud sounds. He said people could not set off firecrackers at home for fear the police might arrest them. "But it's safe here in Puncak," he said in Arabic.

The high volume of Middle Eastern visitors, from Saudi Arabia in particular, is said to be turning the area around Kota Bunga into an Arab enclave. Restaurants, cafés, hair salons, foreign exchange agencies and perfume shops have Arabic signage. Warung Kaleng in Cisarua, Bogor, has also been known as an Arab village for the last 10 years.

Adaptation

In Warung Kaleng and Kota Bunga, villas, hotels and restaurants are happy to cater to the needs of Middle Eastern visitors. Managements provide Arabic television and employees are encouraged to take up Arabic.

Andi, 23, a worker at a Kota Bunga café, learned Arabic by himself in a month so that he could engage with Middle Eastern guests. "Ahlan wa sahlan, Mudir," he said, welcoming Arab guests to his café.

The hospitality and adaptability of local residents are a definite plus for travelers from the Middle East. "Traveling to Indonesia is a pleasure since the prices are cheap and the people are friendly," Muhammad, 37, a kindergarten teacher from Medina, Saudi Arabia, said.

As a result, the number of Middle Eastern tourists visiting Puncak, Bogor or Cianjur is constantly increasing.

At the National Flower Garden in Cipanas, for instance, Middle Easterners account for 12 percent of the total visitors, numbering 91,507 people in 2015. The year before, only 65,484 visitors were from the Middle East.

Most visitors travel with their families. The men are casually dressed, many in shorts and T-shirts. Many of the women wear burqas with black veils.

"Because of the increasing number of Middle Eastern tourists, we oblige our employees to speak Arabic," Yanuar Hidayat, a spokesperson for the National Flower Garden, said. The garden's management also provides brochures in Arabic.

Local Identity

Economics is not the only thing that is evolving, with the visitors also having a social impact on local people and the administration. "All sorts of enterprises exist here, from car rentals to sex workers," Dudung said.

Moreover, Middle Easterners who first came as tourists are now beginning to secure properties. Andri, a caretaker of a Kota Bunga villa, said tourists from Yemen and Saudi Arabia had signed five-year contracts for some villas.

The villas are then offered to other visiting Middle Easterners who come to Puncak. Some have purchased villas under locals' names.

Foreign ownership of Puncak villas could be more widespread after the government issued Government Regulation No. 103/2015 on the ownership of properties by foreigners residing in Indonesia.

Furthermore, Middle Easterners have opened businesses. In Warung Kaleng, Middle Easterners operate perfume stores and hair salons on locally owned land.

Some hair salons that Kompas visited hired Middle Easterners and exclusively catered to Middle Eastern clients.

Restaurants in the area also compete to provide Middle Eastern food. To find Sundanese food stalls in the area, one either has to move outside the area or enter the warren of backstreets behind the Arab-owned supermarkets and restaurants.

Locals risk losing out in the competition despite high economic growth. Tedja Kusumah, a conservation activist in Puncak, said the development of tourism in Puncak should not lay waste to local culture and environmental concerns. "I fear locals' paddy fields, farmland and vegetable yards will be taken up in the expansion of tourism," he said.

The livelihood of the people of Puncak has traditionally been concentrated in farming. Locals, Tedja said, should have the freedom to continue and benefit from farming that supports tourism.

Teguh Maulana, head of the Puncak tourism association, added the rising number of Middle Eastern tourists in Puncak should not mean exclusive preferences. "They should abide by our regulations here," he said.  

sumber ; http://print.kompas.com/baca/2016/01/14/Sundanese-stalls-pushed-aside