30 Maret 2007 - 13:55   (Diposting oleh: Rumah Dunia)
ME AND “THE HOUSE OF THE WORLD”
By Gola Gong

- Developing of Mind and Shape The New Generation -
- Bring the World to Home through the Book –

My name is Heri Hendrayana Harris. My pen name is GOLA GONG. I was born at small town, named PURWAKARTA, about 90 km east from Jakarta, on August 15th 1963. When I was 2 years old (1965), my parents moved to Serang, Banten, 70 km west from Jakata. Serang was a small town which was known as a city with a bad stigma like black magic and was left behind modernism. That time – about 1960 – 1980 - Serang Banten was like the city without civilization, because no bookstore, local newspaper, library, and art centre (like theatre, galery, or museum).

BAD STIGMA
I lived around Serang square, also we called a civic centre. Many times I had seen debus, one of Banten traditional martial arts every day, I played football at alun-alun or swimming at the Banten’s river (around 200 meters from home). My parents never forgot buy a newspaper, magazine, or book story for their kids. I liked read.

When I was a boy, I read many books like Tom Sawyer, Gulliver, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, HC Andersen, also novel by Indonesian authors like Armyn Pane, Marah Roesli, Sutan Takdir Alisyahbana. We had a home library.After school, my friends visited to my home to read the books!

When I was 11th (1974), I lost my left hand. I jumped from the tree like Tarzan! And my father said, “You must read more and you will be somebody!” But, loosing my left hand didn’t make me feel inferior, because books made me being a boy with much knowledges, more than my little friends.

I didn’t like to go to school. I always spread my imaginations to the sky. I really wanted to arround the world like Philippe Fog (Arround the World in 80 Days by Julius Verne). Day after day, I was thinking, “Why the Bantenees can not compete in the jounalism and literature?”

To learn about journalism and literature, I had to go to Jakarta and Bandung. I heard, atmosphere of development of investation in Banten was very complicated, caused must facing the hegemony of the traditional heroes. So the investors did not want to invest in Banten. Publishing corporation like Gramedia was more interest to invest bookstore at Bandung or Lampung (Sumatra).

Day by day I saw Banten being more left behind the other. The Bantenees did not have a perception and poor about creativity. Whereas the distance was just take one hour from Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. I thought Jakarta and Bandung like Banten keep in left behind, so that Bantenees couldn’t appearing their spirit. Sociocultural wealth like “jawara” (traditional heroes) paralyzed youth creativities.

LEARNING CENTRE

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