Tzu Chi Jakarta Volunteer: Agus Rijanto
A Simple Life
“You could say that during those 3-4 years I didn't have time for family or to attend weddings and vacations.”
For three and a half years, Agus Rijanto was very “close” to Master Cheng Yen. That was because Master Cheng Yen was present in Indonesia every day through her sermons broadcast by DAAI TV Taiwan. Added to that, Agus Rijanto and his team became Master Cheng Yen's spokesmen to the viewers in Indonesia. Agus Rijanto was a translator and editor of Master Cheng Yen's sermons.
The man who was born in Medan 65 years ago, cannot be separated from his favorite Fujitsu laptop. He had to make sure every day he could connect to the internet wherever he was because he had to download Master Cheng Yen's texts. Master Cheng Yen usually delivers daily routine sermons at 7 am Taiwan time or 6 am Indonesian time. The sermons were recorded, and the contents of the sermons were made in the form of Chinese transcripts. At 10 am Indonesian time, the initial 12-minute transcript was uploaded to the website by the Taiwanese Tzu Chi team so that Tzu Chi volunteers around the world can download it. In Indonesia, Agus and his team carry out this task. The transcript was then translated into Indonesian by the translators of the Indonesian Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation.
Master Cheng Yen's sermon was originally rather long, but to become a television broadcast it had to be cut to 12 minutes. It was around 5 pm that the final result of Master Cheng Yen's discourse was cut to 12 minutes. Agus had to re-download the script which had been adjusted to the length of the video that had been cut.
Agus' task was not finished yet. He still had to wait for the sermons that had been subtitled into English to be broadcast by DAAI TV Taiwan at 18.45 WIB. After downloading from the website, Agus re-edited the translation in Indonesian to adjust to the English subtitle. Therein lies the challenge for him, the choice of words used had to be short and should not exceed the margins of the text placement. Whereas, a solid word in Mandarin often had a long Indonesian equivalent. Not to mention that sometimes Master Cheng Yen used Buddhist terms that were difficult to find equivalents in Indonesian. Now, Agus Rijanto's job was to edit the translation so that it would be easy for Indonesian audiences to understand. "And this can continue until eleven o'clock at night, and only then can I confirm that it is truly final and there will be no further changes," explained Agus.
While watching Tzu Chi activities on television. Agus thought everything was made up. But after joining as a volunteer, he proved it to be true.
The English subtitles will be overwritten by Indonesian subtitles. But Agus was not in charge of this task. He then gave the final result to the production house that processed it and then gave it to the operator of Indovision cable TV. Indovision broadcast it the next day at 18.45 WIB. So, DAAI TV viewers in Indonesia through Indovision could watch DAAI TV’s previous day’s broadcast of Master Cheng Yen's sermons with an Indonesian subtitle. That was the complexity of the process that had to be done so that viewers in Indonesia could watch Master Cheng Yen's lectures.
Since it was Master Cheng Yen's lecture, Agus was very careful about the contents, so that viewers would not misunderstand. "The Tzu Chi Foundation is a Buddhist organization while the majority religion in Indonesia is Islam, so in delivering this we must be careful because the message to be conveyed is universal," he explained, "Master's teachings are indeed universal in the form of daily events in the whole world. And I think the Master's teachings have one core, which is to relieve suffering and bring happiness to others, and to invite the people we help to help others."
Agus felt that his commitment to Tzu Chi was put to a very big test when he carried out this assignment, "You could say that during those 3-4 years I didn't have time left for my family or to attend weddings and vacations." Agus had to miss many other opportunities when handling [the translation of] Master Cheng Yen's sermons. In fact, it was like having an office at Tzu Chi because he came almost every day, even though he had a business that supplied furniture and fabric for office equipment. In the end, his wife took care of the store more. “I'm not saying that it's a sacrifice, but I'm doing it because I like it and am willing to, especially so that we can spread Master's teachings so that everyone can understand. And that is my personal goal and ideal," said Agus humbly.
Agus Rijanto initially viewed Tzu Chi cynically, but his wife, Ho Sok Cheng, had already fallen in love with Tzu Chi. Ho Sok Cheng then asked him to accompany her to look for Tzu Chi's whereabouts in Jakarta. In the end, Agus was more active in Tzu Chi than his wife.
The positive side he gained was that he became more and more aware of Master Cheng Yen's way of thinking about Tzu Chi. This, therefore, was very beneficial for him to step on the path of Tzu Chi. He thought, “When we read, we only know the contents of the sentence, the term just passes by. Meanwhile (if) translating, I must really understand the meaning of the message conveyed, which is contained in it. And it continued for three and a half years.”
So it is not surprising that he felt very heavy when he had to let go of [the translation job of] Master Cheng Yen's teachings in September 2008. The translation job was handed over to a special team from DAAI TV Indonesia because it would be broadcast on DAAI TV Indonesia. At first he was worried that the translation would be misinterpreted. However, Agus could finally let it go little by little. His love sometimes makes him take the time to discuss Master Cheng Yen's teachings with the translation team of DAAI TV. The teachings have now become a daily broadcast of DAAI TV titled The Lantern of Life.
“That is Fake”
Agus Rijanto's karmic relationship with Tzu Chi was established in 2002. At the beginning of that year, Jakarta was hit by a big flood. Tzu Chi volunteers were seen in several places distributing aid. They did not just provide relief materials, they even cleaned up sewers and rivers full of trash. All of it was recorded and broadcast worldwide through DAAI TV Taiwan. Ho Sok Cheng, wife of Agus Rijanto, was very impressed with this noble deed. Nonetheless, Agus actually disagreed, "Ah, don’t bother, don't watch [the show], it's nothing but fake." Agus felt that most of the scenes were made up, so that other people would want to watch the show so that they could achieve the goal to influence other people. "What is the proof that it's fake?" said Ho Sok Cheng fiercely. Agus did not want to back down, "Just look at those people working. It doesn’t make sense to work in sewers wearing white pants and shoes. How can it not be (made up)?!”
Ho Sok Cheng was unmoved. Moreover, she saw that there were many volunteers from Indonesia on the show, she was sure that Tzu Chi must be in Indonesia too. Ho Sok Cheng fell in love with Tzu Chi. So she invited Agus to find out Tzu Chi’s exact location in Jakarta. Agus finally followed the wishes of his beloved wife. They searched for 2 months, but to no avail.
The couple had a regular place to eat, which was a small restaurant in Kelapa Gading. The owner was Taiwanese. Since Tzu Chi was from Taiwan, Agus and his wife suspected that the restaurant owner must know about Tzu Chi as well. “Oh, you met the right person, I am also a member of Tzu Chi. But if you want to know about Tzu Chi Indonesia, I’m still unfamiliar with it, but I do have the magazine," said the restaurant owner, which made Agus and Ho Sok Cheng relieved. Armed with the address in the magazine, Agus and his wife were finally able to find the Tzu Chi Indonesia office at ITC Mangga Dua
Agus Rijanto has participated in almost all activities at Tzu Chi. However, as he gets older, he is now more active in volunteer training and socialization activities that are less energy-consuming.
Agus and his wife registered themselves as volunteers. His first activity as a volunteer was one day a week “working” at Tzu Chi. However, Agus was just clueless because he did not know what to do, until finally a volunteer, Lulu, asked him to clean up the dentist's equipment for the health service. Agus was confused when arranging the equipment. On the other hand, that actually gave him the idea to invite his son who liked photography to take pictures of the tools one by one and make a file so that the next person who cleaned it would know the names of the tools.
Before they were even settled in Tzu Chi, Agus and his wife visited Tzu Chi's head office in Hualien, Taiwan in mid-2002 with a number of businessmen. On the way, the group was asked, "Who wants to be the honorary commissioner?" The requirement to become an honorary commissioner is to donate 1 million Taiwan dollars (about 300 million IDR at that time). For entrepreneurs, such an amount of money was not too big. So they immediately raised their hands. Agus was the one who did not raise his hand. He still looked doubtful. Apart from being new to Tzu Chi, this amount of money was not a small amount to him because he was not a big businessman. However, Ho Sok Cheng continued to urge her husband to raise his hand. Finally Agus also raised his hand. So when Agus returned from Taiwan, he received a gift of a red lotus as an honorary commissioner of Tzu Chi in the form of a gold identification card at the end of the year.
Starting Many Things
It could be said that Agus Rijanto started to open a lot of new opportunities in Tzu Chi. In 2003, he was trusted to start and become the coordinator of a new division within the Indonesian Tzu Chi Foundation, namely the documentation division or also known as “3 in 1” since this division functioned to document Tzu Chi’s activities in 3 forms: photos, videos, and coverage scripts.
Back then, most of the volunteers who handled this division came from Taiwan. Thus, the photo documentation and scripts were made in Mandarin. This division initially comprised only a few people, but with the continued development of Tzu Chi Indonesia, this division also continued to grow. In fact, in 2007, this division became the forerunner of the establishment of DAAI TV Indonesia. Even so, now Agus has begun to reduce his involvement in the documentation division, although he is still a quality control in the Mandarin translation.
Agus also took part in founding Tzu Ching Indonesia. On several visits to Tzu Chi's head office in Hualien, Taiwan, he saw a group of Tzu Chi youths (Tzu Ching). In Indonesia, there was none. He took the initiative to form Tzu Ching in Indonesia, but other volunteers thought that the time was not right. Agus' dream was only realized in 2006. At that time, he formed a team consisting of young volunteers which he named "Team 16". He himself joined the team. “I formed this group because I saw that most of those who took part as volunteers in Tzu Chi were parents, and I felt that we also needed successors,” explained Agus. That was the forerunner to the formation of Tzu Ching Indonesia.
It turned out that what Agus had in mind when he took the initiative to form the Tzu Ching was not wrong. These young people were reliable and very active in supporting Tzu Chi activities, and that certainly gave the young people the right place in Tzu Chi. Finally, the group of young people was officially formed into the Tzu Ching. Agus was relieved because his efforts paid off. He and volunteer A Thiam then became "Tzu Ching Papa" (Tzu Ching coach) with Wang Su Hui who became "Tzu Ching Mama".
On another occasion when he returned to Taiwan, he saw that there was something new in Tzu Chi. That something is the Tzu Cheng line (Tzu Cheng Dui) which was a frontline male volunteer commissioners who must always be ready 24 hours if Tzu Chi needs them. In a meeting, Agus asked the male volunteers present if they were willing to take part in the Tzu Cheng training. "It turned out that I was the only one who participated," he said. Because the sign for volunteers who have become members of Tzu Cheng is the lotus logo on the volunteer identification card, Agus was the only Indonesian volunteer who had 3 lotuses on his card. "It's not because I want to chase the lotus 3 level, but I mean to encourage others to follow," explained Agus. The lotuses represent the emblem of the honorary commissioner, Tzu Cheng, and the committee. This meant a bigger responsibility that must be borne by Agus.
Being active in Tzu Chi made him understand that his 97-year-old mother also needs attention, apart from getting all of her needs met.
Live a Simple Life
Agus' activities in Tzu Chi are now starting to decrease, especially for activities that are exhausting. "Because my stamina and energy (are starting to) decrease, I (now) mostly (only) work in ceremonial areas, or meetings, and as a speaker at certain events or the MC," explained Agus. Other volunteers sometimes even race with each other to replace his role in activities that are too tough for him.
However, the task that seems to never be separated from him is being an interpreter, whether when Indonesian volunteers visit Taiwan or when volunteers from Taiwan or other countries visit Indonesia. His Mandarin skills are almost always at work.
Agus is also quite adept at negotiating. In mid-2006, he and several other Tzu Chi volunteers facilitated the repatriation of 19 Cambodians and 4 Myanmar citizens. They were crew members (ABK) who were stranded in Indonesian waters and detained at the Jakarta Immigration Detention Center (Rudenim). They were separated from their families for 2 years. "If it was not for Tzu Chi, how could we go back to Cambodia?" said Lon Tha, one of the Cambodians with tears in his eyes.
“You may be wondering why we from Tzu Chi want to help you. We didn’t even know each other before, right?" said Agus who was answered by the people’s nods, “We help you for humanity. We hope that one day you will also be willing to help other people who really need your help.”
Joining Tzu Chi also made him become more down to earth. Even though he had a hard life as a child in Medan and is now in a good financial state, he never splurges to “take revenge” for the hard time he had. Agus gave an example. He had wanted to replace his 1997 BMW car for a long time. In the past, when he bought it, he hoped that by driving an expensive BMW he would raise his status and be respected by others. "But so far the only people who respect me are the parking attendants," he laughed out loud.
For the past few months, he has wanted to replace his BMW with a newer series, the 5 series. But, “Now I'm more down to earth. The money that I was going to use to buy a BMW 5 series car, I used it to buy a Kijang car and the rest 1 million NT I allocated for donation on behalf of my wife, so that she could also become Tzu Chi's honorary commissioner for the construction of the Indonesian Jing Si Hall." So, for the second time, he donated another 300 million IDR to Tzu Chi. He did not regret letting go of his desire to have a new BMW series. To him, the old BMW he still owns is still good enough.
Now Agus has 2 children and 2 grandchildren, but he still has a mother who is 97 years old. At first he thought that giving his mother everything she wanted could make her happy, including a comfortable residence in Pulo Mas, East Jakarta. "After I joined Tzu Chi for a long time, I began to feel that my parents, whom I thought had got everything enough, apparently felt lonely and needed friends to talk to," Agus realized his mistake. It was especially true when some time ago his mother fell which caused a brain hemorrhage. Luckily it was not too late for Agus to realize his mistake.
Agus has now changed the way he treats his mother, "Now whenever I come home from work I always take the time to talk and joke with my mother." He added, “Now just think about it, parents at that age don't have any other age-old friends. So, as their children we must be a friend to our parents. Even if we just make small talk with our parents, our parents will be very happy.”
As told to Sutar Soemithra
Photo: Anand Yahya & Sutar Soemithra
Translator: Nila Silviana (Tzu Chi School)
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