Indonesia’s Yogyakarta targets Chinese students and tourists to become another Bali

September 07, 2019, 05.10 PM | Source: South China Morning Post
Indonesia’s Yogyakarta targets Chinese students and tourists to become another Bali

ILUSTRASI. LAMPION TAHUN BARU DI BOROBUDUR


YOGYAKARTA - YOGYAKARTA. Yogyakarta contains multitudes. The Indonesian city is a tumult of culture shot through with rich veins of history – it’s still ruled by a functional monarchy; it has been home to storied, spectacular Buddhist and Hindu holy sites for well over a millennium; and is internationally renowned for everything from literature to silversmithing.

All the same, the city is now better known for being an education hub. Besides its four state universities, Yogyakarta is home to more than a dozen private institutions and so many niche academies that it has more than 60 institutes of higher learning, according to some estimates. 

And it’s a reputation the Indonesian government is trying to change.

The archipelagic nation drew 15.8 million tourists last year, and in a bid to boost those numbers for 2019, the Ministry of Tourism is turning its attention to travellers from China, where a growing middle class is constantly in pursuit of new holiday destinations. 

In 2018, Indonesia had 2.7 million visitors from China, and the ministry is hoping for 3.5 million this year – all part of a tourism-boosting initiative launched by the administration of President Joko Widodo to create “10 new Balis”.

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“Yogyakarta is one of the 10 branding destinations,” said Dian Kemenpar, the Ministry of Tourism’s deputy director of tourism marketing for China. 

“This means the Indonesian government supports Yogyakarta as a tourist destination by promoting it around the world, so international tourists will not only be aware of Bali.”

A key element of the plan is upgrading provincial airports, building amenities and improving access to outlying destinations across the country. 

To this end, the city is getting a new airport, which is meant to be fully operational by 2020. As early as next month, 65 flights will have been moved to the Yogyakarta International Airport in Kulon Progo regency, according to the ministry.

LEARNING HUB
Chinese student Dai Wenhui, 25, said her Bahasa Indonesia skills had grown and deepened during her time in Yogyakarta.

She has spent a total of four years studying the language, beginning as an undergraduate at the Guangxi University for Nationalities in Nanning, and is now doing a master’s degree in linguistics at Gadjah Mada University’s Indonesian Language and Culture Learning Service (Inculs).

“When I began my major, I thought Indonesia and China’s cooperation and relationship was getting closer and closer, and for my major I also wanted to have a substantial chance to develop my linguistic abilities in a less frequently studied language,” she said.

Once she completes her master’s degree, Dai said she might teach the language, work for a business that requires the use of Bahasa or even continue her studies. She feels being in Yogyakarta and learning from Indonesians has made a huge difference, allowing her to incorporate the verbal mannerisms and thinking of local people into her studies.

“If you’re learning a language from a book, what you learn could technically be correct, but there are still many things you don’t know about how to use it in real life,” Dai said.

“From pronunciation to writing to grammar, each one of these aspects is better since I came to study here … Not everyone will have the opportunity to study the language of another country in that country, but if you have the opportunity, I think you should definitely take it.”

Dr Sailal Arimi, the vice coordinator of Inculs, said he had seen the number of mainland Chinese students studying Bahasa increase from year to year. The programme currently has 14 such students, nine from Tianjin University and five from Guangxi University.

“Bahasa is a gate for students from China to pursue their interests, [whether it’s] going on to do business or teaching Bahasa in their home country,” he said, adding that another one of his students is learning the language as he plans to work with his brothers who operate Chinese restaurants in Jakarta.

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Gadjah Mada University also sends faculty members to Chinese universities to teach Bahasa. As of December 2017, according to an Indonesian media report, it was taught in 11 universities in China, including Peking University and Shanghai International Studies University.

On the language’s continued appeal to Chinese nationals, Sailal points out that while it is the most-spoken language in Southeast Asia, this is only the beginning of its reach.“It’s not just spoken in countries in the region, but [by the diaspora in countries such as] South Korea and Japan,” he said. 

“In Indonesia, Bahasa is spoken by more than 200 million people, but when you take into account Malaysia, Singapore, Patani in south Thailand, and the south of the Philippines, you’re looking at more than 300 million people [that you can reach by speaking] Indonesian.”

VISIT YOGYA
When it comes to promoting Yogyakarta as a tourist destination, the Indonesian government has a long way to go. Arrivals from Hong Kong and mainland China to the city are far outnumbered by arrivals to Bali: according to statistics provided by the tourism ministry, the total arrivals for last December were 259 and 82,515 respectively.

However, tourist agents based in Yogyakarta say they have seen a recent upswing in interest from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Watching the first fingers of dawn touch Borobudur is unsurprisingly a top attraction; rising through a shroud of jungles and mist, the temple thrums with a primordial vitality. It’s also still in use today, with Buddhists worshipping there and making an annual pilgrimage to the site on Vesak day.

“Chinese tourists want to see the Borobudur sunrise, it’s a … magical moment,” said Ferdina Maharani, director of Pusaka Tours. “Apart from that, they like to go to Instagrammable locations, such as the Mangunan pine forest and Kalibiru [National Park].”

Indonesia’s relationship with mainland China has long been entangled with its domestic politics, and the apparent dilemma between the need for more tourism from China and lingering anti-Chinese sentiment at home is just another example.

“There’s no simple answer. It is a contradiction, but keep in mind that Indonesians are not a monolith,” said Yohanes Sulaiman, who lectures in international relations at Universitas Jenderal Achmad Yani in Cimahi, Indonesia.

“There are lots of people who do not like the Chinese, who think that opening up to China is a bad idea, but on the flip side there are lots of people who want to build a closer relationship with China. What we are having here in the past 20 or 30 years is a kind of pull and push relationship between those who are against China and the others who are for China.”

China is Indonesia’s largest trading partner, with bilateral trade reaching a record US$77.4 billion last year. Sulaiman observed that under the Widodo administration, the pro-Beijing lobby was “stronger in the sense that they think the US doesn’t really focus that much on the Indonesian economy”.

“Every time you want to ask for money from the US, they will always delay,” he said. “There are a lot of things we have to take care of, from human rights [to infrastructure], and China seems to be easy money.”

CITY OF CONTRADICTIONS
The city of Yogyakarta itself is a beautiful contradiction. It is described by Antariksa, a locally based historian, researcher and co-founder of the Kunci Cultural Studies Centre, as being “cosmopolitan but traditional at the same time”.

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He pointed out that developing the city had a cost – for instance, construction of the new airport saw the eviction of families who had lived and farmed on the land for decades. “It was very problematic, but at the same time bred a new generation of activists in the city,” Antariksa said, highlighting Yogyakarta’s long history of student movements.

“These contradictions in our culture – in Yogyakarta it’s always been like that. But I’m a little bit worried, as a historian, that the recent development pushed by the government is going to commodify our city more and more.

“For example, gentrification is a problem because of this new government initiative to attract more tourists and business to come to the city … The younger generation cannot afford to live in the city, and it’s getting more difficult for artists to live in the city.”

While everything from batik to the sweet local delicacy bakpia contain elements of Chinese culture, the city’s laws state that non-native Indonesians – such as ethnic Chinese – cannot buy or own land there. Antariksa discusses this in the same breath as he points out the city’s strong Chinese community and its “beautiful Chinese New Year celebrations”.

Trianto Sunarjati of Seta Tours and Travel said while there is no doubt Chinese tourists are enamoured of Yogyakarta’s history and culture, their numbers are a long way from where they once were.

“The golden era for the Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese markets was before 1998, especially in terms of coming to Yogyakarta,” he said, referring to the Asian financial crisis and the riots in May that year targeting Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese.

“Since then, [numbers of tourists from China were] getting less and less, but they have picked up since one or two years ago.”

Trianto said that while the government had poured funds into physical infrastructure, the drop-off in visits over the past two decades had affected the industry’s capacity to handle Chinese tourists.

“One of the important things we have to develop now is human resources, especially Mandarin-speaking tour guides, if we are catering more to this market,” he said. “Especially when it comes to the new international airport, there is a lot we have to do.”

The Yogyakarta International Airport, developed at a cost of US$432.64 million, will be able to handle 50 million passengers annually, according to The Jakarta Post – a much-needed alternative to the city’s Adisutjipto International Airport, which has a capacity of 2.1 million passengers per year but has been straining to cater for almost three times that number.

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Tourist operators and Tourism Ministry officials speaking to This Week in Asia said they were hopeful the new airport would see international airlines offering more direct routes to Yogyakarta, with some lamenting the lack of direct flights from China.

They also expect this will reduce the cost of getting there by air while ensuring a longer stay, as many Chinese tourists stop over in Singapore or Jakarta before flying to the Javanese city.

“Access is so important,” Trianto says. “And for price, it’s still a [prime driver] for someone who wants to take a trip abroad. If the price of a route is not good, of course there will be fewer people flying it.” 

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Editor: Tendi Mahadi

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