Just another Bali

Bali, island of paradise that has international reputation, either from its tourism or from two times terrorist attack (Bali Bombing I and II).

And what does Bali have now? Yeah, there's some progress (no more "heavy" traffic congestion) in Jl Legian in certain period (not include office hour, after hour and clubbing hour) 😜 and serious bottleneck in Jl Blambangan-Kuta that must be top priority.
Img.

Everybody still visit Kuta beach, although (almost) every beaches in Bali (or even in the universe) are same, sand and sea. Dont forget the massage, tattoo and braid services that you MUST bargained before received it. If you dont want it, just say no, and they'll leave you alone.
Kuta is quite clean, friendly and its very Bali. Some officer clean it every morning, picked all those trashes. Kuta beach is better to visit in dusk or dawn. Many dogs are seen on beach, some moslem visitor may uncomfortable with them.

Hotel: I stayed in Swiss-Belhotel Kuta or Bali Kuta Resort, room is huge! With separated living room and bedroom :)
Coz hotels layout is rectangular, to stay here I recommend you to have pool view rather than outside view (depends on your taste). Img.

Img.
Cozy room, but lack of hotel slippers, bad water drainage on shower and unfortunately my room has other guest, ants! I'v told the receptionist and they suggest me to tell it earlier for room service to clean them up. I think the ants has nest near my room or somewhere.

Shopping:
Shopping become core of Bali's tourism (if you know what i mean), and there are many places worth for shopping, like Joger or Krisna. Joger has only three branches and recently it sells common things that you can found in street vendors.

Krisna, most famous shopping destination has many branches surrounding Kuta area! Well done bli, well done.

As far as I observed, most shopping places are visited by local tourist! (Are foreigners wake up late??)

I saw some chinese and middle east tourist but not many.
For those who are in rush catch up flight, I recommend to visit Krisna. They have (almost) all type if souvenir sell in Bali.

Tourist attraction:
Natural landscapes, art performances or educational places, and what else can we see in Bali?
Just sit there, relax, enjoy the view without rushing here and there, annoyingly taking pictures as most tourist did.

GWK is still the same, the head and body of Wisnu still separated from his Garuda and his hand, and people still visited it. Some drivers said that Dreamland beach is the new happening place worth to visit, but had no time, I visited most mainstream tourist visit.

Though I visited Bali more than three times, Bali still not disappointing, Bali never lost it's charm.

Foods and beverages that must be tried when you visit, Australia

Most (but not many) travellers demand to enjoy local specialty like food or beverage when they visited a region, village, city or even a country.

This time is Australia.

Its quite hard to find local flavour there coz Australia is a "salad", a mixed country consist of many culture and races so the people (or restaurant) tend to bring culinary flavour from their origin, luckily i found two traditional beverages and two traditional foods there.

The first two beverages is Bundaberg Ginger Beer and Solo soda. Ginger beer actually just a soda with ginger taste, better to serve chilled ;)

Solo soda is one of the traditional pub non-alcohol beverage, taste almost similar to Sprite, but i think Solo is has stronger lemon taste.

The first food must be tried is Vegemite, this authentic Australian spread or jam made from fermented barley which is side product of beer making. Taste like cheese (a bit) but it wont make you drunk anyway.
Some said that if you ate Vegemite, it will fluent your english and has australian accent :p

The second food must tried in Australia is Kangaroo steak! Yep, Kangaroo!
I recommend you to buy it in local supermarket like Coles or Woolworths than order it in steak house/restaurant (in case it will cost higher). In Coles 0.5kg Kangaroo steak costs around A$11, already marinated.
The meat is solid dark red, not marbling like wagyu or other beef cut.
The taste depends on the seasoning/marinating ingredients.
To grill it, dont make it well done, but try to make it medium/half to avoid it become hard.
Taste? Delicious! :q

Akhir Pekan

Bertemu sabtu itu seru,
Ia menyapa dengan manis,
seolah tahu bahwa aku perlu liburan setelah stress berat senin hingga jumat.
"ayo bagus, mari kita bersenang-senang, nonton film, jalan-jalan, makan-makan, bermalas-malasan seeeeepuasnya... Semuanya boleh!"
Aaaah Ia tahu aku cinta hari sabtu, padahal aku lahir dihari rabu.

Malam minggupun tiba,
Aku merasa memasuki pertapaan panjang, sebuah penghayatan akan indahnya akhir pekan... Akhir pekan yang tak kan kusia-siakan tiap momennya.

Ketika sampai dihari minggu,
the fun is still in the air! Bersenang-senang, sepuasnya, segila-gilanya!

Ketika senja pun tiba,
😳
Terasa sedih dan sendu
Ku tau hal ini pasti datang...

Why people put saturday and sunday too close, while they put monday and friday so far .__.

Failure

Nobody likes failure, but maybe somebody likes to laugh at us when we failed (maybe, but figure out how very negative-thinking I am).
But thats about somebody else, what about ourself?

Nobody likes failure.

Approved, achieved, passed, accomplished and succeed are words that required us to be perfect on doing/implementing our assignment/task. But what happened when we failed?

Having failure feels like somebody pointed a gun to your face, and you feel helpless....

Anger,
sad,
confusion,
denial, hopeless and many negative and desperate emotional words we can mentioned. World felt like torn apart, crushed, no favorite songs can cure the pain :(

Its hard, very hard some said.

Negative emotion is overwhelmed, and suspicion is around (see the word at the opening, that even I thought that somebody out there is happy with my failure!!).
What a toxic mind!

And the process continue to analyze what's wrong with it. I think there's two aspect that we can put the blame is, internally mine and external factor.

Internal factor is about what's wrong with us:
Did I well-prepared for this task?
What effort has I've done to achieve it?

External factor is about outside factor that may caused failure, anything can be the cause, mythical, irrational, coincidence or rational-logical reasons can be made, but I prefer to make things simple.

Dont compare yourself to other,
Everybody is unique, even twins are unidentic. So nobody has the same skills or intelligent level to other.

This is the best that I can do,
Remember those effort that you've put so hard, very hard to finished it.

Grateful for what you've achieve,
Yeah, there's always comparison between A and B etc, but still be grateful for any kind of small things that you've achieved today. Health and being surrounded by family and friends are small things that might be missed from our eye sight.

I just read a blog from Dondi Hananto, about capital for enterpreneur. See the notes here: http://www.dondihananto.com/. In the encore, he wrote in Bahasa Indonesia and I summarize it in English: "don't blame yourself or external factor, but focused on the solution of the problem"

I read that and WOW! He's god damn right.
myself, somebody or anything can be blamed, but it wont change the previous result. So its better to take the responsibility, not to blame somebody or the situation and start focused on the solution, how to solve/re-encounter/change the situation/problem!

Like Incubus said: "Just a phase, and it soon be over"

Menggigil di Melbourne

Hawa dingin
Perlahan,
Merayap,
Mengendap,
Mengalir, membungkus tubuh,
Membekukan sendi, mematirasakan jari-jari,
Membekukan bibir,
Membekukan setiap tarikan nafas,
Dingin, menusuk kulit menghujam tulang.

Butir air terasa seperti jarum,

Mengigil,
Gemeretak sekujur tubuh,
Semakin ku berlari, semakin kuat hujaman jarum-jarum beku ini,

Kemana ku harus pergi?
Dimanakah sumber kehangatan itu?
Dimana?

NIkwax Waterproof Spray

Winter is coming to Melbourne, because there is no snow in Melbourne, except in certain mountain region such Mt Buller etc that means there going to be a heavy rain. I decided to buy a waterproof spray. So I went to a sky equipment store in Surrey Hills and the salesperson recommend me Nikwax. A waterproof water-based repellent cost A$30. 

One of the annoying thing is that the bootle color is purple and there is a "purple" word stated on the label as well. But I want to applied in my brown-summer jacket. I remember I asked about this to the salesperson but I dont remember what the answer he gave to me. So I decided to open the bottle although there might be warranty broken, and see the solution's color looks like, it is clear -__-

Why should they stated "purple" in fact that the solution is clear colored?

Nikwax also has website to help customer seek infos about their product, unfortunately not about the "purple" thing on the label. But it quite helpful.

A bootle can be applied for 1-2 clothes, depends on size. The instruction is very clear stated on the bottle. So lets begin the work.

Because its a waterproof spray, you should expect smell things after applied the spray on fabric, so prefer to do it in well circulated areas or even outdoor. Just spray part by part and repeated again until whole fabric is covered.

But the sprinkler on Nikwax that I've used is not very good, the spray is not well diffused as fog/mist, it more like stream divided into two direction. Yeah, bad sprinkler, should manage bout it. So I apply the spray randomly but still measure the spray coverage on my jacket. Front, back, arms and collar side.

Make sure you clean any excessive product on fabric.

The result is great, I've tested it by drop a drop of water and the water wont permeate through garment. But the real test is when I take a walk on a rainy day with the jacket....

The spray in only applicable in outside of a garment, if you need a inside-out waterproof spray Nikwax has the solution (like a detergent) product. Because the product is water based waterproof spray, it approximate that the solution will diminished when garment is washed more than 3-5 times.

Thats my experience when bought a Nikwax spray, hope its useful :)

Starbucks price in four countries

This time, fun writing. No more serious stuff :p

As coffee addict, who doesn't know Starbucks? The famous coffee chain in the world. 

So what's the special thing about Starbucks that I want to write today is about the price. I've been to three countries and I want to compare prices in Indonesia, Germany and Australia.

In Indonesia, the small/short cup of Caramel Frappuccino cost Rp. 34,000 or A$ 3.6, while in Australia it cost  A$ 5.3! On the other hand, a Tall Caramel Frappuccino in Berlin cost 3.90 Euro or A$ 4.9!

Here is some hint for what size is Starbucks cups has: 

Short - 8oz
Tall - 12oz
Grande - 16oz
Venti - 20oz

What I've bought in Berlin was Caramel Frappuccino in Tall size, as shown in this receipt.

So lets summarise the result on a table.

No.	Country	SBUX size	Price (AUD)
1.	Indonesia	Short	3.6
2.	Australia	Short	5.3
3.	Germany	Tall	4.9
4.	Japan	Short	5.2

The Japanese's Starbucks price was contributed from a friend that previously visited there, she said that the Short caramel Frappuccino cost Y 420 or A$ 5.2.

Well, the not-so-surprising data is that Starbucks coffee price is relatively low in developing country such Indonesia. But in developed countries as shown on table above it is quite surprising that Starbucks price is relative cheaper in Germany than in Australia and Japan!

I think I want to drink a coffee, not iced-coffee, but a hot black coffee from my kitchen :q

Happy sipping folks!

Pilkada dalam Perspektif Marketing II

Tulisan ini merupakan lanjutan dari dari tulisan mengenai pilkada dalam perspektif marketing menggunakan analisis Rossiter (2011). Tulisan bagian pertama dapat dilihat disini. Dibagian kedua ini akan dibahas strategi kedua bagaimana new entrant dapat menggusur dominasi market leader (incumbent) dengan promosi besar-besaran dan strategi promosi yang efektif.

Strategi promosi besar-besaran? Ya! Strategi promosi besar-besaran demi membangun awareness konsumen dapat mengubur sang market leader. Semakin sering produk new entrant dipromosikan besar-besaran melalui berbagai media, cetak, elektronik, digital, visual bahkan lisan dengan dana tak terbatas dapat mendongkrak new entrant memenangi pertarungan. Setelah konsumen terpapar media promosi, maka awarenessnya akan tumbuh. Melalui teknik-teknik periklanan tertentu sehingga konsumen akan tertarik dengan produknya, yaitu visi dan misi dari kandidat.

Semua orang tahu Samsung, produsen elektronik dari Korea Selatan ini giat beriklan diseantero Indonesia diberbagai media mempromosikan TV, handphone, laptop.

Sekedar cerita lama, kakak saya punya monitor PC dan handphone Samsung, bukan Android tapi OS Bada! 

(waktu itu OS Android belum masuk Indonesia).

Hasilnya saat ini? Setidaknya ada salah satu teman, saudara atau tetangga kita yang punya produk Samsung (maaf, agak sulit mencari data valid soal market share Samsung). 

Terlepas dari price positioning, Samsung berhasil membangun awareness dan attraction lebih dibandingkan kompetitor. 

Apakah masih ada manfaat dengan menghamburkan dana besar-besaran memasang spanduk disana-sini, memaku poster/banner dipohon untuk membangun awareness dan attraction pemilih? 

Tidak semua kandidat memiliki dana tak terbatas. Rossiter menawarkan aternatif ketiga yaitu dengan menggunakan sarana promosi lebih efektif.

Kemudian semua orang berbicara mengenai promosi melalui internet, sub klasifikasi social media lalu terbagi lagi menjadi social media platform seperti Facebook, Twitter, Blog dan YouTube. Internet marketing itu murah, personal, tepat sasaran, interaktif dan efektif.

Menurut penulis, efektif disini berarti menentukan target market (segmentation) lalu mengoptimalkan penggunaan media promosi. Alasannya adalah berapa jumlah pengguna internet di Indonesia?  

sepengetahuan penulis berdasarkan data dari BPS tahun 2011, sekitar 11% penduduk Indonesia yang menggunakan internet, dan dari sekian persen tersebut berapa persen yang masuk dalam daftar pemilih?

Dalam daftar pemilih biasanya bisa dibagi dalam klasifikasi umur tertentu, 17-25 tahun, 26-35 tahun dst. Dalam klasifikasi umur ini (segmentation), para tim sukses dapat menganalisa rentang umur dengan jumlah terbesar dan menganalisis preferensi pemilih dalam mengakses informasi, apakah menggunakan internet, koran, majalah, TV, radio atau melalui teman sepergaulan.

Pengalaman saya mengikuti dua kali pemilu presiden, internet masih menjadi barang mahal dan ketika itu kampanye melalui internet masih langka. Saya mencari informasi melalui koran dan TV. Mungkin tidak banyak remaja seumuran saya saat itu yang membaca Kompas sabtu sampai kepala berasap :p

Saat ini, sepak terjang Faisal Basri dan Biem Benyamin sebagai salah satu calon independen menarik untuk diperhatikan, mereka dengan modal (yang saya duga) tidak sebanyak calon yang lain menggunakan social media dan menyasar kaum muda sebagai target market. Dalam beberapa testimoni YouTube, para public figure tanpa dibayar menyatakan dukungannya kepada Faisal-Biem. Ini sangat penting dimana konsumen menjadi prosumer, saat konsumen menjadi ambassador dan advokat dari brand yang mereka dukung! Apalagi prosumernya adalah public figure!

Sebuah senjata dalam senjata yang mematikan dalam marketing!

Mari kita lihat contoh segmentasi berdasarkan range umur Provinsi DKI Jakarta.

No.	Range Umur (tahun)	Jumlah Pemilih (jiwa)
1.	15-35	4.152.064
2.	36-55	2.425.600
3.	56-75	670.517
4.	76-98	61.860
	Total Jumlah Pemilih	7.310.041

Data ini penulis olah dari BPS tahun 2010. Setelah melihat tabel ini, maka dahi akan mengernyit, 

mata memicing, 

tangan bertopang dagu, 

gigi terkatup rapat dan 

bibir membulat mengeluarkan suara "ooo..."

Jadi, Faisal-Biem mendekati segmen mana Juli 2012 ini? Segmen terbesar 15-35 tahun dengan share 56,79%! Diasumsikan orang-orang dengan range umur 15-35 tahun adalah orang yang setidaknya paham dengan internet dan memiliki akun social network seperti Facebook atau Twitter.

Oh ya, kenapa data umurnya dimulai dari 15 tahun? karena data ini dibuat tahun 2010, sehingga jika kita hitung tahun 2012 (saat ini), maka mereka yang berumur 15 tahun sudah termasuk sebagai pemilih. 

Apakah strategi ini akan berhasil, mengingat rata-rata hanya 11% penduduk Indonesia yang melek internet?

Apakah teori konsumen-prosumer akan mampu mengantar Faisal-Biem meraih DKI-1?

Apakah justru market leader yang akan menang?

Ataukah dengan budget kampanye raksasa, kandidat lain yang akan menang?

 

Kita saksikan Juli ini! :p

The Indonesian Satay Festival 2012

This is the sequel of the Melbourne Street Festival that was held on April 29th in Queen Victoria Market,see the post here. The festival was held in Box Hill Town Hall.

Caused in May its winter in Melbourne, thank God that they hold the event indoor huff....

The venue was crowded by Indonesians that are homesick with traditional food like tempe, risol, ayam betutu, cendol and many more.

 

Maybe because I'm late I saw a few satays around??? It might already sold out. 

Ther are live performance on the stage, the first band consist of Indonesian and Australian sang "Cucak Rowo". The second band, seems they are teenager sang Peterpan and an english-lyric song. 

I take walk around foodstall, I saw masakan padang, jajanan pasar and other foodstall. Actually I want to buy satay padang, but because the queue is very long, I went to other foodstalll to have lunch, a chicken with coconut milk, sambal and cucumber, it cost around  $10. The chicken was nicely cooked, so the meat loose from bones and combined with sambal, tastes great! :q

There are also merchandise sales on another room near the main venue, they sell batik (of course), wall hanging, decorations, books, travel agent service and many more.

Because I have to shop groceries, I went early from the event, out from Box Hill Town hall.

Pilkada dalam Perspektif Marketing

 Its been a long long time that I havent written any blog in bahasa Indonesia. Well, if you are foreign reader, try to put it in google translate or ask someone to translate it for you :D

Tahun ini akan banyak pilkada datang silih berganti di Republik Indonesia, mulai Pilkada DKI Jakarta bulan Juli ini, Pilkada Kalimantan Barat, Jawa Barat dan Riau tahun 2013 serta klimaksnya Pemilu Legislatif dan Presiden-Calon Presiden di 2014. Pemilihan kepala daerah pada dasarnya adalah salah satu kegiatan marketing, yaitu bagaimana cara calon pemimpin membangkitkan kesadaran (awareness), menarik simpati (attract), membuat para pemilih memilih calon pasangan tertentu (acquire), mempertahankan preferensi/loyalitas (retain) dan meningkatkan loyalitas pemilih (grow) dimasa depan. Istilah-istilah tersebut saya rasa cukup akrab ditelinga para Marketer.


Marketing tidak hanya terbatas menjual barang dan jasa saja, seseorangpun dapat "dijual" melalui metode marketing seperti Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey ataupun Syahrini yang selalu membuat berita dimedia elektronik. Oke, cukuplah menyebut nama mereka, kembali ke urusan marketing dalam pilkada.


Dalam pilkada terkadang ada situasi dimana petahana (incumbent) atau seseorang yang masih menjabat/berkuasa turut serta dalam pemilihan berikutnya, sementara dalam dunia marketing hal ini dapat dianalogikan menjadi suatu produk atau jasa yang menjadi mayoritas/market leader. Bagaimana caranya new entrant dapat mencuri market share dari market leader?


Eh tapi bukan cuma mencuri, melainkan bagaimana caranya menyingkirkan sang market leader! Karena dalam pilkada tidak ada gunanya menjadi market nicher atau follower bila dibandingkan dengan marketing barang dan jasa.


Dan sekarang saatnya dimulai sesi ilmiah 
Rossiter (2011) menyatakan bahwa trik agar new entrant dapat merebut market share dari new entrant yang masuk lebih awal ada tiga: (1) menghadirkan produk yang superior, atau jika tidak bisa (2) menghabiskan usaha lebih banyak dalam promosi dan (3) menggunakan saran promosi lebih efektif.


Apa definisi superior dalam pilkada?
Latar belakang pendidikan?
Pekerjaan? Jabatan?
Pengalaman memimpin?
Kekayaan?
Definisi superioritas menjadi nisbi, karena semua calon memiliki latar belakang yang berbeda-beda, sama seperti kita membandingkan iPhone 4S dengan telepon genggam dengan harga Rp 300 ribu. Apakah konsumen benar-benar memerlukan iPhone 4S sementara digunakan hanya untuk telepon dan SMS?
Tergantung kepada keperluan konsumen.


Superioritas dapat didefinisikan sebagai tingginya jumlah konsumen produk yang bersangkutan. Semakin tinggi jumlah konsumen diterjemahkan semakin disukai suatu produk dalam kombinasi cost-benefit (semakin rendah cost dan semakin tinggi benefit).
Dalam hal pilkada, jumlah konsumen dapat diasosiasikan menjadi jumlah pendukung. Apakah jumlah pendukung pada saat kampanye sama dengan jumlah pemilih pada hari H nanti? Belum tentu.
Masih ada faktor cost-benefit yang masih ditimbang-timbang para pemilih untuk memilih si X, Y atau Z.



Cost-benefit dalam pilkada bukan hanya waktu yang tersita untuk datang ke TPS, melainkan juga resiko jangka panjang apabila produk yang dipilih tidak dapat memenuhi ekspektasi konsumen ataupun manfaat yang timbul setelah purchasing/pencoblosan/pencontrengan.
Masih ingat lagu Cokelat "Lima Menit Untuk Lima Tahun"? Mungkin judulnya bisa diubah menjadi "Lima Menit Menyesal Lima Tahun".


Pilkada bukanlah produk yang dapat dengan mudah diganti seperti sabun atau makanan, pilkada merupakan produk unik yang dibeli satu atau dua kali namun memiliki efek jangka panjang yang terkadang tidak memiliki dampak apa-apa terhadap konsumennya.
Dalam hal ini, tingkat apatis konsumen menjadi tinggi.

Superioritas menjadi relatif, apabila para calon memiliki kaliber jabatan, pendidikan dan pengalaman yang sangat tinggi, ataupun sama sekali tidak atraktif dimata pemilih. Sehingga para calon harus menghabiskan sumberdaya untuk berpromosi alias kampanye.

Bagaimana kelanjutan analisis Rossiter dalam perspektif pilkada? Tunggu kelanjutan tulisan ini hehe ;)

(kok berasa kayak cerpen ya?)

Busy

Its a busy weeks for me, because im having exam.
Huff luckily i've read notes pieces by pieces a week before.
Some said "Repetition is king"
Well, this time i'll going to prove it.
Btw, actually i already have drafts for another blogpost, but still...
Due to the exam, it should be postponed untill this weekend.
Well, happy waiting then.

Greek Coffee

Greek coffee, I don't know about it until I saw it on the supermarket shelves. I forgot about the price, I think its below $10 for this size (500 grams). 

Price came first for buying preference hehehe...

In spite curiosity also.

So, how to enjoy it? The is instruction on back side of the packing, enjoy not by brewing it with a hot water, but boil it with a Briki (a small pot). Add water, sugar and coffee on a pot and then put it on a stove until its boiling.

The texture of the coffee powder is fine grinded.

This is what a kind of Briki looks like.

Hows bout taste?

The taste is actually shocking! It tastes bold like chocolate as my first impression. If you ever tried Balinese Coffee, both taste quite similar. 

After consumes it many times, I can taste the sour of the bean, but its not as strong as the choco-taste.

For the best sip experience, I recommend you to add less sugar on it. 

Happy sipping! ☕

NB: One thing that I've learned from brewing this coffee is that should be keep in mind if you want to buy a coffee, try to buy it in small amount, although its more expensive. Why? 
Because the more you bought lot amount of coffee, the more you drink it like an ordinary beverages. Sipping coffee is not like that, it is a lifestyle and there's a ritual inside it.

Melbourne Street Festival (Kartini's Day) 2012

Kartini's day is a day where Indonesia celebrate the birth day of Kartini, Indonesia's emancipation heroine. The celebration is held every 21st of April.

In Melbourne, Kartini's day is celebrated in a different manner like in Indonesia. 29 April 2012 was hold Indonesia Street Festival. The event was held in Queen Victoria market, Melbourne.

How to understand a culture in an quick way? By a culinary experience.

Stands sell foods like sate, Empek-empek and beverages like Teh Tarik.

Visitors seems very exited with sate by the Indonesia Moslem Community Victoria, lots of people queue to get their order.

There were also other fellow southeast Asian countries like Malaysia and Singapore presenting Nasi Lemak and Chicken Rice.


Theres also a live performance on stage. When I first arrived, the sound mixer was playing Mulan Jameela :p
When somebody does a performance, he sang an english pop song.

When I was walking around, I saw a advertisement of Indonesia Satay Festival for couple of weeks ahead.

Well, you just wait for the coverage from me. :)

And the post has finished (hell yeah!) See the post through this link .

Questionnaire Publication II: The Tiger of Asia

How to measure country development level is by compare it with other country.

This blog is the second part from the “Questionnaire Publication”

The Tiger of Asia.

I think every magazine always compare countries in Asia,

“Here is the tiger of Asia”

“Here is rising tiger of Asia”

“This was the tiger of Asia”

I think that there is three ways for any country to become the tiger of Asia,

First is to have a strong-semi authoritarian government, or

second, has willingness to step further or

third, do both.

If we monitor Southeast Asia, all the great 3 countries (Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore) have strong-semi authoritarian government. Although Thailand was shaken by the red-shirt movement to shake the current prime minister, Thailand’s monarchy stand still and with the military forces backed up. In case of Malaysia’s government, it’s dominated by the UMNO.

Both Malaysia and Singapore is backed up with Internal Security Act that allows the police to arrest person or a group up to 30 days (Singapore) or 60 days (Malaysia), to counter any Coup de etat or terrorism action. Seems that’s not humane, but that’s country prerogative. 

Those southeast Asian countries has semi-authoritarian government and succeeded lead the nation as the tigers of (southeast) Asia.

If we observe East Asia countries like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea. They are the tiger of Asia. 
 

One “happening” country is South Korea, from Kimchi to LG, south Korean product, food and lifestyle is everywhere. What happened to South Korea today is not happened in the blink of an eye.

South Korea is one of the victim of the cold war, it’s also been into dictatorship government under Syngman Rhee (The First Republic), The Second Republic and The Military Rule lead by Park Chung-hee.

The third republic established populist program in economy extended its governance up to the fourth republic but then his government went corrupt and after 18 years, he was murdered by Kim Jae-kyu, ended also the military rule in the fourth republic.

The fifth republic still marked with protest, political unrest and house detention for the opposition leader, started with Coup de etat on the current prime minister by Chun Doo-hwan in 1979. His government promised new era of economic and democratic justice, marked by the rise of South Korea’s economy, but also widen the gap between the rich and poor.

The fifth republic success marked by Asian Games 1986.

Remember back that the fifth republic was build from Coup de etat, it means that the government is still based on military government, not civilian. And again, another protest occurred caused by the Gwangju Massacre in 1987.

June 1987 marked the rise of the Republic of South Korea lead by Roh Tae-woo.

This status still remains until now.

1988 Olympic game was held in Seoul, after Roh Tae-woo step down, Kim Yong-sam was the first civilian president since 30 years, he did many breakthrough in economy and law, took former president Cun and Roh to court for bribery.

South Korea also suffered from the 1998 economic crisis,  as a great challenge for the new president, Kim Dae-jung. The government is doing aggresive effort in investment attracting, gold-collecting campaign and industry cooperation. South Korea succeeded out of the crisis in a relative short time.

In Kim’s era, industrial reconstruction with the big conglomerates were pursued, the national health system was introduce, education reform was introduced and the IT field is increased. 2002 cooperate south Korea with Japan as host for FIFA World Cup.

Roh Moo-hyun took the presidential chair in 2002, hee is succeeded to settling Korea-USA FTA issue and launch the high-speed train system. But then he was accused in corruption and bribery. Korean stock market was rose, but the unemployment and the housing prices were also high.

The lawsuit ended when he commit suicide in 2009.

Until now, the president of South Korea is Lee Myung-bak.

 (Source and summarized from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_South_Korea)

(See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea)

What can we learn from South Korea’s history?

1. South Korea also have the dictatorship and military era. 
2. What determine South Korea is that they has the continuity in its economic policy (strong government determination since 1960 until now), although each government era was the opposition that took place.
3. The suppressive power cannot hold the people, corrupt government will force the people of South Korea to have another demonstration. 

How about Indonesia? Indonesia also has almost the same fate with South Korea, Soekarno's been close to the socialist block, after been coupe by Soeharto, Indonesia has similar progress with South Korea. But what differentiate them with South Korea is determination and continuity. Click here for international news about Indonesia's current President.