Sunday, January 19, 2014

Promoting the Ugly Truth of Smoking

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/01/22/your-letters-the-ugly-truth-smoking.html

As heavy rain kept pattering on my windowpane this morning, my drowsiness jolted out of my body when news coverage on how Australia’s plain packaging policy has worked well to deter its citizen, particularly teenagers from smoking.

Euwwww... I gave a snort of disgust at the graphic images of mouth ulcers, cancerous lungs and gangrenous limbs on the plain packaging of tobacco products. Oh yeah... Definitely such gruesome packaging would send an immediate psychological leap of disgusting taste. I would have ran off in terror!

The ugly truth of smoking looks real and haunting in real pictures!

A recent survey by British Heart Foundation showed that cigarette packets featuring health warnings deter a third of British teenagers from smoking, and nearly eight in ten young people or 77% think the UK should introduce standardized cigarette packs like those used in Australia.

Then, a question leaped out of my brain: Will such policy applicable to Indonesia where smoking kills at least 225,000 people annually? Not to mention that Indonesia is the only WHO member state in Asia that has not yet ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control?

A study on Indonesia as one of the major cigarette smoking countries in 2008 also revealed that healthcare costs attributed to tobacco-related illnesses amount to 11 trillion IDR each year (1.2 billion US) and in 2005, households with smokers spent 11.5% of their income on tobacco products compared to 11% spent on fish, meat, eggs and milk combined, 3.2% on education and 2.3% on health.

This is grossly maddening on how people choose cigarette over basic needs such as education and health which play significant role to the betterment of their future life.

Despite these staggering facts, the government seems halfheartedly to take bolder measures to discourage its citizens from smoking. The classic argument centers always on the argument that tobacco industries have the trickle down effect  on tax and job. This nation has become addicted to the revenues produced by taxed placed upon tobacco products and the mass employment offered by the industries. It weighs only the benefits of economic health in the short run, but ignore the financial loss and health cost caused by the industries over the the nation in the long run.

For this reason, tax on tobacco in Indonesia is stil relatively  low compared to other countries in the region and falls below the World Bank’s recommendation that taxes make up two-thirds to four-fifths of retail price. Consequently, tobacco products’ price is inexpensive and affordable to attract more people to initially take up the habit and ensure the return business of addicted patrons.

My regular minivan driver constantly stopped at the traffic light to buy one cigarette for Rp. 1,000,- , smoking along the way and choking my breath at the back seats.

There’s no such smoke-free environment as well because people have always reluctant to obey the laws, knowing they would walk free easily. People can find cigarette almost in every nook and cranny of the city and puff as they please in anywhere they please. Oh, what a sweet heaven for smokers!

To make matter it worse, misleading tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship is generally allowed in Indonesia, with only a few restrictions. It generates another tax income for the government! It strengthens the glitz and glitter of tobacco products.

Spectacular and glamorous musical concerts all over Indonesia are generally sponsored by big glitzy tobacco industries that feed the public with an image of glamour and classy if you puff. Elite prestigious sports often get similar sponsor that unconsciously send a message that smoking and extreme athleticism go hand in hand. Cigarette ads on TV and public spaces also implicitly say that you’re successful and sexy if you have a cigarette at hand.

These ads stand tall and proud,  smiling like a siren and say “Join the Club guys! It’s smoking sexy, hot, fun and classy!” And who will not fall for such alluring and beguiling sweet persuasion.

As to the required warning labels (that is supposedly to discourage people from smoking) on all smokeable tobacco product packages, the warning of “smoking can cause cancer, heart attacks, impotence, and disturbances to pregnancy and fetal development”,  is put always on the back of the package with tiny letters. It is barely noticeable and mostly will be ignored entirely, drown in the sparkling gold or silver packet that catch and please the eye.

It just doesn’t work!

Considering all these unhappy facts, I personally believe that adopting the standardized plain packaging policy featuring graphic images or warnings of the health-risk posed by smoking will  deter people particularly teenagers from smoking. Smokers are more likely to consider giving up seeing such horrifying images, thinking that the taste would go hand in hand with the ugly pictures.

Further, the images will help to break the cycle of misleading iconic cigarette ads, giving it a brand new stamp to smoking as less stylish and sociable, degrading and not as attractive and cool to mimic. Young people will feel discouraged looking at the plain cigarette packs, thus cutting off the chain of “replacement” smokers progressively.

Bring on the ugly truth of smoking in real and I believe such measure will have a dramatic effect. It takes guts to impose such harsher requirement for cigarette packaging. It takes a bold government to initiate such a change.

The question remains: Does the government have what it takes to implement such policy as in increasing the tobacco tax up to standard? It means waging a war with gigantic tobacco industries that have wrapped this nation with their ugly, hideous tentacles!

Saturday, January 18, 2014

Death Becomes Her

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/01/11/your-letters-death-becomes-her.html

As I read the news on the recent untimely dead of a Venezuelan girl due to unsafe silicon injection and how the country is trapped in a culture of beauty, my heart mourned with sympathy. I could relate her ‘ill-advised action’ to my own and to women all across the globe in general. 

We, girls, grow up honestly believing that we have to look like something that come out of fashion magazines, movies, and ads. Even fairy tales portray beauty in such image: Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and many more. We've seen them exclusively featuring ideally thin, tall, fair skin women as the only happy and desirable ones, zooming in on parts of women’s bodies and pan up and down those parts.

Such is an ideal, by definition, can be met by only a minority of those who strive for it. Yep, beauty may not be skin deep, yet it doesn't stop women from putting their best.

Women are brainwashed by these bombardments that they value beauty more than their personal well-being. Striving to attain the ideal takes great toll either in coffers or personal well-being in the form of physical pain, health problems, medical procedures, psychological effects as well as time and effort.

They empty their coffer on expensive cosmetics and bleaching products. Some frenetically and compulsively implement severely restrictive and nutritionally deficient diets, developing bizarre eating habits to attain certain body weight and shape. Many go as far as to have plastic surgery, breasts implant, lips suction or buttock injection to improve their looks and physical appearance in expense of their health, even their life.

In Indonesia, mushrooming skin care clinics and beauty salons have offered varies of treatments to improve one’s look up to beauty standards. Hospitals also provide cosmetic plastic surgery. These places are sweet nectar for women.

Months ago, as I lay on the patient table, squirming in unimaginable pain while my dermatologist applied chemical substances on my face, I thought how the hell did I get here in the first place?!

The burning sensation was excruciating. Not to mention the feeling of tens of thousands of tiny red ants and creepy scorpions viciously injected their venoms on my face.

Guess what, the answer is simple and matter-of-factly: I want to have a fair skin. But wait! It’s not for the wrong reason as in pursuing beauty culture (ops, is it self-denial?), but due to my skin problem.

Formerly, I didn’t care about the spreading acnes and cysts on my face, leaving the pores of the skin to clog with oil and dead skin. Hey, I am married and my husband is generous enough not to criticize my monstrosity. I said to myself “I am beautiful on the inside”, promoting the wise theory as poor excuse to justify my look lol.

“You are beautiful just the way you are,” My husband said teasingly with a grin from ear to ear.

Hell yes, I love being Shrek-like! (lol)

My fortress fell apart to pieces when people I met at office, bus, train and any other public places asked me with concern. They began hurling me with skin products and promoted certain skin cares for a try. My face would have got a tinge of color if it was white…lol. I had to swallow my pride hard at this commentary and kept flashing my widest grin ever, thanking them with suppressed anger.

In the end, I gave up. I went to the famous skincare clinic that has reputable name with licensed specialist doctors. After years, my acne problem lessened. People stopped annoying me with their campaign of beauty. I lived in peace afterwards: happy and content!

Until one day, my dermatologist asked me whether I would like to try ‘peeling program’ to correct my scarring associated with acne. After some hesitation, I said “Why not? It’s absolutely for health reason! (Is it?)” while looking at the commercial ads promoting the program.

Once again, my serenity turned upside down!

That’s what brought me to that torture chamber. Afterwards, I told my dermatologist; never ever again would I want such ordeal. As long as my grizzly acnes did not come to revisit me, I would be content enoughJ.

Drawing form this personal experience, I don’t advocate women to purse beauty ideals created and maintained by pop culture products. Beauty is nothing but a fleeting nature, defeating by age and time.

How can we race against time that cuts down and destroys all things that are beautiful? Time causes beauty to fade, people to age and life to end.

So, why bother pursuing such ideal only to end up in vain. Is it worth it to trade your life and soul with momentary triumph of being a beauty?

Duh... I choose NO. I don’t want to end up like Dorian Gray or the Venezuelan girl.

Flashing my smile, I hammer the wisdom that inner beauty is a dozen times more important that the artificial one in my bone. It’s a mantra I cling on tightlyJ.

Ehm, sounds too good to be true and naïve, isn’t it? But that’s the hardcore truth.

As Oscar Wilde, the renowned Iris dramatist, novelist and poet, has once admonished us that “It’s beauty which captures your attention; personality captures your heart.

And The Stars Are Falling

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/01/04/your-letters-and-stars-are-falling.html

Whether we have a quiet contemplation at home with friends and family, throw or attend a party with bonfire and barbecue, head out to the town or take the family to see the fireworks, hiking a mountain, have it celebrate with champagne, dancing and kissing your loved ones when the clock strikes midnight sharp or just have a nice wonderful sleep at home, we all tend to see the New Year in some way.

As for me, the temptation to spend the last night of 2013 with elves, hobbits, dwarves, werewolves, and off course the legendary dragon was far too strong to resist. What’s better than having the experience of wandering around the mystical Middle Earth in The Desolation of Smaug through the 4D movie at Blitzmegaplex Grand Indonesia. Who knew I might be able to steal a glance at the stars falling from the cloudy skies afterwards.

Well... the two hours and a half of 4D movie was worth to experience. The visual effect and technique was spectacular, a living proof on how advanced technology keeps us in constant awe and wonder. The thrilling journey sadly ended at 10.30 p.m. The thirst for the Middle Earth was not yet quenched.

The only regret I had was when I saw the spectators littered the room with plastic bags. Why on earth it was so hard to keep the waste awhile and dump it in the garbage bin later on. Education and social class seem does not correlate directly with the degree of awareness for not littering.

As my husband and I stepped outside the mall, hundreds of thousands of people already swarmed the area, snaking along the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle and its surrounding streets, to watch the Jakarta Festival Night. Parents took their toddlers along. Lovers entwined their arms with eyes full of promises. Groups of Teenagers just wanted to see the promised spectacular view on the special night, satisfying their urge for adventure. Festival goers with their fancy dress. Street buskers who tried eking out of a living from the one night show. All mingled in one melted pot.

People crowded snapping pictures of the thundering skies as fireworks began to dance, forming sparkling stars above. The falling silver-spark trail behind the glittering of each star was like small thunder jets. It’s great to see.

Even the faint drizzle did not prevent the festival goers to wait for the countdown, having fun and enjoy the celebration to mark the arrival of the New Year in the capital. All waited the pinnacle of event when the clock strikes at 12.

Already, the stars were falling. Large number of spark trailing stars falling slowly in an umbrella patter cheered the merry spectators during the interval. The deafening fireworks lighted up the skies. Many blew their trumpets ceaselessly. It’s really something to watch.

I loved to gaze at the glittering skies. But I disliked the raucous noises. Too much blaring sounds to suit my taste. What’s annoyed me more was that I found again people littering around without any guilt. They threw plastics and waste without restraint despite the calling from Jakarta Mayor to keep Jakarta clean. I bet the next morning, tons of waste would be collected.

Fighting our way to Sudirman train station was not an easy job. Several times we had to detour our route as some main thoroughfares around the area were blocked. Walking amid ocean of people was really exhausting and got on our nerves. The annoying sounds of horns, trumpets and firecrackers sent me jittery all the way. One split second, I got separated from my husband. It was really frustrating.

What normally took only 15 minutes of walk from Hotel Indonesia traffic circle to the train station extended by one hour and a half. We had to find small alleys and passages to get to the station, avoiding the blocked roads. Still, we could catch a glimpse of the dense spherical burst of stars, leaving a burning trail of tiny particles as they expanded outward.

Arriving at the station did not automatically send us to a rescue. We missed the last train in the nick of time. The additional train would depart at 1.50 a.m. So, we had to wait for around two hours at the dim station.

The platform was deserted when we got there. We were among the first to arrive. Unfortunately, after minutes went by, more people crowded the platform. Regardless of age and status; old and young, rich and poor; all gathered to wait for the last train to Bogor area. Next to me was a family of six, sprawling their legs to ease their exhaustion. Many others just slumped on the floor while chatted merrily about the fireworks they saw. Some talked about the artists performed on stage.

Well, despite the hang-over clearly written on the faces, I spotted happiness as well. It’s a once year festival. It’s time to just have fun before new dawn broke.

To kill the time, I read the book I just bought.
Reading my book, I couldn't help but thinking. On New Year’s Day, when the party, fireworks, and toasts are finally over, many of us will become more serious about life. What’s next after the celebration and what’s it to celebrate for really? Something is amiss.

In contemplation, I think that we all want something as a sense of purpose and accomplishment, thus a pleasure when achieving it. That’s why people make resolutions as the most popular custom as the new chapter of the year begins to roll. They function as direction to stir new courses of action to better our lives. Such as in making resolution to not littering around ever again this year and forward .

Fulfilling the resolution will give us pleasure and happiness. That’s the essence of making a resolution, a purpose in life to attain happiness. It’s the meaning of the New Year: that tomorrow will always be a better day than today.

So, every one, fill your glass of life to the full–and drink deep to your resolution and make it comes true.

Happy New Year. Happy life.