Begging is reportedly going digital in Indonesia, with street beggars posting clips on TikTok asking for virtual gifts instead of actually going out on the street.

TikTok begging has reportedly become such a widespread phenomenon in Indonesia that the Government has been forced to step in to reign it in. The Asian country’s social minister has asked her staff to increase efforts of preventing begging, both online and offline, and Muslim groups have appealed to the general public in an attempt to stop “begging and asking for free goods and money,” which they claim “demean human honor” and are forbidden in Islam. However, there is little they can do against the wave of beggars enticed by TikTok’s gift-offering features, which allow them to exchange virtual gifts for real money.

Read More »

The Indonesian city of Jakarta is home to one of the most unusual residential projects in the world – a suburb located atop a 10-storey shopping mall.

Over the past 20 years, Jakarta has become one of the world’s most crowded megacities. With over 10 million residents in its metropolitan area alone and up to three times that in the greater Jakarta area, the city is quickly running out of land to build on. While other crowded capitals, like Tokyo, are expanding vertically, Jakarta is expanding horizontally, with most residents preferring low-rise houses instead of apartments. With real-estate in increasingly short supply, developers have been forced to think outside the box, and that’s how urban oddities like Cosmo Park came to exist…

Read More »

An Indonesian woman allegedly posed as a corpse and then had her son upload the photos to Facebook in order to get out of having to pay a $268 debt.

People trying to get out of having to pay their debts is nothing new, but some people go to extreme lengths to accomplish this. Take, for example, this Indonesian woman who framed her own death on social media in order to not have to pay back her IDR4.2 million ($268) debts. According to her creditor, Liza Dewi Pramita had already asked for an extension on the loan because she couldn’t pay her money back, but when the second deadline was about to expire, the woman’s son announced her tragic death on Facebook, along with photos of the woman’s dead body, complete with bits of cotton in her nostrils. Only things weren’t what they seemed…

Read More »

A 61-year-old farmer from Indonesia has been dubbed the country’s ‘Playboy King’ after it was revealed that he plans to marry for the 88th time.

Kaan is a rice farmer from West Java, in Indonesia, with a very interesting story. He claims to have been married a total of 87 times during his lifetime and that he is getting ready for his 88th wedding, with one of his ex-wives. The Playboy King, as Indonesian news media dubbed Kaan, rose to fame after telling his story to a YouTuber whose video quickly went viral, attracting the attention of several news outlets who tracked the man down and visited his home in Cipeundeuy Village. Although he originally refused to give any more interviews, the constant visits of news reporters eventually changed his mind.

Read More »

Kupi Khop is a unique type of coffee served in an upside-down glass on a glass plate and sipped through a straw. For obvious reasons, it’s also known as Indonesian upside-down coffee.

If you ever find yourself on the West Coast of Aceh, in Indonesia, you owe it to yourself to enjoy a Kupi Khop coffee. The unique serving method alone makes it worth a try, as even if you don’t enjoy coffee, you can at least share it on Instagram or on whatever other socials you prefer. Kupi Khop consists of coarsely ground robusta coffee brewed in a glass that is then turned upside down on a glass saucer. A plastic straw is then used to gradually extract the coffee from the glass without it spilling uncontrollably.

Read More »

An Indonesian woman who recently learned that she was part of a same-sex marriage claims that she never realized her husband of 10 months was actually a woman.

A 22-year-old woman from Jambi City, known only by her initials, NA, met her deceitful husband on an online dating app. He was registered as Ahnaf Arrafif and claimed to be a successful doctor who had studied abroad. They hit it off, and after dating for a couple of weeks, Ahnaf came to stay with her for about a week, during which time he behaved impeccably. He even helped the young woman take care of her parents, who were sick at the time, so when he proposed to NA a few weeks later, the parents quickly gave them their blessing.

Read More »

A 12-year-old boy from Indonesia’s South Sumatra province recently made international news headlines because of his bizarre name – ABCDEF GHIJK.

Yes, you read that correctly, someone actually named their son after the first 11 letters in the English alphabet. The bizarre discovery was made accidentally when the 12-year-old boy took part in a vaccination drive organized by the local police in Muara Enim district. Health workers originally thought the boy’s name was a joke when they saw it in the appointment list, but their smiles turned to utter disbelief when they saw the same name, ABCDEF GHIJK, on his official ID. Photos of the boy’s documents and a name tag embroidered on his clothes went viral online this week after a police officer shared them on social media.

Read More »

The benefits of cupping as a way to relieve stress, improve athletic performance and overall health have been debated at nauseam, but did you know cupping could help you cosplay as popular Nintendo villain Bowser, aka King Koopa?

Although modern cupping is usually associated with the use of glass cups, the practice can be traced back to the year 1500 B.C., when glass didn’t even exist. Back then, healers used hollowed-out animal horns to create suction, and even though bamboo and glass cups became mainstream in recent times, some street therapists still rely on buffalo horns to practice their trade. As you can see, the visual effect is quite striking.

Read More »

Indonesian media recently reported the bizarre story of a young man who ended up marrying both his fiancée and his ex-girlfriend at the same time, after the latter crashed his wedding ceremony.

Late last month, 20-year-old Korik Akbar, from the regency of Central Lombok in the Indonesian state of West Nusa Tenggara, was in the process of marrying his betrothed, when his ex-girlfriend burst in asking that she marry him as well, as his second wife, claiming that she couldn’t get over their relationship. Instead of making a scene, Akbar’s fiancée, Kotimah, actually agreed to the proposal and told the young man that she accepted his former fling as his second wife. So he ended up marrying the both of them in the same ceremony.

Read More »

An Indonesian man loves his workplace so much that he has named his son after it. His 5-month-old boy’s name is Statistical Information Communication Office…

Even before he got married, Samet Wahyudi knew that if he ever had a son, he wanted to name him after the department he worked in as a civil servant. He made that very clear to his fiancé before they got married, and she accepted his condition. Their first child was a girl, so Samet agreed on a more conventional name for her, but when his wife, Linda, gave birth to their second child, a boy, in December of last year, he knew exactly what his name would be – Statistical Information Communication Office.

Read More »

A 17-year-old Indonesian girl who occasionally falls asleep for several days at a time has been dubbed a “real-life Sleeping Beauty” or the “sleeping daughter of South Kalimantan.

Echa, who hails from Banjarmasin, in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan region, first made news headlines in 2017, when national news outlets reported that she slept for 13 days straight. She has experienced two worrying episodes since then, when she slept for about a day and a half, but last week Echa’s condition worsened and she fell into a deep sleep for about seven days. Her parents took her to the Ansari Saleh hospital in Banjarmasin, but her tests came out fine. The teenager finally woke up after a total of nine days, but doctors say that she is still very weak.

Read More »

Once called a madman and laughed at by members of his community, an Indonesian man is now being hailed as a hero after spending a quarter of a century covering 250 hectares of barren hillsides around his home with banyan and ficus trees.

The story of Sadiman, the Indonesian man who singlehandedly brought a forest back to life, began in the early 1990s, but the problem he helped fix can be traced back to the 1960s. It was then that great forest fires ravaged the forests on the southern slope of Lawu Mountain, in Central Java, turning hundreds of hectares state-owned pine forest to ash and leaving barren hills in their place. For decades dozens of villages in the Regency of Wonogiri battled draughts and famine, until an unlikely hero took it upon himself to bring back the forest and create a better life for him and his community.

Read More »

For years, Aprilia Santini Manganang and the Indonesian Women’s Volleyball Association had been fighting off accusations that she was actually a man, but this year, Manganang was finally confirmed to actually be male.

A member of Indonesia’s national women’s volleyball team, Aprilia Manganang also played in several local club teams in Indonesia, as well as in Thailand. She led the Jakarta Electric PLN women’s team to become the champion of the Proliga in 2015, 2016, and 2017. In 2019, she became champion again with the Jakarta PGN Popsivo Polwan team, before transferring to the Generali Supreme Chonburi-E Tech team in the Thai Volleyball League and winning the championship that same year. Manganang won multiple Most Valuable Player awards in her career, and helped the Indonesian national team win the bronze and silver medals at different editions of the Southeast Asian Games (SEA). But her amazing achievements were always put into question, because of haw she looked.

Read More »

Indonesian police are investigating the strange case of a 25-year-old woman who claims that she gave birth just an hour after a gust of wind got her pregnant.

The young woman, identified as Siti Zainah, ahs become the subject of widespread ridicule in Indonesia after claiming to have been impregnated by a gust of wind, on February 10. Furthermore, Zainah added that she gave birth to a baby girl just an hour after the alleged impregnation. According to several Indonesian news outlets, the 25-year-old was relaxing at home in Cianjur, West Java, with her first child, when she felt the wind enter her body. A few minutes later, she went into labor.

Read More »

A fifteen-year-old boy and a twelve-year-old girl in Indonesia were reportedly forced to marry after breaking a local custom that forbids dating after sunset.

Child marriage has been a controversial issue in Indonesia for a long time, and last week it was once again brought into the limelight by the story of a young teenage couple forced to marry after only four days of dating. According to multiple media reports, 15-year-old Suhaimi and his 12-year-old girlfriend, Nur Herawati, were pressured into the marriage by the girl’s parents, after allegedly breaking customary dating laws, which forbids young couples to return home after dusk. Since the teenage boy brought his young girlfriend home after 7:30 pm earlier this month, her parents gave them no choice but to marry…

Read More »