Be A Professional No Matter What You Do

http://www.jakarta100bars.com/2015/10/best-markets-shopping-streets-to-visit.html

“Professional in the business no matter what kind of business that you do. This is the lesson that I’ve got from Pak Cahyan. Many people only know that he only sells tofu in small counter. But, actually he run many business such as wedding planner, catering, etc. One thing that he still love to sell the tofu is that he wants to serve the costumer face to face. That was rare for professional businessman nowadays but he still do it. So, no matter what kind of business that we have, try to serve our customer professonaly.”

As dusk falls, the up market shopping district around Menteng Plaza undergoes a transformation. Even before the cosmopolitan restaurants that line the streets close, a large number of carts and trolleys selling a vast selection of the uncountable regional culinary specialties that are produced by Indonesia’s ethnic groups are wheeled out from the lanes and alleys where they are parked during the day. Trading almost until dawn, long after the cosmopolitan outlets have turned off their lights, visitors can see vendors selling dishes from all over the archipelago: sate Padang (spicy grilled meat with peanut sauce) from West Sumatra, tahu gejerot (fried tofu with dipping sauce) from Cirebon, martabak (grilled bread with meat or sweet stuffing) from Medan. One enthusiastic diner states, pointing at the row of carts and stall: “No need to go to Taman Mini (Indonesian heritage park) to see all of Indonesia under one roof! You can find it all here!”

It is difficult to arrange to meet Pak Cahyan, the owner and operator of a cart selling a specialty of the Central Javanese seaport city of Cirebon, tahu gejrot. On one occasion, he is absent from his post: his brother announces that he is busy dealing with a special catering order, preparing several hundred boxes of his dish for a wedding party. On another Saturday evening, he is there, but claims to be ‘too busy to talk’ – and appeared to be serving customers non-stop. When he is finally available, he is faintly condescending about granting an interview.

“I’ve been interviewed more times than I can remember, now. There was a journalist from some Indonesian paper here last night, but I told him to go away. I was interviewed on television once, by Bondan Winarno [a well-known journalist, food commentator and television personality] I really don’t have the time for this, but I’ll make an effort.”

http://www.jakarta100bars.com/2015/10/best-markets-shopping-streets-to-visit.html

There is a common perception that street vending is an employment option of last resort—a backup livelihood when one fails to gain steady employment at a reputable company. This is clearly not the case with Pak Cahyan.

“Well, I never finished high school, but I did a complete driving course after I left, so I had a heavy-truck driver’s license. I had a pretty good job, doing deliveries for one of the drink companies. I was getting a salary of Rp 1.3 million (US$ 143) a month, which wasn’t bad considering that I’d only been with the company for a year or two. Most people would have considered that I was pretty lucky to have found a job like that. But I just thought that it was a bit limiting. There wasn’t really that much opportunity for me to grow or move up in the organization. I just figured that I’d be better off working for myself.

“[Now as a street vendor] I just sell the one dish: tahu gejrot. It’s one of the specialties of Cirebon. If you see someone selling tahu gejrot, you can be pretty certain he’s from Cirebon. I’ll fix you a plate so you can try it.”

He shortly returns with a small plate consisting of fried tofu, cut very finely and served with a bowl of sauce consisting of vinegar, palm sugar, shallots and chili. The bowl containing the sauce is a distinctive stone vessel known as uleg-uleg. As Pak Cahyan says:

“With proper tahu gejrot, the sauce always comes in a bowl like that. I sell at least 150 plates a day from this stand here. Most days, I set up here at about five in the afternoon at the latest, and close up shop at around four in the morning. I sell for Rp 6,000 (US$ 0,66) per plate. That’s a fair bit more than tahu gejrot goes for in other places, even in Jakarta. The average is probably Rp 4,000 to Rp 5,000 (US$ 0,44 – 0,55). But this is an up market area. A lot of rich kids come… from all over Jakarta and nongkrong (hang out) on the street.

“Customers can sit wherever they want. They can order any dish from any of the vendors. You notice I’m the only one here selling tahu gejrot? Well, if someone’s sitting somewhere else and wants tahu gejrot, they can tell the vendor near where they are sitting, and he’ll come and get it from me. The customer will pay him, and he’ll give the money to me later. If there’s a customer sitting here who wants sate Padang or something, I’ll do the same for him.

“Most of the vendors don’t even jot down a note. They just remember who orders what. Sometimes, we settle up during a quiet period, but most of the time we work it out at the end of the evening. It relies on everyone being honest, but there aren’t any problems. We are all selling different things, so we aren’t competing against each other: we are actually all working together.

“Not just anyone can set up a business here. The vendors all used to operate on the main street, but the local government made us set up our stalls here, down this side street. I’m okay with that: parking is a bit limited; that’s the only problem. But it’s a very good place to operate, so once someone’s got a permit, they usually stick to it. There aren’t many openings. If a guy pulls out, he usually passes his business on to someone else, someone in his family. We have to pay a monthly fee: several hundred thousand a month for the permit. There’s an informal coordinator who collects the fees. He’s a vendor, too, a Bugis [person from South Sulawesi]. He does it because everyone here trusts him. Like I said, honesty is the most important thing if you are doing business together.”

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Those using the food stalls sit at long tables with benches, adjacent to the stalls. When asked to whom these belong, Pak Cahyan responds as follows:

“The drink companies provide them! The iced tea and Coca-Cola companies provide them. It’s part of their marketing campaign. There’s talk that they are going to set up a big awning for shelter when it rains. It will probably have company logos on it. Maybe our monthly fees will go up. Maybe it will improve our business, although things are already going pretty well as it is.”

In fact, the stall from which Pak Cahyan sells his tofu dish is only one facet of his business. He is often involved in the preparation of special orders for weddings, parties and functions, usually one or twice a week, for which he prepares large volumes of his signature dish. These catering and street vending operations form an impressive small business base. But, in addition to these activities, he is also the manager of his uncle’s factory, which produces the tofu he sells:

“[Tofu production is] not a very complicated process, but you’ve got to know what you are doing. You need a fairly large space to operate in. My uncle bought a 300 square meter block in Kuningan back in the seventies. He’s been offered Rp 4 billion (US$ 440) for the land, but he’s not selling. He’s like a Chinese: he’ll only sell his land if the price he gets is so good that he can buy three times as much land somewhere else.

“The equipment isn’t that sophisticated. You just need some kind of crusher to crush up the soy beans. You cook the beans to get the curds, and then you drain off the whey and press it into moulds. That’s about it. Still, if you don’t keep things sterile, the tofu can go bad. In the old days, people used to die of food poisoning from badly prepared tofu quite often. Our factory has a certificate from the health department, so people know we are doing it properly.

“We cook up about fifty kilograms of beans a day. We sell to some of the big shops, including Carrefour, but we don’t have a brand name. The shops sell it under their own brand. And we supply a lot of street vendors.”

When asked how he has established the network of street vendors with whom the factory trades, Pak Cahyan’s reply helps illuminate exactly why certain dishes are so closely associated with specific Indonesian regions.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2017/02/21/kediris-bah-kacung-tofu-tradition-matters.html

“I go back to Cirebon about twice a month. My wife and children live there. I don’t want them to live in Jakarta. Life’s better for a family in a small town, even if I have to live apart from them. If we need more vendors, I find them out in the villages near Cirebon… My mother’s family is related to the royal family: I’ve got a lot of contacts and friends in the region. When I bring them into Jakarta, we give them somewhere to stay at the factory. We’ve got 25 rooms for workers and vendors. At the beginning, they usually get a wage, and they work in the factory or helping with deliveries. After they’ve been here for a while, they probably learn how to make tahu gejrot or nasi lengko (a tofu rice dish, also a Cirebon specialty), then they set up by themselves. Once they are established, they may move out and find their own house. But they still buy the tofu and the other raw materials from us.”

Considering his role as a chief manager in his uncle’s factory, it is perhaps surprising that Pak Cahyan continues to operate his own food stall. While not willing to divulge details, he claims that his uncle has involved him in a reasonably lucrative profit-sharing basis, rather than a salary. Yet, despite his economic options and resources he won’t give up his role in his street food business, serving as night watchman behind his tofu stall.

“Look, I’ve thought about it. But I’ve got to keep my hand in myself. I want to see my clients’ faces myself and understand what they like and what they don’t like. It keeps me in touch with the people that I’m making food for. And I’ve tried using an employee, but no employee seems to be able to pull in the customers like I can. As soon as I go away from the stall, business drops off. Even when my brother runs the stall, when I go back to Cirebon, sales always go down. People keep on telling me that I should open up new branches or outlets, but if I’m not there myself, it just never seems to work out. I’ve got to be there myself. It’s part of the magic formula that makes my business work.”