https://www.scmp.com/rss/325103/feed Risyiana is a Bali-based journalist. She has written for CNN International, VICE News, and TechInAsia. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The “Blue Marble”, an image of the Earth captured from about 28,000 miles (45,000km) away during the most recent human moon landing expedition on December 7, 1972, is one of the most recognised and iconic pictures in history. It shows the fully illuminated rounded shape of our planet, with Africa and the Arabian Peninsula to the north and Antarctica to the south, and helps to put our terrestrial existence in perspective. Today’s intrepid explorers continue to push the boundaries of man’s... https://www.scmp.com/native/lifestyle/topics/explorers-tomorrow/article/3064722/how-todays-explorers-can-help-us-save?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/native/lifestyle/topics/explorers-tomorrow/article/3064722/how-todays-explorers-can-help-us-save?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 22 Jun 2020 01:00:18 +0000 The tiny shop is cluttered with plastic. Packs of drinking straws fill one corner and boxes of styrofoam containers are stacked high in another. Colourful plastic bags of different sizes are piled on the shelves behind the counter, and jumbles of plastic cups are tied together and hung from the ceiling. A constant stream of customers flows through the door, and Seza, the 25-year-old owner of the shop, on the Indonesian tourist island of Bali, is busy tending to them. “Do you want a plastic bag... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3036927/bali-ban-single-use-plastics-widely-ignored-small?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3036927/bali-ban-single-use-plastics-widely-ignored-small?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 11 Nov 2019 23:45:14 +0000 Dewi’s phone is constantly buzzing. “Another Tinder match,” she says, waving her phone, giggling. Like most people in her twenties, Dewi is no stranger to dating apps. “I have five dating apps on my phone. Tinder, Badoo, WeChat, Michat, Bigo. But my favourite is Tinder,” says the 22-year-old. Unlike other users, however, she is not there to look for a partner. Not even for a casual hookup. Living on the holiday island of Bali, Dewi means business when she swipes right on the app, trawling for... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3031096/tinder-tourists-indonesian-sex-workers-turn-online-dating?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3031096/tinder-tourists-indonesian-sex-workers-turn-online-dating?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 01 Oct 2019 21:00:14 +0000 Hanoi is a street food wonderland. Follow almost any lane in this vivid, motorbike-clogged city and you will find a cacophony of food stalls with colourful signs shouting the names of mysterious Vietnamese dishes. Behind them, scores of people slurp, munch, drink and chatter, huddling on the city’s iconic miniature plastic stools. You can spend two weeks in this burgeoning city and never eat the same meal twice. So when all you have is two days in between, say, visiting the well-trodden northern... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2151617/48-hours-hanoi-best-vietnamese-street-food-eat-breakfast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2151617/48-hours-hanoi-best-vietnamese-street-food-eat-breakfast?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Jun 2018 00:18:57 +0000 The Japanese have sake, the Koreans can’t get enough soju, and the Chinese are partial to baijiu. So how about locally made alcohol in Muslim-majority Indonesia? Perhaps surprisingly, a good number of alcoholic drinks are made throughout the world’s largest archipelago.  Indonesia doesn’t make life easy for drinkers. Alcohol is expensive, with import duties set at 150 per cent. Additionally, a ban on small retailers selling alcoholic drinks was introduced by the government in 2016 in a bid to... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/2138948/indonesias-local-spirits-alcohols-history-and-geography-worlds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/food-drink/article/2138948/indonesias-local-spirits-alcohols-history-and-geography-worlds?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:49:50 +0000 On a recent business trip to Singapore, Balinese writer Eve Tedja was caught off guard when her chatty taxi driver expressed sympathy for her. She had just told him she was Indonesian of Chinese descent. The cabby’s sentiment didn’t come as a surprise, though. Tedja, 32, says she is often presumed to be a member of a vilified minority group. “We are seen overseas as this ethnic minority that is constantly being persecuted in Indonesia,” she says. “Where I come from, I have never felt... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2129683/how-balis-chinese-were-accepted-and-integrated-island-society-contrast?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2129683/how-balis-chinese-were-accepted-and-integrated-island-society-contrast?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Jan 2018 01:16:57 +0000 When it comes to polygamy and Indonesia, it’s a complicated relationship. Although the practice is legal in the Muslim-majority nation, there are restrictions on having more than one wife and it is widely frowned upon in society. Previous attempts in the country to promote a polygamous lifestyle – which some Muslim men regard as a sign of virtue – have met fierce opposition. In 2003, for example, protesters gathered to disrupt a “Polygamy Awards” ceremony organised by Puspo Wardoyo, a well-known... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/families/article/2127630/polygamy-indonesia-why-some-men-are-promoting-it-again-and-what?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/families/article/2127630/polygamy-indonesia-why-some-men-are-promoting-it-again-and-what?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Jan 2018 00:15:15 +0000 Zhang Haitao is 3,800 kilometres from home. Four years ago, he left his family and friends behind in Baoji city, in central China’s Shaanxi province, to become a migrant worker in Singapore. He was only 22 years old when he arrived, and has spent much of his time in the city battling loneliness and social isolation. Feeling invisible and out of the loop in the city of 5.6 million people, the softly spoken Zhang turned to poetry. His words speak volumes about his life as a migrant worker –... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2121022/singapores-lonely-poets-migrant-workers-who-feel-excluded-find-their-voice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2121022/singapores-lonely-poets-migrant-workers-who-feel-excluded-find-their-voice?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 22 Nov 2017 23:45:15 +0000 For the local Hindu population of Bali, the smouldering volcano that has led to the evacuation of thousands of villagers is more than just a geological event. For weeks since tremors were first detected in early September, millions of Balinese have been tirelessly coming together in prayer in the hope of calming the “mother mountain”. Bali’s governor, I Made Mangku Pastika, was seen praying among dozens of Hindu worshippers at the Besakih temple last week, just a few kilometres from the crater... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2114721/mount-agungs-eruption-lap-gods-balis-hindu-population?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/2114721/mount-agungs-eruption-lap-gods-balis-hindu-population?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 10 Oct 2017 23:15:24 +0000 At his home in Surabaya – Indonesia’s second-largest city – Aris Setiawan had no idea that a heated debate about the rise of neo-Nazism was flaring up around the world. The 25-year-old says he was unaware of the recent deadly clash in Charlottesville, in the US, where white supremacists marched bearing torches and Nazi flags and a woman was killed after a car ploughed into a group of counter protesters. Why there’s nothing cool about the Nazi chic trend sweeping across Asia A few months before... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2111337/how-do-indonesians-who-dress-hitler-and-nazi-soldiers-justify-their?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/article/2111337/how-do-indonesians-who-dress-hitler-and-nazi-soldiers-justify-their?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 17 Sep 2017 22:46:19 +0000 Indonesia is a hotbed of heavy metal. It might sound paradoxical, but the country with the world’s largest Muslim population has the highest number of head-slamming, ear-splitting heavy metal bands in Asia. According to Encyclopaedia Metallum: The Metal Archives, an independent website that provides an exhaustive list of every heavy metal band in the world, there are more than 1,500 metal bands found across Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago. In comparison, China has less than 300. Indonesia’s... https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2108130/headbangers-hijabs-inside-indonesias-heavy-metal-scene?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/culture/music/article/2108130/headbangers-hijabs-inside-indonesias-heavy-metal-scene?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 24 Aug 2017 09:30:45 +0000