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Jakarta Post

Letters: Noise pollution in Jakarta

At Hime and Co

(The Jakarta Post)
Mon, February 1, 2010

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Letters: Noise pollution in Jakarta

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t Hime and Co., a Japanese cosmetics company, women aged 20 to 29 get two days off if they tell the human resources department that the unhappy ending of a love affair has traumatized them.

They are then granted 48 hours off work to weep, eat chocolate and leave obscene messages on the person's phone. Women aged 30 or more get three days.

In the Middle Ages, scholars believed that Satan did not want human beings to be alone with God, fully listening. This is why author Sara Maitland writes in A Book of Silence, just published in the United States, how she traveled to the desert, the hills, and the remote Scottish highlands because she wanted to discover what silence truly was.

After spending 40 days in an isolated house on a windy moor, Maitland found silence did several things: her physical sensations were heightened, she experienced great happiness, felt connected with the cosmos, was exhilarated by the risk and peril in what she was doing, and discovered a fierce joy.

Now welcome to Jakarta, one of the noisiest nations in the world. With approximately 10 million citizens, silence is surely precious to get here. Consider the noise level in all malls in Jakarta. Whenever you go to a mall, every shop has music blaring at what seems to be 120 decibels. Indonesians love noise.

Many developed countries put a high respect on the citizen's privacy. It includes providing more public parks, libraries and places to ponder and be alone from the crowd. This is based on the premise that each human needs certain moments to reflect and to think in silence.

Furthermore, this enhances the ability to cope with stressful life situations. It appears that the only place to find silence in this city is at the cemetery.

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