Humans of Indonesia

Profiles

Society and culture | Southeast Asia

10 October 2014

Up and coming photographer Alex Tan provides us with an intimate window into day-to-day life in Indonesia.

You can follow more of Alex’s work on Instagram at @tanalex.

: “So what do you think of Australians?” “Australians like jogging”. (Denpasar, Bali)

: “How long have you been growing your hair for?” “Around 4 years… it’s good for the marketing.” (Kuta, Bali)

: “Prison is comfortable.. if you have money” (Kuta Beach, Bali)

: “We pick 6 bags [of sea urchins] a day” (Uluwatu, Bali)

: “I don’t have a dream anymore, I just focus on my family.” (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “I want to live in a clean city.” (Pantai Parangtritis, Java)

: “What do you like most about snakes?” “What other people don’t. Other people look after whales and turtles and furry things, we look after snakes” (Poppies 2, Bali)

: “What do you want to do in life?” “I just want to walk”. (Pantai Parangtritis, Java)

: “We are the ‘Yogya Bikes’… every Monday we ride our bikes to school, we just like riding… and fishing” (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “Why do you have streamers on your bike?” “It makes it a happy bike”. (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “Everybody has freedom…I love freedom. I met three people from Chile who missed the last bus to their area so I gave them a lift in my car. They asked ‘how much do I need to pay you?’, and I said ‘no, I don’t need your money, I just want to help.'” (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “I feel good when I can do my job correctly, and catch vandalists at the temple. One time when I was working at 1:30am, I heard footsteps around the temple. I called other security. We went to the temple slowly and saw 9 strange people walking around…so I caught them and brought them to the security post. After questioning them, I decided not to report them to the police.” “Why was that?” “This is not a big problem so I forgave them…as long as they promised not to do it again.” (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “I am studying to be a lawyer. Say no to corruption, say no to drugs. If you want to be successful in life you need to be honest…I also want to be a pianist.” (Yogyakarta, Java)

: “I want to be a police man. But its really hard you know.” “Why is that?” “Because its really hard to shoot people…the bad guys.” (Wonosari, Java)

: “Two years ago Kelly Slater came here to surf…he came to our place for one hour to get away from the photographers and just played playstation.” (Watukarung, Java)

: “I’m going to be a background actor in an Indonesian movie soon, but I think I’ve got to work on my Bahasa (Indonesian) first.” WatuKarung, Java

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