WHILE writing in a notebook, the teenage girl interviewed a green-shellfish cultivator at the Muara Angke fishermen’s village, North Jakarta. Her eyes widened when she saw the green chemical liquid used to preserve the shellfish. “Why not use a natural preservative, such as turmeric,” asked Damayanti, the teenager, to the shellfish cultivator.

Damayanti asked for some of the liquid and then resumed her trip down the Angke River on a motorb