Review of introduction of long-term visa for digital nomads
The Indonesian government is considering a new long-term visa for “digital nomad” (those who travel and work using IT). The Jakarta Post reported on the 8th.
According to the Minister of Tourism, Creative Economy and Tourism Sandiaga Uno, the validity period of the digital nomad visa is being reviewed for five years. Final negotiations for the introduction are currently underway.
Minister Sandiaga pointed out that 95% of digital nomads choose Indonesia as the most likely destination for their stay. When the digital nomad visa is introduced, the number of foreigners visiting Bali will increase by 50 to 60%, and tourism income will also increase.
Meanwhile, tourism sector workers are raising their voices that the government needs to improve the relevant infrastructure in order to introduce the visa. Paurin, president of the Indonesian Travel Agencies Association, pointed out that the visa acquisition process should be further simplified.
Budyant, vice president of the Indonesian Tourism Association (ASITA), said, “The government should promote digital infrastructure maintenance such as telecommunication, and at the same time consider making imports from overseas duty-free.”
Singapore’s Midstay, which provides shared office information to digital nomads and others, predicted that 80,000 digital nomads would visit Bali a month in the second half of this year, staying on average for about two months.
The Path of a ‘Digital Nomad’
Most of us live by the milestones set at every path in life. I live by just following the ‘path to go’. From the moment we are born to the moment we die, we have a set path. Until what age you have to wear diapers, and until what age you have to start learning Korean. After graduating from high school, he spends all his energy to go to the university that others go to, even to a prestigious university. Major is not very important, only ‘signboard’ is important. Even if I do ‘young-chul’, I have to prepare my own house, and like everyone else, I have to consume and own a luxury apartment and ‘global standard’ level to release my intuition. If you don’t live according to your life schedule, you’re treated like a loser.
At least in this land, I can’t choose a way of life that’s right for me, and I can’t insist on it unless I’m prepared for a ‘downstream life’. The community requires its members to follow the inevitable and universal values of the community. Therefore, ‘resistance’ is regarded as individualism, and ‘individuality’ is regarded as a ‘heretic’ that destroys common values, and they are forced to lead an exemplary life like others. Each of us is in a hurry to just plagiarize the same way of life as others, rather than our own path. As a result, we live in a society where everything is quantified, ranked, and indexed. So, the path of a nomad carrying a backpack and leaving is unacceptable, at least in this land.
But what to do. In the digital age, the path of such a nomad is the narrow path to be taken. Digital culture demands a world of deviance that deconstructs the existing narrative. The supremacy of possessions, blind efficiency, and solemn communal orders, which have been regarded as correct so far, are being reduced to objects that need to be dismantled. It’s becoming a chore mover that needs to be thrown away. Rather, it is to open the bounds of imagination, invest only in new experiences, enjoy the present moment, and look to the ‘future’ in advance. However, in the radius of our lives that we are accustomed to now, that is impossible. In a nutshell, did someone say, “Korea is the Galapagos of digital nomads”?
One of my acquaintances was like that. “When I think about turning 50, I hope that there will be at least one bright house left, and it is very unfortunate that the past day was all that time and effort was put as collateral.” I regretted the past time when I had to give up everything, exchanging a house for a house without any spare time for singing, painting, books, and travel. I didn’t take a day off during the year for personal reasons, and I wanted to fit into the weekend or vacation period if I could get a cold or get sick. A weekend getaway for the family was just a dream. After spending decades like that, he said that now he regrets it to the point that it is suffocating and frustrating.
The French thinker Jean-Paul Sartre wrote in his 1965 play A Room Without an Exit: “Hell, that is another.” said It is a world where people judge themselves by the standards by which they judge themselves. The German philosopher Hegel defined a society that lived according to the will of others as a lower society, and viewed such a life as depravity. Yes. In a society that only needs to go the way to be seen by others, it is easy to get lost along the way. A life based on one’s own insight is inevitably difficult. I have no choice but to be bound by a life of others that makes me believe that my life is mortgaged to ‘one bright house’, as if it was an acquaintance of the author, who seemed to be the only way for others to go.
The digital age now has to change. You have to get out of the other person’s time. You must enjoy the values that are important in your life, be generous with yourself, and restore your own freedom. We value experience rather than material things, and we must faithfully pursue happiness in the present moment. When you do what you really want to do, and always mine and question other beings, so-called ‘creativity’ and ‘imagination’ spring up, and the grammar of a new digital age is born.
The freely wandering nomad has no luggage in the first place. You should be able to wiggle and roam freely. Invest all the money and time you spend on your home and car in the experience. When the Mongolian Genghis Khan troops left the long journey, they only had one horse and one sword. Supply could only be done in the occupied territory, and it was the most powerful unit in history that could rush forward like lightning at any time. It was Genghis Khan’s version of the digital nomad.
My acquaintance, who I mentioned earlier, said that I am now doing the necessary things little by little. Just like a child who can’t walk well is practicing walking, he asks himself to find something that makes him happy. Would you say that you are on a path for your own independent life? As I came to think of it, the Mongolians I met on my trip to Mongolia were very warm. Without navigation and signposts, the road to the grassland was inconvenient, but peaceful and free. I want to leave once again on such an unfamiliar but free road. Finding the way to become a digital nomad… .