MALANG, East Java: As a convoy of about 30 trucks rolled into the tiny farming village of Jeru in East Java’s Malang regency last month, residents began streaming out of their homes with a mix of anticipation and apprehension on their faces.
The trucks, with sound systems stacked higher than rooftops and festooned with strobe lights, lasers and LED panels, were so wide they could barely squeeze through Jeru’s winding roads. They were so tall they came perilously close to clipping overhead power lines.
The convoy soon got Jeru’s celebration of Indonesia’s Independence Day underway with the thump of drumbeats and wobble of basslines that grew louder with each passing minute.
Jeru’s residents had spent more than a year raising nearly 1 billion rupiah (US$60,000) to hire the mobile entertainment vehicles, known locally as sound horeg (pronounced “hor-uh-g”).
“This is what we wait for all year,” said Adi, 19, excitedly as he danced with his friends. “Our village is quiet and boring, but for one night every year, it’s alive.”
Each truck was kitted with a diesel generator big enough to light 10 small houses, powering sound systems that can reach more than 130 decibels – roughly the volume of a jackhammer or an ambulance siren.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people can listen safely at an average of 80 decibels for up to 40 hours a week. If they turn the volume up to 90 decibels, they can only listen safely for up to four hours a week. Eighty decibels is about the volume of a doorbell, while 90 decibels is the equivalent of a shouted conversation, according to the WHO.
In Jeru, the convoy peaked at 127 decibels, going by a decibel meter CNA used.
Besides being loud enough to damage one’s eardrums, such volumes have been known on occasion to crack windows, chip wall plaster and shake roof tiles loose.
This has stirred tensions between enthusiasts and detractors that sometimes erupt into fights, underscoring the deep divide the phenomenon has created within communities in East and Central Java, where sound horegs are popular.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/indonesia-east-java-sound-horeg-loud-regulations-5357396
