Slideshow – Markets of Indonesia – The Market Rules
Turtle eggs, medicines, woks, spices, crabs – you can find them all in the markets of Indonesia.
Flores
Medicine man: a market education
Last year, the Wellcome Collection in London had a glorious exhibition of anatomical models, called Exquisite Bodies. They were accompanied by banners from the fairs and markets where these models used to be shown. In the prudish Victorian age, they were often the only glimpse people got of naked bodies other than their own. Part education, part pornography, all entertainment. In the country markets of Indonesia, these models still take pride of place, though I’m not sure “exquisite” quite describes…
Two fingers up for family planning
When I first lived in Indonesia, in the not-entirely-golden age of Suharto, family planning was one of the government’s core priorities. So much so, they’d take people on safari for free. These family planning safaris involved laying out the camp beds, slapping women down on them and shoving an IUD up them. Though the programme improved hugely in later years, it remained sullied by its coercive infancy. When responsibility for reproductive health devolved to the districts, it was a rare…