How is it living in Madripoor (Batam) ?

In this blog , I will talk about a light topic, about the famous Madripoor which mentioned at the Episode 3 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

 

Madripoor is a small island which located at Riau Archipelago. It was located between Singapore and Indonesia. For me, it sounds like Batam Island.

 

Batam islands was firs inhabited by the Malays. I found that Selayar and Bugis people which originated from South Sulawesi, also resides in this Island for long time ago.

 

During my elementary high school, I lived at beach village named Sambau. My house is only 70 meters away from the beach line. My house was made from wood, and my house is a stilt house, and the it was a thatced roofs house. We have a clay water jug in the front of house to wash our feet before entering the house. Since you know that the sand is very dark in colour.  My toilet is 70 meters from my house, I need to walk to the beach toilet.

 

I love to swim at the beach, catching the small fishes, filling the octopus hole with tobacco,so it will come out from its hole. I collected the shells during the low tide. Spearing the prawn which trapped at the the puddle during the low tide. We love to play mangrove tops.

 

My father drove the speed boat for the passenger which travel from Nongsa Beach to the Putri island and vice versa. I almost drowned at Putri Island, when my tire buoy went far away from the beach, and I got panicked cannot move by tire buoy to the island beach. Fortunately my neighbour pushed my tire buoy to the island beach.

 

I used to dry the anchovies, and the payment is a bag of anchovies, and I used to dry bricks and I got some money as the salary.

 

Later my Sambau village being evicted, and it become the Resort. If you don’t know resort is  a is a full service lodging facility, intended primarily for vacationers and usually located in places frequented for relaxation or recreation, such as beaches, seashores, scenic or historic areas.

 

We got a new land at nearest place, but not so near to the beach, we got money compensation to build the new house.

 

At the end of the year, we will go the some hill to watch the fireworks of the Singapore. Eventhough Singapore is very near to my home, I managed to visit that Place 15 years later, after I graduated from Bachelor Degree and got my first passpord. Its only 45 minutes using the Ferry boat.  

 

The other city which I visited when I was in Batam is Tanjung Pinang, could Tanjung Pinang is the Madripoor island? Tanjung Pinang is the capital city of Riau Archipelago Province. Nowadays the have RORO from Tanjung Pinang to Batam, so we can use our own car.

 

 

But I did have friends during the senior high school, which travel to the school using boat twice everyday , and 6 days in a week. Since there are nearby small island around the Batam Island.

 

People from Sumatera, Java and Flores also coming to Batam. Since Batam is FTZ ( Free Trade Zone) area. FTZ is a class of special economic zone. It is a geographic area where goods may be imported, stored, handled, manufactured, or reconfigured and re-exported under specific customs regulation and generally not subject to customs duty. So these people are working in many factories at Batamindo Industrial Park (Mukakuning).

So if you are an investor, come to Batam, setup your factory there, you can get low wages of labour, cheap building rent, and your business will be profitable.

 

This big area had their own Telecommunication Operator to serve PSTN between the factories.

 

Batam is  famous with its Second hand product. On the 1990 people love to used second hand product which imported from Singapore. This products vary from Furniture, electronic,clothes till otomotive.

 

That’s is my story of Batam Island, could it be Madripoor island, for sure we need to ask the book author.