‘All I need is a little time,’ Beth Hirsch sings, ‘To get behind this sun and cast my weight.’ The only illumination came from nearby office buildings where other managers were busy meeting deadlines. In that moment, I knew what the singer meant: I needed to move on. I needed change.
To me, travelling is all about change. I was reminded of this once more when I stepped into a tall, glass-fronted office building in Jakarta‘s business district to take the elevator up to the 39th floor, where I was supposed to meet EU representatives.
Having turned my back on a corporate career, I became an anthropologist. In this capacity, I was invited to participate in a mission to evaluate the EU’s long-term relationship with Asean. I was back in the sort of environment I had left behind long ago. But the experience felt fresh. Travelling had indeed changed me.
From the meeting room’s enormous windows, Jakarta unfolded itself, disappearing into the horizon. Now one of the planet’s largest urban agglomerations-like Delhi, Manila, and Mexico City-it’s hard to establish the Indonesian capital’s actual size.
Some four centuries ago, Jakarta was a minor sultanate that paid tribute to its more powerful neighbour, Banten, which had grown rich because of the trade in black pepper. That is what had lured the Dutch to its harbour in 1596. Barely alive, the crew stumbled onshore and made their way into town, not only meeting locals from the islands of Java and Sumatra, but also Portuguese, who had long considered the port town home.
Relations with the sultan did not work out, and soon it was decided that the Dutch required their own capital in Asia. On the instruction of governor general Jan Pieterszoon Coen (1587-1629), nearby Jakarta was razed to the ground, and on its ashes the construction of Batavia soon commenced.
Kota Tua, the old heart of the city, corresponds to what the Dutch once referred to as their ‘pride and joy’. Stately buildings flank its historical square, and references to the Dutch East Indies Company abound. In the garden of the Wayang Museum, the grave of Coen can still be visited. Otherwise known for the massacre on the Banda Islands committed under his command in 1621, Coen is mainly remembered as the founder of Batavia, around which one of the largest cities in the world would grow one day.
In the Dutch town of Hoorn, the place of my birth, a statue of Coen continues to dominate its historical centre. Although, over the years, removal of the statue has been vociferously advocated by many. Others still cling to a sense of pride when it concerns the colonial period.
Hoorn sits amid fertile land of endless green. This is where my grandfather’s cows once grazed lushly. All his life, my father grew cauliflower here. It’s the season for tulips now. Drawing visitors from all over the world, the landscape is awash in a riot of colours. I associate it with backbreaking work, though. That is what led me to pursue a career in management, with IBM welcoming me in its byzantine embrace. It took me a while to find the exit, but once I did, I never looked back.
As my colleague dropped me off at the station, the lyrics of the song stayed with me, the singer’s quiet desperation continuing: ‘All I need is a peace of this mind / Then I can celebrate.’ I have been travelling ever since.
