Photo Essay (Yogyakarta Trip)By: Steven Davly

Yogyakarta'Yogyakarta' means 'better to become farmer'. The city has an estimated total population of 4.5 million residents. The city is also called the city of students, the city of bikes, and the city of culture. People still do traditional ceremonies. They celebrate 'malam satu suro', the Islamic New Year. The residents show their respect to the sultan by walking around in the night without saying a word.

University 2 million of those residents are university students from all around Indonesia. The most well known university in Yogyakarta is the Gadjah Mada university, with about 70,000 students studying in there

Malioboro The main street at Yogyakarta is the Malioboro Street. It is named after the English Duke Marlborough. Malioboro Street is also an icon of Yogyakarta.

Language Yogyakarta's first language is not Indonesian language, but the Javanese language. It contains a total of 20 letters. All the residents of Yogyakarta has to learn this language, and unlike english language which only has formal and informal, Javanese has many categories, some which are when you talk to friends, when you talk to the elders, etc.

Sultan Yogyakarta until now still has a sultan, something like a king. All the residents in the land trusts him. He is a very wealthy man, and he owns all of Yogyakarta, which means all of the people are living in the sultan's land, and it also means that if the sultan needs the land the people has to give it and the people will give it to him willingly. The people also describes the love of the sultan to the people 'as large as the sea'. The sultan also has a ceremony called the labuhan ceremony. The sultan also usually joins the activities of the students.

The previous sultans are sultans which lived before the independence, and they all have more than one wife. The current sultan, sultan no.10, only has one wife and five daughters. The tradition is that when the current sultan dies, the eldest son of the sultan will continue the legacy and become the next sultan, but the current sultan has no sons, and the officials are discussing about the situation.

Traditions When a baby is 7 months old in Yogyakarta, they were put in a cage with 4 items in it: money, a book and pencil, a mirror, and cosmetics, and they have to choose. If they chose the money, the baby will be rich. If they choose the book and pencil, the baby will be smart, and if they choose the mirror or cosmetics, the baby will be handsome/pretty.

If one of the Sultan's daughters gets married to an ordinary man, she has to do a ceremony. The uncle of the daughter and the groom has to carry the daughter of the Sultan.

Gods and Goddesses There are 2 statues which represents goodness and badness, which are Cingkorobolo and Boloupoto. The people also worship the goddess of the sea named Nyai Roro Kidul. The people also made big fish-like statues, which represents a guardian.

Sultan's Palace Sultan's palace was made in 1756. At the entrance, there is a grandfather clock from the Dutch which is 50 years old. The place is still guarded by the palace guards, and they are eqquiped with a traditional knife called keris.

The palace has a reception hall, which were once attended by Lady Diana and Hilary Clinton. Deeper inside there is a giant-sized Indonesian instrument called the 'gentongan'. The instrument is used for warning people when there is a fire in the palace. And even deeper inside the palace there is a cube-like item made out of wood called a 'tandu'. It is used as a container for placing gifts for the Sultan.

There is a museum inside the palace, especially for foreign gifts. Inside there are antiques from Netherland, Italy, China, France, and Japan. The museum was made by the 9th sultan. In another museum there is a table where the 9th sultan once had a meeting in 1949 with Soeharto, the president of Indonesia. And in the palace there are also museums for the items of the previous sultans. The 9th sultan has a hobby of photography and cooking.

War In 1st March 1949, Yogyakarta had a war with the Dutch Colony which lasted for 6 hours. Then when Indonesia had won the war against the Dutch colony, Indonesia had an unofficial Independence day which is on 1st March 1997.

Ullen Sentalu Ullen Sentalu is one of the best known museums in Yogyakarta. It was open for public in 1st March 1997. There was a policy in there not to take pictures and not to voice record the words of the guide, but taking notes were allowed. Here are the information given from the museum:

There are 4 classes in the Mataram Dynasty, and 2 of them are in Yogyakarta, the other 2 are in Solo. There is a traditional instrument called the gamelan, and it is used for the birth and death of the king. It can also be used for public shows. The instrument has been around fof 200 years, since the birthday of the Muhammad (prophet). A traditional dance called the mask dance is used for describing the good and the bad.

The king of Solo is called Sunan. One of the kings of Solo is named Bobby. The king of Yogyakarta does not use a crown, but instead a key shows that he is the king. Sultan Hamengkubuono X once became the minister of defence. There are 3 other important items which also has meanings. The shield means protection, the sword means cleverness and the peacock feather means beauty. And since there were no tux in those days, samit was considered a tux. Paku Alam is the principality of Yogyakarta. And during that time, Kusti Nurul, the daughter of, is the only woman who rides a horse. The people of the past also uses medals to symbolize power.

There are 2 different kinds of batik patterns: The fastelander surakarta and fastelander yogyakarta. Fastelander surakarta is the batik of Solo. The brown color of the batik is influenced by China and Holland. This kind of batik has a smaller pattern size than fastelander yogyakarta. The second type of batik is the fastelander yogyakarta. It is the batik of Yogyakarta. There are batik patterns in fastelander yogyakarta which are used to help symbolize and represent people. The pattern of a dragon is only allowed to be used by the king. The pattern of zig-zag represents water and light, which in turn represents beauty.

Ganesh, the Hindu god of knowledge, has so much knowledge in his mind that the rest of his knowledge goes to his belly, which makes his belly grow.

Mount MerapiMount Merapi is one of the most active volcanoes in Indonesia. The eruptions of the mountain causes the land to be covered with volcanic ash, and makes the land fertile.

IndonesiaIndonesia has many ethnic groups, and so there are many languages in Indonesia. The Hindus came in the 4th century to the East Kalimantan, then to the Central Java, and last to the West Java. Then Buddhists came to Central Java in the 8th century. The buddhists have 2 dynasties. The Silendra Dynasty was ruled by a king named Indra. The other dynasty is ruled by a group of people called the Sanjaya, they were the ones who made the Siwagra.

Prambanan TempleThe Prambanan Temple is made by a man named Rake Pikatan. Since there were no cement at that time, they used the lock-in model. The Prambanan Temple is a Hindu temple. In the belief of Hindu, there are the trinity, which means the three gods named Brahma, Shiwa and Wisnu. Brahma is the god of creation (4 heads & 4 arms), Shiwa is the god of destruction and Wisnu is the god of protection. To be able to differentiate the gods, the gods carry different weapons.

The Prambanan Temple was found by Raffles in 1814.

Borobudur Temple

The Borobudur Temple is made by the king of the Silendra Dynasty, king Indra. He ordered the people to make the Borobudur Temple in 778 AD. It took 75 years, or 3 generations for the Temple to complete its construction. Borobudur itself has meaning, which is 'temple on a hill'.

All of the temple's walls are carved with carvings. In the 1st floor, the carvings represent the good and the bad, and the karma (cause) of doing it. In the second floor, the carvings depicts the life of their most holy buddha, Buddha Siddharta Gautama. The rest of the floors are also carved with the life of the buddha, except for the top floor.

The top floor consists of 3 circles: The nirvana, the pari nirvana, and the maha nirvana. The circles are filled with statues of meditating buddhas in stupas (bell-shaped container made of stone). The stupas have different holes. There are 2 types of holes for the stupas: the diamond-shaped hole and the trapezium-shaped hole. The holes have meanings too. The diamond-shaped hole means that the person is impure and they need to be reincarnated again. The trapezium-shaped hole means that the person is in the purest form and will live in nirvana for forever.