Is Indonesia Having a Major... Setback?

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Posted by Meme Comic Indonesia on Sunday, February 21, 2016

So recently 2016 isn't off with a great start actually, at least if the context is question is an Indonesian context. Yes, the 2016 was started with flying bike attacks, crashing low-poly Lamborghini, infant punts, and some WALALALALAs from Ghana and Uganda, but they're way out of context. In Indonesia, there is one major setback that gripes me very much recently: the fact that we are still being treated like children, starting by the blocking of the newly-opened Netflix by some telecommunication group a couple of weeks ago continued with the block of Tumblr due to the "pornographic" content weeks later (both of which had their blocks lifted thankfully) and then some random censorships that has now blurred what could be a harmless kebaya showcase in a national-level pageant days ago, as you can see in the picture above. Here, you can see the correlation between "being treated like children" and all the blocks and censors really exists and is quite inevitable, big time.

Looks like the series "Is Indonesia Humiliating Itself?" has been brought back from its death, and now this has become the sign of its rebirth. Though seeing the current context that will be written here, it might be more like a development to the case where Vimeo was blocked due to pornography (and the bad news is, the ban is still there -_-).

Is Indonesia humiliating itself? THE LAST CHAPTER

For the past two chapters I've reviewed a couple of mistakes two different ministers made; the Minister of Education's mistake of suddenly taking the National Exam's difficulty up to eleven (literally, according to the participated students), and the Minister of Communications and Informatics's mistake of cluelessly blocking sites that are innocent and are far from being "pornography" sites. In this last chapter of my three-part series, I'm going to review how "Indons" (FYI, it is the short for "Indonesians", and it does have a bad connotation in it; read on for details) made their mistakes; blaming the innocent, destroying a hard-worked infrastructure, and bribing a lump sum of money. These acts are simply the benchmark to differ which ones are "Indonesians" and which are "Indons"...

INDONS, Y U NO ACT RIGHT???

 INDONS, Y U BLAME THE INNOCENT?

A picture is worth a thousand words; this is what the Indons always do with their motorcycles...

Sometimes there's a point where bigger objects are the ones to blame even though it is the smaller ones that actually did it, especially as we are reminded of one accident in which a motorcyclist rode against the traffic and hit a car, killing the motorcyclist in process, but it was the car that was blamed, and it brought the anger of the people who witnessed it. They were so angered, punches and profanities flown to the innocent car. The fact that it was the innocent that got hit by everyone and this whole thing reminds me of the senseless site blocking (the "innocent") done by the Ministry of Communications and Informatics (the "people") because of only ONE inappropriate video by the laws of the country (the "motorcyclist"). I could safely say that to be brutally honest...

The accident started with a motorcycle riding against the traffic and then got hit by a car running at 60 kmh, and happened on 13th May at 9.30 am, exactly one month ago. The motorcyclist died while the driver, identified as Austin, was taken to the nearby police station, but his car was destroyed by the passerby. A video recorded by one of the witnesses can be seen below, courtesy of YouTuber Agung Ferdianto:

It is appaling that Indons like them would abuse the innocent people instead of the culprit due to their "seeing is believing" act combined with "distorted perspective" approach, which equals "Judging on their own". I know that Jakarta is known for its hectic traffic jam in certain areas, but this is too much. In the end, there comes a couple of questions:

Is the driver the one to blame?
Only if the driver drives against the traffic, it's a "yes" answer. In this case, it is "no". Even if the innocent drove a car at a quite fast speed for a family car and the motorcyclist died for his own stupidity, you can't just simply judge on your own.

Are rich people the one to blame?
This question is much more a "stereotypical racism" than an actual question, addressing the issue where one of the attackers did shout something about the driver being a rich person. This grows more questions: Are the ones who own cars rich people? Can you define who a rich person is according to your own thoughts? The list goes on and on. Other than that, it's almost the same question as above...

Why were you gone totes cray cray that you judged the accident by yourselves?
Should we build an Anywhere Door that can take you to Radley Sanitarium? No? Then what is the philosophy and purpose behind all of this? The first action of helping the dead motorcyclist is right for a size of a first-half witness action, the second half...? -_-

Why can't the police handled the situation?
They had to, but unfortunately they lost the momentum to everything (read: no police interaction at the scene). The police should've warned the motorcyclist and even fine him for riding against traffic, if only the police could enforce the golden laws of traffic. This is the best solution possible, but hard to implement due to situation.

INDONS, Y U DESTROY THE PARK?

Unhealthy queuing; these people, who wanted the free ice cream, queued to an extent that they were destroying the park the mayor had worked hard on for years. (source: TribunNews)

Although this was days before the motorcyclist accident, the antics of the Indons doesn't stop at falsely judging things, and not just happen in Jakarta alone; it goes to an extent that they would destroy an infrastructure only for a mere free ice cream. One of the most-established ice cream companies that has its venture in Indonesia for a long time held an event in which they gave free ice creams to everyone who attends the event. Emphasizing the word "Free" (=zero money), chaos ensued as people queued for a chance of getting the free ice cream. But at the same, they destroyed the park, and in fact, this angered the mayor so much, so many F-words are literally thrown, especially knowing that the mayor did the hard work for establishing the park all by herself for years. In case you don't know, this event is held in Surabaya, exactly at Taman Bungkul, which is one of the cities where this free ice cream event is held. Poor mayor... If only the queuing people didn't destroy the hard-worked park she maintained for years... :(

You can see the expression of the angry mayor uploaded by YouTuber Toko Kelontong.

Logically, if the queue doesn't sit in the grass of the park, then you could expect a very long queue considering the queuing space provided wasn't big enough, and it even created traffic too, but then again it is so wrong in many ways, even before or after getting the ice cream. You know that some Indons don't hesitate to litter, right? Even before it was started, it is already wrong. Should there be questions? Not really...

To prove that it is indeed wrong from the get-go, the event has no authorization yet at that time, saying that it had to be authorized by the mayor beforehand. The Brand Manager Assistant also stated that they had the authorization because the event is a national-scaled one and Surabaya was just one of the cities, but she also added that there's the Event Organizer that prepared everything. At that time, the mayor came to the event and started throwing profanities and anger to the organizers, exactly at 10.30am, and after that she passed out and was brought to the hospital. Thankfully, the company that held this event sent the letter of apology to the mayor and has since been responsible to help recovering the park.

INDONS, Y U BRIBE FOR MONEY?

This is the most recent case to date. Bribery in Indonesia is most likely common, especially in Jakarta. In fact, there are various cases where it makes everything worse. Let's take two examples in Kelapa Gading and Blok M, two recent places most prominent for bribery. In Kelapa Gading, it is two shops that are victims to the bribery, but thankfully the owner took the initiative to tell everything to the police. The result is the shops are sealed to prevent the bribery to take place.

Yet, the larger-scale bribery takes place in Blok M, this time it's Ennichisai a.k.a the Little Tokyo Festival held annually in Blok M area. For five years, it has attracted many visitors, local and international, for showing how a Tokyo nuance can be felt in Jakarta and to also show that Japanese culture is more than just Japanese animations; it has everything from food, to culture, and much more. For everyone, Ennichisai has been a place in the hearts of Japanese culture enthusiasts, and for a personal note, I have been visited the festival for two years straight, starting from 2013.

Here are the "bottom-line-only" translations of what Daisei Takeya, the founder of Ennichisai, said, translated from renata707's Indonesian translations:

Just days before the show started, the organizers were 'bribed' and if we don't give them money, the show won't go. (1)

It seems like it's hard to unite those who worked hard for everyone and those who only think about the money. (2)

With evil-ridden people like these, Ennichisai is hard to be realized. Therefore, we decided to end it for good. (3)

We apologize to thousands of people who enjoyed Ennichisai at Blok M's Little Tokyo. (4)

Even with all these lies and problems, we stayed strong to the end and has made this event the one to remember by many. (5)

Actually, this thing was even considered before the event starts, because we have felt the effect of this city's mismanagement and political issues. (6)

The organizers had a good aim and meant to give contributions to Blok M, yet our aim was made difficult, even to extent that we were being bribed. (7)

Of course we are sad because we can no longer feel this joy anymore, but let's part ways joyfully. (8)

We hope that you enjoyed Ennichisai just like we the organizers do. Once again, we apolgize for this inconvenience and thank you for all your participations. (9)

The Ennichisai founder once stated that this year is the last Ennichisai, and so the enthusiasts are saddened by this news. The reason why this year is the last is simple: bribery. According to the founder, the sum of the bribery is large but the exact amount is unknown, even to this date. This means that the festival that strengthens the bonds between Indonesia and Japan ends due to a mere bribery that hurt the festival.

Faith in Japanese Festivals has restored; Ennichisai finally will see another year, with new team and no corruption. (source: @renata707 on Twitter)

Fortunately, Takeya-san has stated recently that Ennichisai will see another year, with a brand new team and the no-bribery-guaranteed policy, which means financial report will be open to the team.

The bribery, though, has been a common practice as said before. The police has one job to obliterate them, but it would be a tough job because the bribers will always have a growing number. Once again, we are reminded that even the biggest figures should be wary of them.

THE ENDING POINT

Indonesia, the fourth most populated country in the world, has been through a series of humiliating feats, either from the ministers or from the people themselves. The mental of the "Indons" have been heavily struck and they have thrown so many antics. Reluctantly judging by themselves (to an extent attacking the innocent for the crime he/she doesn't do), vandalizing the infrastructures and bribing for money pretty much describes who the "Indons" are, and some cases, that unfortunately didn't make the cut to this blog, like not giving a pregnant woman a seat in a public transportation (and eventually vent on a social media site about that) and creating black campaigns for their opposing presidential candidates for the upcoming presidential election made things worse.

Unfortunately, some ministers are also this; creating mental stress in the education department has made Indonesians everything but smarter, and even online creative fields become extinct as "innocent" sites are being blocked for pornography. It seems that 2014 has seen itself as one of the period-ending downfalls suffered by the country, even in certain departments you can take your guess at. The new president, as well as the new ministers, are expected to have one job at improving Indonesia to a better country, paving a way for better things imaginable in most departments for the next five years.

We hope whatever the choice is for the 6th July presidential election, he can take the responsibility to make a better Indonesia, and not just the president; the mentals of every Indonesian become less of an "Indon".

See you in the next blog post...

This is the hint of what will come after the three storms of dissing the mental of Indonesians... (x)

Further reading 
[EN] News of the Free Ice Cream chaos on The Jakarta Globe
[ID] Kaskus thread of the motorcycle vs car accident
[ID] Taman Bungkul news on TribunNews

~[R]

Is Indonesia humiliating itself? CHAPTER II - Pointless Internet Censorship

So in the light of the 106th year of Indonesia's awakening (although it has passed days ago...) we were struck by some of the unsatisfying cases, one of them is the unsettling National Exam of this year that it used out-of-topic questions from every student's three-year education in either Junior High and High School on certain subjects. This has raised rage for all students, to the point that someone ended her life over her failure at doing the exam. Thankfully, an initiative intends to make the exam a benchmark tool for all schools nationwide, and hope that with changing its system, the education in Indonesia will see a better future. I also wanted to point out a case happened at one of the International schools in Jakarta on the last post too, but I realized that not only would it make the post a TL;DR one but also raping won't be included as one of the topics here in my blog.

However, if I were to do so, the only thing I would say is this: Have the International schools do intense checkings. Raping is outright pointless, especially at International schools.

POINTLESS INTERNET CENSORSHIP; WHY SHOULD THIS HAPPEN?

The second chapter of the series takes the topic of internet censorship in Indonesia which enrages everyone, because the site the Minister of Technology blocked are "innocent" sites that doesn't appear to contain porn. The minister's aim to eradicate porn is actually good, but did they went too far? We think so. Vimeo was blocked due to such circumstance, along with other sites like Reddit, Imgur, and others. Vimeo is actually a video-sharing site that offers high quality videos and is a site where content creators post their creations and video portfolios for everyone to see. The site also implements the rule of anti-porn contents, but sadly the implementation might be a bit loose from one of the local news I read (source forgotten).

The interface of Vimeo. This site is blocked by the Indonesian Minister of Technology due to a dirty twerk video shown in one of the political party's campaign. Some said that this is to discredit the party.

Founded in 2004 by Jake Lodwick and Zach Klein, it offers the same service as YouTube where it allows users to share and view their videos. The name is actually an anagram of "Movie", but is also a play on words "Video" and "Me". While Lodwick and Klein left in 2007 and 2008 respectively, Dae Mellencamp became the CEO of the site until March 19, 2012 with Kerry Trainor taking place. As of September 2013, its search feature requires Google Analytics to work properly and users of Firefox and Chrome web browsers cannot search on Vimeo without disabling privacy protection. As of the end of 2013, Vimeo attracted 100 million unique visitors per month and more than 22 million registered users worldwide, with 15% of its traffic came from mobile devices.

Vimeo in 2007 has its glory days due to support in high definition playbacks (1280 x 720 / 720p), which made it the first video sharing site to support consumer HD, with uploaded HD videos automatically converted to 720/30p VP6 flash video. Since August 2010, all videos are encoded into H.264 for HTML5 support. All videos uploaded before were re-encoded. Non-Plus users can upload up to 500 MB of videos per week, and up to one HD video per week (additional HD videos uploaded within the same week are encoded to SD).

In 2008 Vimeo unveiled its $60-per-year Vimeo Plus package, which allows users additional weekly uploads (up to 5 GB), unlimited HD videos, unlimited creation of channels, groups and albums, no ads, HD embeds, 2-pass video re-encoding that results in higher quality, priority encoding, and more. The arrival of Vimeo Plus also meant the downgrade of the free version, which up to that point also enjoyed unlimited HD re-encodings per week and unlimited creation of groups/albums/channels.

Since February 2010, Plus users can choose to re-encode their 1080p upload as either 1080p or 720p. As time goes on, the site offers unlimited HD embeds, and users can upload that are up to five gigabytes of footage. This makes it possible for full length, high-definition feature films to be uploaded to Vimeo by Vimeo Plus users. In 2011, it introduces Vimeo PRO for business and commercial use only, offering 50GB of storage, 250k plays, advanced analysis and third-party video player support.

CENSORSHIP BEFORE US

It turns out that Indonesia isn't the first to block Vimeo from our ISPs; India in 2012 did it under the orders of Department of Telecommunications without any stated reasons until it is stated that the copyright infringement of Indian films were the cause of this one-week ban. LH Harish Ram of Copyright Labs, Chennai, wrote on his Twitter account that he had not asked for the entire URLs to be blocked but only specific URLs where infringement was taking place. Contrary to what Ram claimed on Twitter, his letter about Dhammu clearly asks for 272 URLs to be blocked and these are complete URLs, not specific webpages. June 15 of the same year, the Madras high court took note of the controversy and clarified that only those URLs which are infringing copyright can be blocked, not entire websites, and the ban was lifted. As of May 2014, Vimeo is accessible in India.

It is a different story in Turkey though as the site is blocked by the court order on January 9 2014 without any reason.

WHAT ABOUT INDONESIA'S WAY OF BLOCKING VIMEO?

This meme was made popular to make fun of Minister of Communications's action of banning innocent sites; Vimeo is one of them. My only question: Is Tifatul Sembiring ever a smart "object"? I don't think so...

Tifatul Sembiring, Indonesia's Communications Minister tweeted from his personal account that video sharing site Vimeo would be banned. Citing Indonesia’s controversial anti-pornography law, passed in 2008, the miniister said the site included displays of "nudity or nudity-like features". The ban came at a moment when films made in Indonesia had begun to attract attention on the world stage, with Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing joining the ranks of the most acclaimed documentaries of all time. It might look as a your run-of-the-mill ban but the stupidity lied in the process of the banning, even the reason for the blocking.

The ban took place when the Minister of Communication witnessed that there is a video showcasing a female singer's twerk at a campaign for one of Indonesia's political parties: the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS - "Partai Keadilan Sejahtera"). The problem lied on the see-through wardrobe the singer wore and the twerk she did, and as the minister spotted the video, the video-sharing site's ban took place where it ordered the Trust+ (Trust Positive) team to order all ISPs to block it, but only some who really did it. This ban caught the anger of the Indonesian netizens as they criticize the illability to ban just the video, and only capable to ban the site as a whole. Other sites the minister claimed as sources of porn are Reddit and Imgur, among others unlisted here.

In the light of this turn of events, the Ministry of Communications wrote a letter to Vimeo requesting that pornographic contents on the site is deleted. A day after Vimeo denied that the site contains pornography. Vimeo's Director of Communications Jessica Casano-Antonellis stated that it does not allow pornographic contents and only accepts artistic nudity (read: non-sexual nudity), and not pornographic contents. She also stated that she is investigating the fact that the site is blocked due to pornography and hope that she could fix the service soon.

On 14th May, Vimeo received the letter from the Ministry of Communications, and seven days later it sent a letter to the Ministry saying that the Ministry should re-deliberate their decision and that, as mentioned, it doesn't allow pornographic contents, as stated in its two page-long letter. Also stated is the history of its service and the fact that the site is praised for its design and video player qualities and not a pornography site.

This is how Indonesia's Ministry of Communication played its WTF factor, just like the Ministry of Education did to the students in this year's National Exam. As predicted, the blockage has taken the rage of Indonesian netizens and is a form of the Minister's greedy act and that he (the Minister Tifatul Sembiring) has brought the Ministry back to the lighting department era. Also, the blockage is not fair knowing that not only is it snubs other sites that has more pornography than Vimeo has (example: YouTube. YT is not blocked because it has its Indonesian representatives to report abusive contents) but also is the Ministry focused to only one category involving artistic nudity; "art of nakedness" is one of them. Michael A Cheah stated that such category is made by users and because of that, it doesn't show Vimeo's approval.

The controversial Anti-Pornography laws has finally taken its toll, to an extent that it blocked innocent sites as its target, even artistic nudity is subject to this. As @donnybu said on Twitter, the transparent, accountable, feasible and professional internet governance in Indonesia is very needed knowing the fact that everyone could block anything as they see fit. Indonesia's creative field has seemed to be burnt away. Where in the world content creators can post their visual portfolios? When in the world Indonesian fandom fanatics would post their fan fictions of their OTPs and other shippings? Where Indonesians can get a swift, no-bullshit image hosting? And why Indonesians can't get a taste of Reddit?

As of this writing, "innocent" sites other than Vimeo like Reddit, Imgur, and FanFiction.Net has been blocked, and whenever one is to access the site, it will redirect them to Internet Filtering page.

AND THE MOST REASONABLE ACTION IF YOU WERE A MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS IS...

...of course to just block the video and warn the uploader, easy as that, but deliberate the video whether it's a pornography or not beforehand. There's no need to block the whole site as it brings the rage to those who knew that the site doesn't contain porn. That's as the same as if you would burn someone's house for a school bullying. The Minister has to know more about the sites so if he were to block the site he does it in a reasonable way, not by brute force that eventually is pointless.

Indonesia also need to understand what artistic nudity is, and how it is different from pornography that its purpose is simply for artistic purposes, as its name suggests. In conclusion, just like Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Communications has a mental of an "Indon". No offense, but the netizens including me have already seen it, and they are responsible for having Indonesian internet being laughable by other countries.

This also brings up the second chapter's conclusion that the minister should be capable of knowing the sites first and the issues that are in the site, especially regarding a "porn" video hosted on an innocent video-sharing site due to the site's loose implementation of no-nudity Terms of Service. With the Indonesian presidential election on the horizon, following the changes in every ministry structures, we hope that the next Minister of Communication is the more IT-capable person who knows what he does and what he is doing. The next Minister of Education also has one job: to improve Indonesia's education, eradicating stress on students due to final exam and making way for a better, distributed, education system that can cater student's abilities and morals more, because for these two chapters I fleshed out what mistakes these two ministers had and what should have been done to make a win-win situation for everyone.

In the final chapter, we will cover the Indonesian people's mental's fault. Lately, certain Indonesians acted in an unsettling manner in different ocassions, including blaming an innocent person and destructing maintained parks. The two Ministries featured throughout the series has already had a mental of an "Indon" for your information due to their misconducts. Meanwhile it's encouraged to post your "HUEHUEHUE"s in the comments, regardless of who you are and where are you from, whenever you want to laugh at Indonesia's internet governance or just point out your thoughts. If this site were to be closed by the Minister, then I had to kill myself...

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vimeo
Various news on Suara.com

~[R]

Is Indonesia humiliating itself already? - CHAPTER I: National Exam

Wondering why this post has this irrelevant title? Well, before I tell you the reason why, here's a quick recap of what happened to my life...

So you remember the Trophee Xsara car I've showcased in the last blogpost right? Well, it's hard to find a feedback of your WIP skin ASAP, especially if you're new to this kind of business. However, after days of waiting, there's just one feedback given to me in order to make this skin good: making the red stripes on the hood span to the mirrors, at least that's what one of the respected Carpark members GKRacer told me.

I knew that I had to work the skin once again immediately after this is posted. But oh wow, I had "small" problems with my laptop as ~on the Sunday morning, exactly on 18th this month~ it cannot access the E:/ drive, one of the three partitions and the MOST IMPORTANT! partition EVER! due to it consisting of my downloaded files, series, games, etc, not to mention the college stuffs there. That was on my Windows 8, while after using Windows 7 and with the automatically-triggered chkdsk function, there are no bad sectors and no bad things on HDD, nothing. Hours later, I escaped another bad luck. Not for long though as the second this happened, it compromised my HDD.

Days later, I tried to figure out what GKRacer referred to. I thought he referred to the side mirrors but now I know that he was referring to the windshield, and that was what on my mind. A simple fix, and here what I came up with after some time...

Well, that's it. That IS the progress it has made, which concludes the four-wheeled paragraphs in this post. Let's face it, you have seen me blogging about how I created my Turbo Sliders creations, how I make the 40-polygon racers for GeneRally, and how I am making it in the Maximum Tune world, which is THE point of why the blog is titled as "Is Indonesia humiliating itself already?"

"But you're Indonesian, what kind of things it's done that it humiliates itself?" you wondered. There are three things that I would like to flesh out for the next posts: The issue of how "distorted" this year's National Exam is, the issue of how the Ministry of IT blocked an "innocent" video-sharing site due to a "small" issue and a series of how the mental of most Indonesians made up all the cray cray-ness, all with one purpose: to see how much us Indonesians have evolved for the past 106 years of Indonesia's awakening. If you now realized how I bring up these issues, I would like to welcome you to the three-part non-racing blogpost! :)

Beginning with the first chapter...

HOW DISTORTED THIS YEAR'S NATIONAL EXAM IS?

SUPER FALCON PUNCH once told me that "this habit should be [stopped]. Why [you don't] give that old uniform to the people who [can't go to] school because of their financial probs?" These things only happen if you passed the National Exam that is... -_- (Source: Viva.co.id)

Recently, the 2014 National Exam has brought up tensions not only because it, as always, gave stress to the guys and girls who are about to graduate Junior High and High School with style, but also the questions featured in the test are... other-worldly. And we ARE talking about how this year's questions are outside what's taught in their three-year education, both Junior High and High school. Even in when Mathematics subject came to play, one student even suicided SHORTLY after she did it. But why you die sooner even before you know the results? -_-,

The nightmare doesn't stop there; one of the questions featured in the Junior High one COPIED one of PISA's questions. And this comes from a no-surprise, self-explanatory subject, I mean, like...

Get it now? The only problem now is is it a derivation or a plagiarism... (Source)

Despite all these psychological rollercoaster rails 9th and 12th grade students must go through every year, it doesn't change the fact that Indonesia's education isn't the best, it even is regarded as one of the worst. It doesn't change its worst status even with the higher standards set this year. Even the Ministry of Education pulled the "Late-hour blindside" where it tells EVERYONE with his tweet (can't find one but I remember he posted it, sorry) that the questions will be outside of what's taught prior their 3-year education (WHY CAN'T I HAVE A SHORTER, APPROPRIATE WORD FOR THAT?). Look, the Minister can even blindside everyone, but why can't he be a Survivor contestant?

The result of the blindside is a series of shocker (NEVER. PUT. "combatmen" behind the word "shocker", please...): the late Leony Alvionita died after doing the Mathematics test, which the Minister "hack" the test with other-worldly questions that plagiarized PISA's. What the late Leony did was studying, studying, and studying as normal students did, but it was the Blindside Minister's fault. After her death is posted by her friends via BBM and then online, the Twitter world is flooded with #RIPLeonyAlvionita and #TolakUN (read: Indonesian for "Boycott the National Exam"). Responding to the news, the Blindside Minister "cried". #TolakUN's actual purpose isn't boycotting the national exam, but if you want to see its real purpose, read on.

With his fault of Blindsiding everyone, his tears should've been consisted of diamonds. What the Minister should have done is to not doing anything to the questions, and the overtly-despised plan of his doesn't improve the quality; it even made it worse. (Source: watermarked)

If you think that this is bad enough, let's throwback to 2004-2007 where there were 16 students killed themselves. In 2008, 2010, and 2013, the average suicide number for these years are 2, while the data for unmentioned years are non-existent. In total, if this year's number also makes the count, there are already 23 students who suicided, which equals to one small class. Has there been suicides in exams overseas? I don't think so, only Indonesia that has this... (sources: Kompas.com, Okezone news, Tribunnews.com, Vivanews, Tempo.co).

A Pretty little lie; "The Minister of Education and Culture responded to the students who complain that topics used in the National Exam are irrelevant to those that are taught. He stated that the difficulty of those topics can be a challenge to the students. We don't want them to be spoiled." Cool story... (source: visible)

It is true that it does haunt students and give them stress at the same time every year, but this time it is a different environment, and now that the questions and topics were International standard, not the normal standard where topics featured for each subject are purely those that are taught. And another thing to remember: There were lots of "fixes" to tests from other subjects, particularly Indonesian Language one. From what I read. I remember that the Minister vowed to recall the papers with a question that "contains" political reference.

Other than that, how does it feel entering the battlefield that's steps higher than you and you only have first-level weapons? The analogy for this year's test's imbalance is very simple as that...

LEAKED ANSWERS

For a price of roughly 20 bucks, you can have all the answers to your test package of a subject for the exam. (Image source: @ffadhila on Twitter)

So you think that questions for National Exam is secure? You are wrong, outright wrong. The problem is that every year, these can be leaked, even with the over-the-top security. How it is leaked is totally out of my business and of course a mystery in the same time, and whenever the answers for most questions in every packet are "on sale", everyone gets mental, every. single. time.

Most students who are fighting for their graduation will depend on one of these because in their minds these are 100% accurate. But do you know that NOT every question's answer leaked are always right? Yup, you can't be too much dependent on these, except that this year, like I said, pretty much plagiarized PISA and tests of same purpose. And what happened before the tests go? Those who sell the leaked answers raised the price so that it can give profit to them.

This issue always come as the exam goes, and it is always on repeat...

SO LOOKING AT THIS POST, ARE YOU GOING TO GO AGAINST THE NATIONAL EXAM, TO THE POINT THAT YOU WANT IT TO BE NON-EXISTENT?

Sure this post highlighted the dark sides that happened in this year's national exam, but trust me, what I was doing was initially true (referring to the statement of the above question) but then my heart changed as I dug deeper to this issue and came up with a new answer: National Exam should be fixed; As someone who tasted two National exams before, all I can say is just make the exam a benchmark for all schools nationwide (read: reposition). The over-the-top difficulty this year has been despised by most students, and not all regions received certain topics of particular subjects due to resources. With this, lesser stress levels should be achieved and pointless answer leaks should be gone. Fair things like these will lead into a detailed benchmark results and each school will have a good portion of enlightenment of particular topics by looking at the benchmark results. This will lead into every student's success in graduating from Junior High and High School.

Everyone who is disgusted with this year's National Exam wanted bring back the system that is called EBTANAS, acronym of "National-Scale Final Level of Study Evaluation" in Indonesian. This test emphasizes on every student's evaluation of their study, and evaluation here refers to the whole study process the students had with all related components inside from the beginning to the end of their study, and whether the study process in question has the student reached their goal or not nationally. The result will be used as a mean to control and rate the function and the performance of all components in order to achieve a spot-on quality. Also from this result, if the result is good enough then the enhancement will take place, otherwise there will be improvement to attain the spot-on quality, all this makes up for a benchmark where it evaluates all of the school's components, including those involved in the student's studying process. In other words, it IS a benchmark tool, and that has summed what #TolakUN's actual purpose is.

Unfortunately due to the fact that the minister wanted to show the world that Indonesia's education is one of the best the world has to offer, the National Exam is born, and EBTANAS is killed (sort of...). Sadly it is far from that; even an extravagant result in the National Exam doesn't make them aces in state university selection tests.

CHAPTER 1 CONCLUSION

The National Exam this year has been everything but usual, only this time International-level questions are used, and it doubled the stress of every student. There even existed suicide after doing exams because the person in question knew that the person couldn't do his/her best, but she/he didn't even know what his/her result is. The sudden statement of the Minister of Education has led to this year's outrage, and leaked answers were also now a highly sought-after solution for this year's exam due to difficulty, although that it always happen every year in National Exam. The only thing that they wanted to is to make everything as normal as EBTANAS, where everything they would have can be a reference to make it to the next level of education.

Special thanks to http://tolakujiannasional.com/ (an Indonesian site), a movement to stop all the blatant psychological madness that is National Exam. The movement will hopefully fix the exam to make it act as a "benchmark" for schools and will promise a better way to measure everyone's education. This is what they envision a normal final exam held by school in which the questions all pertain to what everyone has taught for three years of their education, both Junior High and High School, and a true reference measure for their future education. You guys are a great bunch!

With the conclusion of the first chapter, the second chapter will come up. This post will expose more acts that humiliates Indonesia in the world, and expect hotter wordings as we will play in the online scope!

~[R]

My History of Maximum Tune, Throughout the Years

After giving spotlights to GeneRally and Turbo Sliders in most of my posts, let's twist the topic and take things differently this time, which you can tell by this post's title (YOU DONT SAY???)

Remember the Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 4 cabs pic I posted in the previous blog post? Almost a month ago, these cabs stepped its feet at one of the farthest mall I've ever been weeks after its release; Puri Indah Mall. This place is totally new for me, and that I visited the mall in not only a sole purpose of looking at the shiny yet wasn't-turned-on cabs but also the mall itself.

Source: Matthew N @ an Indonesian WMMT Group

Weeks later, at an Indonesian Maximum Tune group, people who have waited for the cabs to be turned on stormed the now-activated cabs, and there were enthusiastic people who want to get their hands on the MT4, whose release unfortunately is delayed and that every Indonesian player speculated about how will one game cost considering its profit sharing system that most game centers here don't accept at first, which mall will get this cab set first, why it's delayed in release, bla bla bla. Countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, and Philippines, to name a few, had already have MT4 cabs way before we do.

YES, even the dev himself DON'T WANT to forget "funs" for Indonesian players!

As it is activated, we've got a catch: Our server is different than theirs; we have a localized server of our own, the same case with the Chinese MT4. That means you know we won't be able to race other ghosts from other countries unless Namco will integrate our server with the international one. However, this leads to an interesting fact:

3DX+ TRANSFER DEADLINE IS NOT IN EFFECT FOR INDONESIAN PLAYERS! Rejoice! Just because we got MT4 later than the other countries, it doesn't mean the 24 October of doom is applied to our server! :p

This means more time for the loyal Maximum Tune players in Jakarta (sadly for now...) to have their 3DX+ cards be transferred into a Banapassport which can support up to 100 cars! And this transfer is FREE OF CHARGE! Sans the Bana of course... :v . Currently MT4 is available at XXI Puri Indah Mall, which then Timezone's Mall Kelapa Gading branch follows after. Both cost up to IDR 10,000 (roughly a dollar) a play, and that's still promo price...

But what about me? I, who has raced MT4 cab ONCE, has a very long unique history of this game in general, from just casual plays at Cilandak Town Square in the first MaxTune, to starting out with a Bayside Blue Nissan Skyline GT-R V-Spec II (R34) at Supermall Karawaci with MT2, to reaching 825HP within the days of MT3 and its subsequent sequels up to 3DX+, travelling at various malls where my parents took me, and eventually full tuned and full Dress-up it in my college years. But how I live through six years from my start? You sure know the story of how I play it the first time at Citos and how I start my own R34 at Karawaci from my previous blog posts, but how about the MT3 timeline chunk?

From 3, through 3DX, and finally 3DX+

(My memory is a bit fuzzy btw :shh:)

As MT3 replaced MT2, I, in the same ground as where I created my R34, transferred my card over, and played stories. Sadly I don't play much and had to lose with those who have more outrun stars and maxi coins than my car did. Furthermore, I can only play only on the circumstances where my parents took me to a mall with MT3 cabs, on weekends. You know that MT3 cabs are always awfully occupied and there are people standing behind the racing racers who are ignoring the "3 plays and you're done" rule in the game centers that they play more than three times. It's a standard in every game center, not just one. Furthermore, people just can't get enough in completing stories and battles...

To make things worse, most racers, if not all, who possess cards with lots of battle stars and coins are kids. Yes, KIDS, as in boys in their elementary age. Talk about the kiasu and sisu of those elementary kids, not just in mainstream Korean online games... Take note that Kiasu and Sisu, while they are both Singlish and Finnish respectively, mean almost, if not, the same; hate to lose.



In 3DX years, where you can Enjoy the Process in Hanshin Speed Ring of Osaka and Nagoya (!), I spent most of the time playing in Depok area. Plaza Depok is the nearby place in Depok that has MaxTune, with Depok Town Square and Margo City had a fair share of 3DX cabs before the latter has to be replaced by another arcade racer named Dead Heat. Again, I do ghost battles and stories as I reap on Dress-up parts and the full tune HP level of 825HP at a slow pace. Given the fact that every MT cab is occupied like hell that one can play more than three times and there are people waiting and there aren't nearby arcades in my home, I gave up. Not to mention there are times everytime when I'm in the middle of the game my parents phoned me to call quits on my session.

This also goes to my 3DX+ years. No nearby arcades, playing by shopping with parents or alone with transportation fares, cabs crowded by kids. Almost the same story, until there's, fortunately, a near place from my home which I posted a year ago as the reviver of my MaxTune career. In the same place, a year later, a tournament is held and I found out that it is a preliminary for a grand final which I cannot attend thanks to the staff's misinformation there. :(

As I go to the college, three places with 3DX+ cabs are present: Cilandak Town Square, Pondok Indah Mall, and Bintaro Plaza. One is pretty near from my college just by going straight and follow the road until Citos, one has so many 3DX+ cabs in different game centers, and one is... well, pretty near too despite it isn't as near as the first. Sadly, as the time progresses, the elimination game occurs and Cilandak has to be its victim, with most of its machines are transferred to Pondok Indah Mall. Bintaro Plaza is a pretty place where I could get battle mates to race with, but sadly my skills aren't a match for their RX-8s. As for ghost battles, I'm thankful I've got to revenge Bintaro ghosts despite sometimes I couldn't take them out at the first try.

This footage of full-tuned blue Skyline R34 is brought to you by the reflections that'll make you shit bricks :p

Finally, after years of playing, I've Fully-tuned my car to 825HP at Bintaro and Fully Dressed-up to Lv. 63 Dress-up at Karawaci. The last run has to be meaningful...

Boys and Their Rename Evo IXs and RX-8s

Seeing elementary-age kids racing here is a common sightseeing here...

And it turns out the majority of rank toppers in every MaxTune cab, not just 3DX+, are RENAMES. Yup, they are the ones with lots of stars, both big and small, and coins too. They come in with either tribal or flame stickers and inspection color finishes, sometimes works stickers also work, same thing for those with Namco and Pac Racing Club Man stickers. They've got more than 100k mileage, SSS Rank... they ARE EVERYWHERE!!!

I know that feel about the Pac-Man sticker...

You can nearly spot them in any 3DX+ arcade as they are common. YES, VERY COMMON! At first when I didn't aware them, I envy them having so many stars and coins. But now that I aware them, well... I tell you: stars and coins aren't everything, even the SSS Rank (albeit the traffic density difference). Sure you can buy them for a price as reasonable as IDR 100k+ and immediately hit the streets of Wangan up to IDR 5000 one run, alone, against a ghost, taking a store crown of a course, or against either Akio's Devil Z or the all-Skyline R200 Club for another loop, but you can't feel the same excitement and experience at the same time when you start from zero. Yes, you won't like it at first but hey, it'll give you a good run for your money!

There are also people with so much money who are willing to start from zero all the way to FT and FDU using all their hard-earned money and effort. This usually applies to workers whose hobby is THIS very game. :p

Back to Rename Kids thingy, there are, unfortunately, people who have so much ego as if they have played the game for a long time while in reality they just bought renames. Not just in Indonesia, but this kind of people are very common overseas, especially in places like Singapore where there are kids who go like "ME AM THE BEST LA!", "AM FASTEST LA!", "OH LA LA LA LA"... (expect some Reirom-speak said by them...)  Fortunately, this kind of rename kids are uncommon in Indonesia. In fact, I remember the time when I battle at Bintaro, a rename RX-8 kid shook my hand after a race.

Okay then, I don't mind having a grid of rename RX-8 and Evo IX kids but always remember that gentlemen's way of racing needs to be etched in their... no, every Indonesian... NO, EVERY MT RACER'S HEARTS!

What's Next for Me?

What's next for me as a Maximum Tune racer? With MT4 came and I have acquired my Banapassport, it's time to take my car(s) to the next level. Maybe the server is still localized Indonesian server, but who knows at the time MT4 is widespread in Indonesia and our server is integrated internationally, we can fight against international ghosts!

The fight continues in MT4: New Aero Parts, endless swarms of Dress-up Parts, 830HP of Full Tune, Japan Challenge (race against Japanese MT Players), Online Ghost Battles, New Ramming Physics, etc. It's the challenge to the world!

Active Cards:

- RENDY - Bayside Blue Nissan Skyline GT-R VSpec II (R34) - from MT2, FT (825HP), Full DressUp Lv. 63, Transferred to MT4

My main car for years. From MT2 to its FT at 3DX+ and later FDU, the car underwent hard times; there were times it won a tournament nearby my mall which turned out to be a preliminary for the grand final I missed thanks to a misinformation, and there were times I won and lost battles against rename Evo IXs and RX-8s. Its journey before transferred to MT4 was colorful, even though it's still B6 and has stars and Ghost Battle coins no higher than those of the renames. It is now transferred to MT4, but since the server is still local to avoid the transfer deadline, I won't give you this car's Ghost code yet.

- SF-RL - Red Nissan Fairlady Z S30 - from 3DX+, 10 Stories, DressUp Lv 1x

I created this car to replicate the same car that ran Safari Rally, which is why it took its name from that. It was created in Citos way before its closing. Ghost Battles were the first in priority since the Dress Up parts to replicate the car visually are simple sans the wheels with lots of spokes and black color. Its main purpose is to create a "Rally" car that isn't mainstream (e.g., Lancer Evolution models) btw.

Defunct Cards:
- McKey - Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VIII - from MT3
- *RDX* - Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X (CZ4A) - from MT3

Both of these cars were made without a serious intention, and were not very active at all as I used my main car all the time.

~[R]