Traditional Occupation - Endangered Species

A couple “traditional occupation” that consider close to extinction. Some were deemed outdated, while others were regarded simply as ‘having no future’. One thing for sure, most of these jobs were gone because they could not compete with the advancement of new technologies which have caused a shift in the pattern of human’s behaviour.

Here their stories…

Becak driver

Becak (tricycle) Driver
Becak is a form of environmental-friendly transport. Once upon a time, becak was more favored type of public transport. Many people preferred to use becak as form of transportation to enjoy the city atmosphere. Even more, many schoolchildren were driven to and picked up by parent’s regular becak driver.

Not only the number of becak decreasing, rarely the driver were still at young age. The younger generation prefer to be ojek (motorcycle-taxi) driver then a becak driver. Not only because driving a becak needs more man-power energy, but also the image of a becak driver itself were far from ’cool’, hence the discreditable popularity among youngster. If this attitude remains, it is almost certain that the profession of becak driver will be extinct because there is no regeneration while the elder were too old to drive.

Postman
There are times when the arrival of postman created a specific excitement among residents of the house. An incoming letter often creates thrill for the recipient. The letter can bring bad or good news, coming from a family, close friends or even lovers. Either one, each of residents at home presents their own enthusiasm to the postman for he has bought the letter to the house.

The advancement of communication technology presents us with e-mail, mobile phones and fax machine, thus providing easier, cheaper and faster modes of communication. ‘Snail’ mail o longer popular. Postmen have lost the enthusiasm of letter’s recipients, of house’s residents. Many of the envelopes he sends around were no longer personal letter but bills, invoices or advertisement. Nowadays, postmen compete with advertisement of technology to steal public’s heart.

Weight Scale-man
The man always brings weight scale every day walk around the neighborhood and yell out “Weight scale!” without paying attention to the burning sun. His service is to scale someone’s weight, and they have to pay Rp. 500-1,000,-. It is very cheap, indeed, especially nowadays when the price of weight scale has become cheaper in addition to commercially entertaining weight scale we can find in malls and department stores.

A weight scale man daily income is very small, they sometimes work as scavengers to be able to fulfill their basic needs. Usually, their regular customers are children. But now, almost every household have a weight scale, putting the weight scale-man’s job to rest.

Tukang Sayur (Vegetable/fresh Produce Seller)

Tukang Sayur (Vegetable/fresh Produce Seller)
In the last couple of years, we can still hear a vegetable-seller yelling out “veggies..veggies..” around our neighborhood. At that moment, housewives and housemaids were coming out of their homes approaching this seller to buy some fresh produce for daily consumes. The surging crowd clamoured for a negotiable price while selecting goods and sharing local neighborhood gossips spreading from the vegetable-cart.

With the rise of new technology, mobile vegetable sellers have become more and more difficult to find. The new advancement in technology more often than not has change individual habit and routines, including these sellers’ habit. They improve their services with the help of new technology. Now, their regular customers no longer have to wait for their arrival in the neighborhood, a short message through mobile phone to these vegetable sellers is enough. Then, the vegetable seller will send a courier to deliver their order right to their front door.

Photo Reproduction Kiosk

Photo Reproduction Kiosks
The advancement of photography technology has become more apparent nowadays, from the traditional photography with negative film to digital photography. With the new technology, photograph reproduction can be performed in a faster and more efficient manner. An outlet that provides photo reproduction services will be able to print a couple hundred photos in a couple hours. We only need to wait 1-2 hours to print a photo in that outlet. Even a home printer nowadays can print a photo with good resolution and a quality comparable to those photo reproduction service outlets.

Prior to the digital age, to print a photo in those outlets we need to wait up to 4 days long for it to be finished. Not a long time ago, several photo reproduction kiosks were standing in front of many well-known university. With conventional printing technique and pertomaks (a petrol-lantern) as its lighting, this service was quite popular. These kiosks offer their own benefits such as cheap and quick compared to big outlets.

Farmer - planting padi

Farmer
Farmer used to be the most important job in our country, Indonesia, with its overflowing natural resources and its fertile land where it needs these farmers attend to this blessing. However, the development of this country has left fewer fields for farmers to work on. Moreover, some possibilities may also be the reason why this job become marginalized, such as its low-ranking image, their unstable income, their exclusion from prosperity that has been ignored by the government and many other possibilities.

Now farmers are the old generations whose energy has been consumed by the burning sunlight and heavy works. Their children prefers to work as an ojek driver, mechanic or technician or move to big cities to get a job, any job. Some of the young generation, who decided to work as farmers because of their love of their hometown, have become scarce.

Housemaid
A housemaid as a discourse urban society is a confirmation that modern society is unable to face the basic foundation of their life: domestic life. While life has become harder, technology will always make everything easier and user friendly.

Domestic duties, which were considered nuisance, nowadays can be completed in one touch. In a world of high technology rules where some robots have take over human’s ‘heavy’ duties… where would the housemaid belong?


Mobile Barber
He doesn’t work as a beauty salon or barbershop: he is a DPR (Di bawah Pohon Rindang = under the shades of trees) barber or a mobile barber moving around with his bicycle selling his haircut skill.

This type of job still exists around us, although threatened by its competition with barbershops, which offer comfortable places and similar price. The changing trends of hairstyles also become the reason there mobile barbers lose from the competition.

Their regular customers might be one of few reasons this occupation still exist. Some people sometimes trust only one barber to cut their hair, but this is about style.

The horse chart as a public transportation only used for a short distance in Bali

Horse-dawn Carriage Driver
Horse-dawn carriage was one of the main forms of transportation used by Indonesia people. However, with the rising popularity of fossil-fuel vehicles, horse-drawn carriage has been marginalized by those new technologies. Cars, motorcycles and carriages were competing for a space in the road. Moreover, the lack of regeneration has reduced the number of these carriages and only to be found in several areas.

Temulawak Rhizomes - Traditional Herbal

Fortunately, all plants – though many still unknown – give benefits, one form of these benefits is as medicine. Meet temulawak, its roots are highly beneficial, and believed to be equivalent rival to Korean ginseng.

Temulawak - Curcuma xanthorrhiza

The practice of concocting medicinal herbs has been going on since our ancestor generation. In ethnic traditional society we can still found someone who acts as a ‘healer’. Although they often associated with magic and supernatural power but searching deeper to their healing medium, more often than not, they use many kinds of plants.

Temulawak itself has been acknowledged as one powerful medicinal herb. This type of plants is specifically Indonesia. Although its dissemination is only in Java, Kalimantan and Maluku, many people bring along the plant for its benefits. It was even exported to some countries.

This plant grew in a meadow close to residential area, especially on the fertile soil, so that the fruit and rhizome can grow large. Temulawak is a form of herbal plant with stem. It has broad leaves each connected with slender stalk. Temulawak also has unique clustered flowers both in low ground and high ground up to 1500 metres above the sea level.

Temulawak which also known as koneng gede in Sundanese, does increase appetite. In Center Java, many parents give their children its concoction to increase their appetite.

Temulawak - Curcuma Xanthorriza Roxb

Temulawak rhizomes were known as a medicinal herb for a long time. Temulawak or Javanese turmeric or also known as Curcuma Xanthorriza Roxb, was believed to have anti-aging effect, remove skin fleck and improve muscle flexibility. New mothers were also suggested to consume this herbal drinks according to Javanese spiritual belief. It is also believed to be the cured for kidney diseases, asthma, headache, gastric pain, stomach-ache, constipation, even acne.

This rhizome is a family member of Zingibereaceae, mostly grow in tropical forests and consist of 29-3- percent of curcuminoids (the substance that causes yellowish color in the rhizome), and 6-10 percent essential or ethereal oil (also known as aestheric oil). In addition to that, temulawak also comprises of chemical substances such as phellandrence and tumerol, which often called vaporized oil. It also has camphor, glucoside and polymetic carbinol.

This plant, which can reach up to two meters tall, has ethereal oil with a specific scent that can kill microbes. On the other hand, its flavonoids can be an anti-inflammatory agent. Thus, it is a medicine of anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, anti-hepotoxic and anti-tumor. Also, temulawak believed to abate the pain and suffering from cancer.

As a cure to cancer, temulawak should be drunk in early stage or straight after operation to remove the cancer or radiation therapy. This is to remove leftover cancer cell. Moreover, for patient treated with chemotherapy, the concoction should be drunk two weeks after the treatment. If the doctor gave medications, the drink should be drunk two hours before or after consuming medications.

The consumption of temulawak extract is highly recommended to prevent liver diseases including hepatitis B, which known to increase the risk of liver cancer. In addition to that, the extract was also proven to lower blood’s cholesterol level also within liver cells.

Temulawak as Jamu

Where can we find ready-to-consume temulawak? This question might take us to think of jamu-seller or a drinking kiosk in the street with bottles of beras-kencur (traditional drink made of ground rice and Kaempferia galangal rhizomes mixed with palm sugar), and temulawak concoctions or else temulawak in capsule.

Temulawak - Traditional Jamu in modern packaging

Temulawak most often associated with jamu (Javanese traditional herbal drinks). Temulawak is one of the main ingredients to make jamu. Even in its modern packaging, we can still find jamu label on the package. Unfortunately, Indonesian traditional medicine is less popular compare to chemical medication. This is our biggest harm to our country. It is unfortunate, especially since we have an abundance of natural resources accompanied with many giant jamu factories. In addition to this, there are a fair amount of experts and socialist which can be useful. Worse off, when people decided to consume medical herbs, they prefer foreign herbs especially those coming from China.

It is not difficult to make jamu out of temulawak, although it is important to understand that different concoctions were made for different kind of treatments and to heal different kind of illnesses. For instance, the useful component of temulawak mostly used for concoction is its curcumin essence. This essence can reduce cholesterol level in human body. However, to lower down the level of bad cholesterol in our blood is not as easy as drinking any kinds of temualwak drinks we can easily found in the kiosk on the street corner.

Temulawak does contain many things. One substance that gives characterized smell and taste is aestheric oil. This oil can increase food appetite. While resin (the dark brownish, sticky substance, which doesn’t dissolve in the water), is unhealthy and needs to be removed.

According to National Agency of Drugs and Food (NA-DFC)’s clical test with Gajah MAda University in Yogyakarta, boiling temulawak is aw ay to take out the resin. If you tried to reduce your cholesteron level, it is best for you to consumed processed temulawak that has curcumin as its dominant substance.

For patients afflicted with complication such as heart attack or stroke, it is safe to drink temulawak infusion. Temulawak as a modern medication is safe to consume by anyone with any illness or at any age. This is the advantage of traditional herbs, it doesn’t have side effect.

Taking the most out of temulawak with the help of technology, experts and specialists can raise the availability of temulawak and providing its potential benefits effectively. Thus, temulawak can be the host of herbs in its own home country. Just like Korea know as a ginseng country, who knows one day Indonesia will be known as temulawak country.