Ruhayat applauds the Indonesian democratic spirit, and recounts a conversation with an Indonesian journalist in which:
She remarked on how food and books are dirt cheap in Indonesia but shopping is not, whereas here it's the other way around: food and books are expensive while shopping is cheap.
I thought that was good to know. At the very least, it means even our poor will still look stylish as they lie starving and ignorant in their huts.
6 comments:
If the same book is cheaper there than here, are they making any profit? If they are, then why are books here more expensive. Is it because they need to recoup costs, due to lower number of readers here?
bawang merah - they have their own thriving publishing industry in Indonesia and don't need foreign imports ... hence the low price of books.
mistyeiz - thanks i did find the link interesting
yes, I have been reading some Indonesian short stories too and some novels as I did a term of Indonesian novels. I must say they are more quite daring in their style too. I hear that one blogger has become a millionaire - rupiah millionaire but still a millionaire !
I think food is quite cheap here.. I mean the thosai here is cheaper than in India :) of course if you want to go to the high-end places.. :)
sigh! I think in terms of local publishing - you probably make money if you go into those UPSR/SPM/STPM exam books as I see all the students buying them. For novels, they just don't sell.
How I wish books will get cheaper! In the meanwhile, I have to content myself with warehouse sales and libraries.
Blame that on the currency exchange and the country's tax policy of imported items
I think they should revise which items to be charged more and what less. For cars okay i'm fine with that but books?
I think it is appropriate to say that price is one of the factors that turned people off to buy a book (read:If people doesn't buy they don't read.) so there is not much of reason to wonder why people would prefer not to read because reading burns hole in their pockets.
Can you believe how expensive some books out there are? Well for graphic design books or computers that may be acceptable but "just" because I think knowledge, by right, isn't suppose to be a luxury.
but in a way sometimes I do have the tendency to think that reading a well written novels or good books are the thing of the high class society.
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