You know if I were on a tropical island with plenty of everything I could ever want to eat, free and fast internet, gorgeous women who love old, bald, fat guys, a high paying job teaching English to underpriveleged and well behaved kids, a nice place with a pool, a hammock and a yard for my dogs, I'd probably complain about never having to shovel snow. That's just the way I am. If there's nothing to complain about I'll make something up. What else would I blog about?
This is not to say Indonesia is paradise. I've had lots to complain about. It's just that for some reason the things I could complain about seem easier to laugh about here. I guess because when I'm driving in an air conditioned taxi fuming at the traffic that will probably make me a few minutes late for my class, trying to call someone to tell them I'll be late and getting no cell phone signal and I look out the window at a 5-year-old kid in bare feet wearing pajamas and just wandering along the sidewalk at 9 PM playing with a stick, and that kid is much happier than me, I get brought back to earth. The shame of it all is I seem to need this grounding on a daily basis. Or I start whimpering, whining and whinging in my excess. I just can't seem to take joy in what I have even though it would bring abundant joy to I'd say half the people on the planet to have all that I have.
But, being the incorrigible bitcher that I am, (fake well), here I go again... At least I can take a tiny bit of pride in the fact that here in Indonesia the things that bug me the most tend to be amalgamations of little things chained together in logic-defying strings of bad fortune that combine to make me lose my shit, albeit, momentarily. Perfect storms of niggling annoyances that snowball into a pissy mood or a nasty, (but humourous), blog post. I'll give you two examples. One from just today.
I'll do that one first. It all started, you guessed it, today. Well, no, that's not true it actually started last night. Well, but the reason I was annoyed last night was caused by two days ago. See what I mean by chains? Well I guess you DON'T see yet cuz I haven't said anything. Okay two days ago the wifi at my kost, (rooming house), was out. Being Sunday, the day I plan all my lessons for the week, I needed the internet more than ever. But as good fortune would have it, my student Herry had given me a Bolt. This is a little gizmo that creates your own private wifi channel when you turn it on. I paid about 40 bucks for two months of service. You see the wifi going down is a pretty regular occurrence at my kost. At least a couple times a week. So I got the Bolt home, turned it on, set it up and, BAM, NUTHIN'! It was explained to me that the signal wasn't strong enough for the BOLT to pick up. I thought that was why I had bought the damn thing. But, oh well, it was a freebie. Other than the 40 bucks for what they call "pulsa" here, and the 10 bucks taxi fare to go get that pulsa. And the two hours stuck in traffic in that taxi. And the two hours of sleep that cost me because there were mosquitos in my room and I couldn't sleep the night before... See? Chains.
So anyway, I have this Bolt and am using it as a paper weight for almost two months and one of the other tennants here tells me that you need to put it as close to the window as you can, sometimes OUT the window, before it will pick up a signal. So I DID this Sunday. It was a hot, sunny day and I opened the window, put the Bolt on the sill and lo and behold the internet worked! I was happily bangin' away at my computer finally getting a little use out of my 40 bucks worth of pulsa when suddenly the internet was down again. I checked my Bolt and the lights on it were all flashing wildly! I picked it up and it was as hot as just popped toast. Mmmmmmm... I need a toaster. Probably next paycheck. Anyway, the thing was fried, (mmmmm.... fried...), because I had left it on the window sill in the hot sun. I tried to turn it off but it wouldn't turn off. It just kept flashing and not turning off! So I took the back off and took out the battery. Then I put the battery back in and it was fine. But the back piece, being plastic, was warped and wouldn't go back on. After trying about a hundred times to put the back piece on, and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing, I chucked it across the room to deal with later. I had almost finished everything I needed to do anyway so I called it quits for the computer. Sunday is also a good day for grocery shopping. I needed some exercise too so I hoofed it into Kemang and went to the Ranch Market there. It was night by the time I got home with my groceries. It's about a 30 minute walk to Ranch Market and a 20 minute walk back. Longer there so I don't sweat so much that they won't allow me into the store.
I had some supper and sat at my computer watching some NFL games I had downloaded while the internet was up. Just as I finished watching the disappointing Detroit Lions vs. New Orleans Saints game in which the Saints, my team, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the internet came back on! Yeehaw! So I began catching up on my facebook games and commenting on people's stuff and reading other people's posts and even studying my first lesson of Indonesian. Yup, I'm finally taking Indonesian classes! Soon I'll be able to bitch in THAT language too!
While doing my computer stuff I started noticing an awful lot of itchy spots on my feet and back and seeing some mosquitos in my room. Now you have to picture the scene. I DIDN'T walk home slowly, plus I was carrying a few bags of groceries with me. Sweating like the guy on Airplane! So I got home and stripped down to my gotch immediately. Even before putting away the groceries. Now I had to turn on BOTH of my main ceiling lights so that I could better see the mosquitos. Thing is they are very glare-y lights so I need to shade my eyes from that glare somehow. So I put on a ball cap. I haven't yet been able to find any fly swatters here so I use what I have: a grey, plastic, pancake flipping spatula. Oh yeah, another link in the chain: If you remember my last post I talked about the skimpy male panties here in Indonesia. I guess I went a little too long before bringing my laundry in to be washed. And it takes them at least four days to wash it. So, down to my last pair of underwear, I broke down and bought three pairs of these plum-smugglers that would look ridiculous if they were big enough, but look absolutely obscene because even though they are size XXXXL they are STILL too small! Imagine if you will, (dare), the fat, sweaty, milky-white bule wearing only these and a Canucks ball cap, brandishing, (and occasionally drumstick twirling), a spatula stalking around the room like Kato or Clouseau senses honed to a fine point just waiting to spot that next bloodsucker and HHHHEEEEAAAYYYYYAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!!!
Deep into the night. I mean hours and hours. I tried probably five times to turn out the lights and get some sleep thinking that surely I had just killed the last mosquito but as soon as the lights were out, bzzzzzzzzzzzz. On with the lights and into offense. But there was no end to the buggers! I covered up the drains in the bathroom, closed the bathroom door, put some clothes into the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor, but more mosquitos kept coming. Finally I pulled back the curtains and there it was! The window I had opened to get a better wifi signal for my Bolt. It was still open and with the glaring lights on attracting the mosquitos it was no wonder I was so busy! So I closed the window and didn't really finish killing all the mosquitos before I finally dozed off. It was starting to get light outside. About 5 o'clock. I could tell by the banging on the pipe. I had to get up at 7 o'clock to call Herry and see if he wanted his class at 8. Two hours later the alarm went off. I woke up with mosquito bites on my hands, feet, legs, back, front, one on my cheek and one on my right EYELID! I texted Herry and, bless his heart, he cancelled. Said he's going on a trip. YES! I could try to get back to sleep. No class till 4 PM. So I did. For like an hour. Then my phone message alert sounded. Message from Matthew, the boss. "No Herry today. He's going on a trip." It's now 8 o'clock. I've had a couple hours of sleep. But I see another mosquito. Up out of bed and on the offense!
After killing a couple more mosquitos and feeling pretty sure I had them all I sat down at the computer to check emails and facebook and news and whatnot. Also had my cup o' tea. My usual morning ritual. Not feeling very tired, later I ate some breakfast and although I knew it wasn't going to be very healthy, I went to sleep right after eating from about 11:00 to 1:00 and woke up with NO mosquito bites, but some terrible acid reflux. I jumped on the computer to update my facebook games and such. I hadn't been on for much more than 10 minutes when, BAM, power outage. Another regular occurrence here. Once a week or so. I had to shower, shave, and get ready for work in the dark! So I opened up my curtains and since the mosquitos don't come in when I'm gone and the lights are out, I opened up the window to get fresh air. I didn't do a very good job of shaving. Missed a spot on my chin that was noticeable when I looked into a mirror when I got to the building where I teach my first class. Other than that it wasn't too big a deal. I got to work on time and taught my classes from 4-8:30. It was a little after 9 PM when I got home. Window open, lights on and room full of mosquitos. You see, I had forgotten to turn the lights off. Because of the power outage I thought they WERE off. When the power came back on sometime during the day, the air conditioner and all the lights came on and stayed on wasting all that power for the whole day. Then when it got dark, the window was still open and the lights were on. I got home and looked up at my window and swore. Fairly loudly. A couple of the workers at the kost asked me what was wrong. They don't speak a lick of English between them and with my ONE lesson of Bahasa Indonesia and body language I tried to explain what was wrong. Tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed. Then I just said, "Never mind!" I stormed up to my room. Now THOSE guys think I'm a dick and there's no way I'll be able to explain to them what happened or get them to read this. They are the guys who do laundry, call for cabs, open the gate after hours, clean the rooms etc. What do you want to bet the next time a taxi comes one of them says, "Cab for David? Nope. Never heard of him."
Frustration chains. But I gotta admit, it's pretty funny. In fact I could see Jerry Lewis winning a French movie award acting this out. I can't make myself feel better getting angry about it so I'll complain here for a while and someday way in the future read this and have a good laugh. Which will make it worth it. Maybe.
Frustration chain number two: This one started quite some time ago. And it's a longer, more complex chain. But on the plus side, I'm just glad it takes a long, complex chain to make me lose my cool here. Hopefully this is all improving my patience. Okay, I guess I should begin with my long lost, and missed, Samsung Galaxy. I bought it in Canada when I lived there and it was a good phone. There were a few minor problems with it when I got to Indonesia but it was still a good phone. I managed to find some dead spots around Jakarta, actually lived in one for a few weeks, and this somehow completely reset my Galaxy. I mean the time, the messages, calls, alarm, NOTHING would work. I didn't know dead spots like that were even possible. I have explained it many times to many people and nobody can figure it out. A couple times I got the message, "Emergency calls only" when it was totally dead. It was spooky. But it created some big problems for me. When your schedule can change from day to day, you need your phone to work every day. Sometimes the phone would be dead for a whole day and I wouldn't notice it. Then I'd go somewhere and get a signal and suddenly text messages, call alerts and stuff would all flood the phone at the same time. Messages like, "I need you to start a new class at 2 o'clock today. I would get that at 1 o'clock. But anyway, those of you who are following my escapades here in Jakarta will know that my beloved Galaxy was pickpocketed on Jakarta's Birthday on the busway. Again, the freakish confluence of events. You'll have to read it. The upshot of the whole thing, after getting pickpocketed, standing up my boss and his wife, walking for six hours around Jakarta looking for my new apartment and ending up sunburned and blistered, I had to buy a new phone. I got a little Nokia. It was fine. No camera and no internet or apps of any kind but it was good for keeping in touch. Usually. Sometimes though, with no warning or explanation, it would switch into this mode in which I would just get the message, "Emergency calls only." Nobody could reach me and I wouldn't notice until I tried to call somebody. Again Herry to the rescue. He noticed one time when the phone shut itself off so he got me a Blackberry. I have been using that until just recently.
A Blackberry is no Galaxy. Far from it. But it had a camera and I was able to use What's App and Blackberry Messenger and some other things that were convenient. It wasn't too bad. Until just recently. It started to get crackly sounding. Really suddenly. One day the sound was fine and the next it sounded like 1950's television. But it wouldn't have bothered me so much if it hadn't combined with another long time building frustration: that of the morning taxi. I had classes Wed. and Fri. at 7:30 AM. They were an hour's drive from home so I had tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed, tried and failed to get just ONCE a taxi to come to my place at 6:30 AM. I tried calling and ordering but they'd come at 6:00 and leave or not come at all. I tried waking up at 5:00 and telling them to come at 6:30 but that didn't work either. I tried getting a standing order for a taxi two times a week for 6:30 AM. That didn't work. I tried with Bluebird and Express, the two, (supposedly), best taxi companies in Jakarta. Neither could do this. Not once!
So one fateful day I thought I'd try something else. I got up early and called Express Taxi at a little before 6 AM and just said I wanted a taxi to come as soon as they could get one. They knew my number and name and address because of all the times I had called, and failed, and called, and so on... So the girl says, "Okay I will look for a taxi in your area now. Your PIN number is 0815. It should take about 20 minutes." Perfect! When they say 20 minutes, I had learned that it means about 30-40 minutes. They should be at my house at 6:30, or so I thought. That's how they get you. They make you foolishly BELIEVE they're coming, the heartless BASTARDS!!! 6:40 rolls around and I call back asking what happened. It's a dude this time and asks if I want to order a taxi. I say that I already ordered one and want to know what happened to it. I waste a lot of time giving him my name, address, pin number all over again and he says, "Okay we will look for a taxi in your area now. It will take about 30 minutes. Your PIN number is 8855" I ask again what happened to my first order and he appologizes and says he doesn't know. The communication is rough due to a language barrier but also my phone has a newly developed crackling and several times I had to try to say something, fail, try to say something, fail, you get the pic. But I figured I'd be in the cab before the class started anyway. I'd be late but what choice did I have? At 7:30 the taxi hadn't come. An hour and a half after I ordered my first taxi. I receive a call from Express Taxi, this time from a girl. She says, "This is Express Taxi confirming your order. Mr. David? PIN number 8855? Okay we will search for a taxi in your area. It should take about 40 minutes." Well I tell the girl that I don't want the taxi any more and ask her what the hell they had been doing for the last half hour since they told me they'd be looking for a taxi in my area. She says, "Sir? I can't hear you. Could you call again?" So I talk louder and the crackling in my Blackberry gets louder, "I ASKED WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING FO-" "Mr. David? Hello? Again say? Could you call again?" So even louder now yelling into the phone like a walkie-talkie I scream, "I HAVE BEEN WAITING ALL MORNING AND -" the crackling gets even louder but I hear her saying, "Could you call again? I'm sorry, could you call again?" So I absolutely lose it and slam the Blackberry down on the ground. The cover goes one way, the phone goes another and the battery goes a third way. One of the workers saw me and was shocked. He tried to help me pick up my phone but I wouldn't let him. I'm sure he thinks I'm a psychotic. Again I just storm back to my room.
My Blackberry is dead but I take out the sim card and put it into my old Nokia. Then I try to call the student whose class I am going to miss. I get a message on my Nokia, "Emergency calls only." I take the battery out and put it back in and still get the message, "Emergency calls only." I try again, fail, try again, fail, try again fail. I am pretty close to slam dunking my NOKIA too when I decide to unpack my computer and just send emails to the student and my boss explaining why I couldn't make it to the class and that I am going to spend the morning at the Nokia shop getting them to explain to me the "Emergency calls only" BS. Finally, I get another idea. I take the phone apart and put the sim card in the other sim slot and try it. Success! The Nokia works again! So I call my student who I'm sure is wondering what happened. He's very forgiving and calm. He has heard me explain the taxi troubles many times before. Then, I am absolutely not kidding you, at 8 o'clock or so my taxi arrives! I get a knock on my door from the kost worker who thinks I'm psycho, "Mr. David? Taxi?" "What the FUCK!?!?!" I stomp down the stairs and this taxi driver is coming toward me saying something. All I could understand was "PIN number, PIN number?" I felt like Bruce Leeing the guy but I just waved him off VERY rudely saying, "Cancel!" then turned around to avoid a homocide and returned to my room.
As luck would have it, that student has cancelled and I no longer have that massive stressor in my life so now I can laugh at it all. But that won't bring back my Blackberry. Seriously though, I don't think I behaved as I should have but if you know the whole story I think it at least makes my behaviour understandable if not acceptible. Doesn't it? And all of the little annoyances taken one at a time I am okay with. It's just a more enlightened incarnation of me that will be able to deal with these frustration chains with any poise. But I'm working on it, I'm working on it. This helps.
It's now 2:16 AM and I'm still bangin' away here because I have seen a mosquito and I'm not going to bed till she's dead. MAN I'm glad I don't have to teach Herry early in the morning tomorrow!
Addendum: It's now the next day. I stayed up till 4 AM chasing that one bloodsucker around but finally got her and went to sleep. Today I went to work and evidently was offered a new teaching gig by text message and missed the text because my phone was in that Nokia Narcolepsy mode I described in the blog post of that name. I got to my class and my room was full of people so I had to call the contact to see what was up. "Emergency calls only." So I took out the batt and put it back in and called her. After 30 seconds of talking she said, "Your class has been moved to room -" It cut out. RIGHT THEN!!! I tried to call back and got "Emergency calls only." THREE times we had to call each other to communicate where my class had been moved to and three times I had to take out my battery and put it back in. After class I tried to call my boss and "Emergency calls only." I was finally able to call him from home and talk for more than 30 seconds to find out the info about this new student. But I don't trust my "trusty" Nokia any more. So now I have to hunt down the receipt for it and take it back to the place I bought it to see if they can do anything. If not I might have to look into phone number 5 already in this country. Almost one every month! Unbelievable!
Monday, October 27, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
A Few Indonesian Oddities
While I wait for the Canucks game to download I reckon it'd be a good time to blog. I was doing a lesson this past week on overseas business and the dangers of not knowing a little bit about the culture you are dealing with. We had a lot of fun talking about cultural body language like the Bulgarians who shake their heads for yes and nod their heads for no; the Balkan head toss back and tongue click meaning no; and the Indians who are like human bobble heads combining eyes, eyebrows, nods, shakes, wobbles and whatever else they can throw in. I'm sure even THEY don't understand their head gestures sometimes. We talked about the okay sign, spitting, throwing up the horns, thumbs up, crossing your legs, come here/go away, touching, sticking out your tongue, pointing, left hand/right hand, all the things that could get you into trouble or lose you a deal because some cultures' insults are another cultures' courtesies. Member that scene in Ace Ventura II where they spit on each other? This is accurate, folks. It's a blessing to spit on a person's head in some parts of Africa.
I often wonder if, after receiving many odd reactions to uncommon courtesy like horking a loogie on a person's noggin, the horker might clue in that the horkee doesn't appreciate the gesture. But I don't wanna be anything but accepting and tolerant of other cultures, so here just give me a list of all the shots you've recently had, malaria zones you've visited in the last 6 months, Ebola and AIDS checks, a clean bill of health and by all means let the saliva fly! You know what, on second thought, let me inho-spit-ably, (nice one!), impose my culture upon you, shake your hand and take my chances on losing the multi-million dollar bat guano deal because I didn't feel like being your spitoon in a suit. If that costs me the deal, I'm good with that.
Believe it or not this IS the way I have been, generally, while traveling. And nobody has gotten overly offended. If you appologize and claim ignorance, then explain your own culture, you're fine. Still, there have been things that I haven't been able to, and things that I just plain refused to, develop any kind of appreciation or tolerance for. The first thing that comes to mind is the Korean "hello." I've explained it before so won't again. I also won't cite the article I read last week about the U.N., which has a Korean leader, (Ban Ki Moon I think), making a concerted effort to do something about the excessive xenophobia and racism consistently exhibited by Koreans. But since this is going to be an article on my new country of residence, I'll just say that they have somthing similar here. The thing is I just haven't found it anywhere near as offensive. I suppose I've been here ten fewer years, but still... Let me explain. In Indonesia I am a bule, (pronounced boo-LAY), which translates, quite insultingly, into "albino." lol I have heard others refer to me in this way and self-applied the term on occasion. It just isn't that offensive to me. Yet. It's like the Thai word "falang" or "farang." As in, "Hey sexy falang you buy me drink?" She, (presumably, although one never knows in Thailand), called me sexy so she could have called me puppy-killer after that and I'da been flattered. That's the way bule's usually used in Indonesia. Not with sexy but just not with any negative tones or words.
Then you have "Hey bule!" Or the more innocent, "Hey Meesterrrr!" I like the way they roll their r's. I think I can tell when there's malicious intent and when there isn't and I haven't yet heard anyone using it to impress their friends by mooing to the foreign cow the way the little Korean shits do. Nor have I yet had a whole group burst into laughter after I replied. That's usually a dead giveaway. For now I choose to believe the Indonesians are just being friendly. And I think they are. Funnily enough I've seen kids say, "Hey Meesterrrr," to women. So my response up to this point has always been a friendly, "Hello."
I think the biggest shocker to me so far has been the Muslim people. Like many a pilgrim from Western cultures, (unfortunately), I think hijab and taqiya and I think no fun at all. But I have met cool people here who are Muslims! Friendly, smiley, smart, absolutely normal people who are Muslims. I am actually ashamed that that has been the most shocking thing to me. But I never saw THIS video!
Another interesting thing to me has been the cultural significance of the scooter. Now I had seen the families of 5 riding scooters before,
the impossible loads packed onto them before,
but I've seen something here that's new: people sleeping on their scooters! Check it out!
That was new to me. The scooter is also, as near as I can tell, the thing that makes the infamous Jakarta traffic so indescribably brutal. I spend a great deal of my time in it so I am getting to the point where I might come close to being able to successfully describe it. In the hands of a lesser writer this would be a fruitless and demoralizing undertaking but I believe I can give an inkling of the traffic in this city as follows: imagine the worst traffic you have ever seen, witnessed or thought of. Traffic between which newspapers and refreshments are sold. Traffic that is stationary long enough for beggars to give you the sad face or sometimes sing a song long enough for you to dig into your wallet and get something for them. Traffic that is motionless for long enough at a time that motorists can get out, walk to the vehicle in front of them, ask for directions, get them, get back into their car and not get a horn blown at them because nobody moved in all that time. Happened to me this morning. I'm not kidding. Where cars and trucks, when they FINALLY get a chance to move are making up for motionlessness with speed and are brushing so close to the vehicle you're in that you don't know how you haven't lost a mirror. You've taken a quick breath and braced yourself numerous times for collisions that were narrowly avoided by your taxi driver. So many times that now, like a person realizing their fear of flight is not going to stop the plane from crashing into the side of a mountain and bursting into flames, you've said a little prayer and surrendered your life to the pilot/driver's skills. Then, just when you think that truck beside you could not possibly get any closer... a scooter passes in between the two vehicles tilting one way then the other to avoid the side-view mirrors of the two vehicles. THAT is Jakarta traffic. The very first day I was here a scooter actually HIT the mirror of a taxi I was in. I've since had three or four other minor fender benders. In every case they were ignored by both drivers. You won't find a car here without a scratch or a ding or two.
Staying with taxis, sort of, I have had about 5 taxi drivers, ALSO including today, fall asleep while driving me. Luckily none while in motion. Yet. It's also pretty uncommon to find a taxi driver, who conducts cash-only transactions all day long, with change. I don't know how many times they've committed to the scam so fully that the drivers have gotten out of the car, gone to a nearby store or even asked people on the street for change. I don't care. I'm not paying them 100,000 for a 50,000 Rupiah cab ride. That's the equivalent of a 5 dollar cab ride and a 5 dollar tip. Sounds like nothing by Canadian taxi standards but you just can't think that way here. I wait until the whole production comes to a conclusion and don't tip. otherwise I ALWAYS tip the taxi driver. Like the barber or hairdresser. They could kill you so I think they should be tipped. And depending on how good the performance was, I've even tipped when they tried the no change scam on me.
The weirdest one though was the taxi driver who kept missing shifts because his fingernails were too long. Not all of them, just one or two. I have seen a lot of dudes with one or two long fingernails around Jakarta.
I asked about it and the story goes that it's to demonstrate that they don't do manual labour. Like the preference, (again I don't get it), for women with really light, untanned skin. Indonesians constantly marvel at the bule men, who have such lovely, white skin, choosing the ugliest, dark skinned, buck toothed, high foreheaded, Indonesian peasant girls. But if I showed you a pic of that girl it would look something like this
Isn't she hideous?
Just one more about the taxis and I'll stop. I have noticed a bit of an obsession over here with mothballs. There are mothballs used in urinals, in houses as air "fresheners" in all sorts of places that just seem tacky if you ask me. I once got into a taxi with a young guy driving. The taxi had a really good stereo and some extra work done to make the interior more plush but the smell of mothballs was overpowering. I actually had about an hour in that cab and it was all I could take. I absolutely hate the smell of mothballs if it's just noticeable but this was something more. This was like putting the contents of Gramma's closet into a blender, pureeing them and then snorting them. I actually got out a couple blocks before my place just so I could get out of that smell.
And speaking of mothballs and Gramma's closet, you'd likely find some shirts in there like this:
These are the 1970's Saturday night disco going shirts known as Batik around these here parts. They are traditional Indonesian clothing. And I DIG them! I have three! They come in big sizes. This leads me to another curiosity. For people who wear such, um, shall we say, "throwback" clothing, and when they're not they're wearing their Muslim garb, and when they're not they're wearing something fairly old man respectable looking for the most part, the underwear is a WHOLE NUTHA STORY! There's not enough material in these things to call them underwear. I hate to do it but I gotta call Indonesian male underwer "panties." I gotta. Nobody over here heard of tighty whities? Or boxers? Or even briefs? You know with the little triangle trap doors in the front? No, they call these things "briefs" but the undies here are wildly inconsistent with the conservative vibe I'm getting from most guys. And for a fat ass like me who can't even find a shirt that fits, oh the horror! Oh the horror! I recently went to a place where I found the largest selection of men's undergarments I could find. It means nothing to my readers but it was Mall Kota Kasablanka. "Kokas" they call it. I found heaps of them! There were even boxers and some tighties. Not whities but tighties. However none were my size. The store girl showed me to the only pair with the waist size I was looking for. They looked when she took them out the box and showed them to me, like shorts that would stretch all the way down to the upper thigh. Like tighty whities only blue and black. I had to buy a two pack. 20 bucks! Never have I spent so much for so little! But I had a class in half an hour and the store girl assured me they were the only gotch in my size and they were "Western size." I got home and tried them on and let me just say this: nobody, western or not, with my size waist, could fit into these things. The waist was fine. It WAS the right size. But the manufacturer, (I checked and sure enough NOT Western, "Made in China"), must have been saving on material because there was no way to pull the waist up to the waist. It reached the upper arse at its highest point and STILL lower arse was leaking out. Along with other parts. And you can't take underwear back after trying them on can you? Uh uh. Nope. Not even gonna try.
Which is a brilliant segue into the final cultural oddity I am dealing with here. At least the last one I can think of. I just said, or wrote, uh uh. That means no. Here uh uh, mmm mmm or any of its equivalents are used to mean yes. Now I get that in the Philippines where oh oh means yes. But here yes is ya. How do they get two sounds outta that? It has caused some confusion for me. But nothing major. I have met a few high foreheaded, buck toothed, dark skinned beauties since coming here who didn't smell like mothballs or have one or two long nails. When I asked them if they wanted to talk or dance or get to know me they all said the same thing: "Mmm mmm."
DOH!
Actually there is one more but I don't know a lot about it. I think it's similar to something that blew my mind, (and the minds of many in Korea), called fan death. Here they believe you sometimes get sick because of ill winds. Masuk angin, which literally translates to "entrance wind" is when a bad wind blows into your body and makes you sick. Not dead but sick. So they go to a healer who uses a coin and rubs it, sometimes hard enough to leave marks, on your body to get rid of the ailment. I have a cold right now. Maybe I'll go get a coin rubbed on me.
Anyway, all of these things have added colour to the country and made my stay all the more interesting to blog about. I'm sure I'll come across more. And when I do, you'll hear about them.
This is an addendum: A couple das after I wrote this a few more things came to mind so I figured I'd add them. I was awakened this morning, like many a morning, by the Muslim prayers. I don't find prayer to God odd in the least, but prayer to God broadcast over loudspeakers... yeah, that's odd. I mean what if the guy needs to ask God to please heal that nasty rash or please make Fahtima like me, or please let Chelsea cover the spread tomorrow or Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz... I'm not so sure I'd want my private prayers broadcast all over the neighbourhood. However, I'm told, by my crazy Iranian friend, Mehdi, who understands Arabic, that they're really not saying much in these prayers. Just, "Come pray, wakey wakey, everybody pray to Allah," and things like that only in multi-MULTI-syllabic nasal tuning wails that would be absolutely perfect as an alarm clock sound. There seems to be one prayer time every morning at 4:30. That's the annoying one. But I've almost gotten used to it. And I have my ways of getting my revenge. I actually JUST finished a bowl of Kraft Dinner and two juicy pork chops. Cooked in the communal kitchen. You force me to listen to your prayers, you WILL smell my bacon! Now, I'm not as nasty as I could be, I used my own frying pan and cooking utensils so as not to contaminate the other tenants' but I have to admit, the meat is a touch more savoury when the eating of it is a great big nose thumbing to those who besmirch the noble pig and call it filthy and unclean. And those who wake me up at 4:30 in the morning. To all of you, mmmmmmm MMMMMM that's a tasty chop! Marinated in beer! ha ha ha. I'd be a terrible Muslim.
But that's not the only noise early in the morning. There are noises all night actually. Somebody is always out there hammering on something or other announcing an item they are selling, the time, communicating with morse code, I don't even know. Oddly enough I actually don't mind most of them. It is kind of nice to hear the pipe hammerer whose hammerings end with three hits at 3 o'clock, 4 at 4 o'clock etc. Especially when you have to wake up at 5 AM and you're sure it's almost time and he hits the pipe three times. "Yes! Two more hours to sleep!" Then there are the sewing guys who knock on the coconut shells, the fruit guy who bangs two blocks of wood together, the chicken porridge man who taps a spoon on a bowl and all that with guy knocking on the pipe, it's like, (I'm sorry), a Tony Orlando song at dawn.
I often wonder if, after receiving many odd reactions to uncommon courtesy like horking a loogie on a person's noggin, the horker might clue in that the horkee doesn't appreciate the gesture. But I don't wanna be anything but accepting and tolerant of other cultures, so here just give me a list of all the shots you've recently had, malaria zones you've visited in the last 6 months, Ebola and AIDS checks, a clean bill of health and by all means let the saliva fly! You know what, on second thought, let me inho-spit-ably, (nice one!), impose my culture upon you, shake your hand and take my chances on losing the multi-million dollar bat guano deal because I didn't feel like being your spitoon in a suit. If that costs me the deal, I'm good with that.
Believe it or not this IS the way I have been, generally, while traveling. And nobody has gotten overly offended. If you appologize and claim ignorance, then explain your own culture, you're fine. Still, there have been things that I haven't been able to, and things that I just plain refused to, develop any kind of appreciation or tolerance for. The first thing that comes to mind is the Korean "hello." I've explained it before so won't again. I also won't cite the article I read last week about the U.N., which has a Korean leader, (Ban Ki Moon I think), making a concerted effort to do something about the excessive xenophobia and racism consistently exhibited by Koreans. But since this is going to be an article on my new country of residence, I'll just say that they have somthing similar here. The thing is I just haven't found it anywhere near as offensive. I suppose I've been here ten fewer years, but still... Let me explain. In Indonesia I am a bule, (pronounced boo-LAY), which translates, quite insultingly, into "albino." lol I have heard others refer to me in this way and self-applied the term on occasion. It just isn't that offensive to me. Yet. It's like the Thai word "falang" or "farang." As in, "Hey sexy falang you buy me drink?" She, (presumably, although one never knows in Thailand), called me sexy so she could have called me puppy-killer after that and I'da been flattered. That's the way bule's usually used in Indonesia. Not with sexy but just not with any negative tones or words.
Then you have "Hey bule!" Or the more innocent, "Hey Meesterrrr!" I like the way they roll their r's. I think I can tell when there's malicious intent and when there isn't and I haven't yet heard anyone using it to impress their friends by mooing to the foreign cow the way the little Korean shits do. Nor have I yet had a whole group burst into laughter after I replied. That's usually a dead giveaway. For now I choose to believe the Indonesians are just being friendly. And I think they are. Funnily enough I've seen kids say, "Hey Meesterrrr," to women. So my response up to this point has always been a friendly, "Hello."
I think the biggest shocker to me so far has been the Muslim people. Like many a pilgrim from Western cultures, (unfortunately), I think hijab and taqiya and I think no fun at all. But I have met cool people here who are Muslims! Friendly, smiley, smart, absolutely normal people who are Muslims. I am actually ashamed that that has been the most shocking thing to me. But I never saw THIS video!
Another interesting thing to me has been the cultural significance of the scooter. Now I had seen the families of 5 riding scooters before,
That was new to me. The scooter is also, as near as I can tell, the thing that makes the infamous Jakarta traffic so indescribably brutal. I spend a great deal of my time in it so I am getting to the point where I might come close to being able to successfully describe it. In the hands of a lesser writer this would be a fruitless and demoralizing undertaking but I believe I can give an inkling of the traffic in this city as follows: imagine the worst traffic you have ever seen, witnessed or thought of. Traffic between which newspapers and refreshments are sold. Traffic that is stationary long enough for beggars to give you the sad face or sometimes sing a song long enough for you to dig into your wallet and get something for them. Traffic that is motionless for long enough at a time that motorists can get out, walk to the vehicle in front of them, ask for directions, get them, get back into their car and not get a horn blown at them because nobody moved in all that time. Happened to me this morning. I'm not kidding. Where cars and trucks, when they FINALLY get a chance to move are making up for motionlessness with speed and are brushing so close to the vehicle you're in that you don't know how you haven't lost a mirror. You've taken a quick breath and braced yourself numerous times for collisions that were narrowly avoided by your taxi driver. So many times that now, like a person realizing their fear of flight is not going to stop the plane from crashing into the side of a mountain and bursting into flames, you've said a little prayer and surrendered your life to the pilot/driver's skills. Then, just when you think that truck beside you could not possibly get any closer... a scooter passes in between the two vehicles tilting one way then the other to avoid the side-view mirrors of the two vehicles. THAT is Jakarta traffic. The very first day I was here a scooter actually HIT the mirror of a taxi I was in. I've since had three or four other minor fender benders. In every case they were ignored by both drivers. You won't find a car here without a scratch or a ding or two.
Staying with taxis, sort of, I have had about 5 taxi drivers, ALSO including today, fall asleep while driving me. Luckily none while in motion. Yet. It's also pretty uncommon to find a taxi driver, who conducts cash-only transactions all day long, with change. I don't know how many times they've committed to the scam so fully that the drivers have gotten out of the car, gone to a nearby store or even asked people on the street for change. I don't care. I'm not paying them 100,000 for a 50,000 Rupiah cab ride. That's the equivalent of a 5 dollar cab ride and a 5 dollar tip. Sounds like nothing by Canadian taxi standards but you just can't think that way here. I wait until the whole production comes to a conclusion and don't tip. otherwise I ALWAYS tip the taxi driver. Like the barber or hairdresser. They could kill you so I think they should be tipped. And depending on how good the performance was, I've even tipped when they tried the no change scam on me.
The weirdest one though was the taxi driver who kept missing shifts because his fingernails were too long. Not all of them, just one or two. I have seen a lot of dudes with one or two long fingernails around Jakarta.
Isn't she hideous?
Just one more about the taxis and I'll stop. I have noticed a bit of an obsession over here with mothballs. There are mothballs used in urinals, in houses as air "fresheners" in all sorts of places that just seem tacky if you ask me. I once got into a taxi with a young guy driving. The taxi had a really good stereo and some extra work done to make the interior more plush but the smell of mothballs was overpowering. I actually had about an hour in that cab and it was all I could take. I absolutely hate the smell of mothballs if it's just noticeable but this was something more. This was like putting the contents of Gramma's closet into a blender, pureeing them and then snorting them. I actually got out a couple blocks before my place just so I could get out of that smell.
And speaking of mothballs and Gramma's closet, you'd likely find some shirts in there like this:
These are the 1970's Saturday night disco going shirts known as Batik around these here parts. They are traditional Indonesian clothing. And I DIG them! I have three! They come in big sizes. This leads me to another curiosity. For people who wear such, um, shall we say, "throwback" clothing, and when they're not they're wearing their Muslim garb, and when they're not they're wearing something fairly old man respectable looking for the most part, the underwear is a WHOLE NUTHA STORY! There's not enough material in these things to call them underwear. I hate to do it but I gotta call Indonesian male underwer "panties." I gotta. Nobody over here heard of tighty whities? Or boxers? Or even briefs? You know with the little triangle trap doors in the front? No, they call these things "briefs" but the undies here are wildly inconsistent with the conservative vibe I'm getting from most guys. And for a fat ass like me who can't even find a shirt that fits, oh the horror! Oh the horror! I recently went to a place where I found the largest selection of men's undergarments I could find. It means nothing to my readers but it was Mall Kota Kasablanka. "Kokas" they call it. I found heaps of them! There were even boxers and some tighties. Not whities but tighties. However none were my size. The store girl showed me to the only pair with the waist size I was looking for. They looked when she took them out the box and showed them to me, like shorts that would stretch all the way down to the upper thigh. Like tighty whities only blue and black. I had to buy a two pack. 20 bucks! Never have I spent so much for so little! But I had a class in half an hour and the store girl assured me they were the only gotch in my size and they were "Western size." I got home and tried them on and let me just say this: nobody, western or not, with my size waist, could fit into these things. The waist was fine. It WAS the right size. But the manufacturer, (I checked and sure enough NOT Western, "Made in China"), must have been saving on material because there was no way to pull the waist up to the waist. It reached the upper arse at its highest point and STILL lower arse was leaking out. Along with other parts. And you can't take underwear back after trying them on can you? Uh uh. Nope. Not even gonna try.
Which is a brilliant segue into the final cultural oddity I am dealing with here. At least the last one I can think of. I just said, or wrote, uh uh. That means no. Here uh uh, mmm mmm or any of its equivalents are used to mean yes. Now I get that in the Philippines where oh oh means yes. But here yes is ya. How do they get two sounds outta that? It has caused some confusion for me. But nothing major. I have met a few high foreheaded, buck toothed, dark skinned beauties since coming here who didn't smell like mothballs or have one or two long nails. When I asked them if they wanted to talk or dance or get to know me they all said the same thing: "Mmm mmm."
DOH!
Actually there is one more but I don't know a lot about it. I think it's similar to something that blew my mind, (and the minds of many in Korea), called fan death. Here they believe you sometimes get sick because of ill winds. Masuk angin, which literally translates to "entrance wind" is when a bad wind blows into your body and makes you sick. Not dead but sick. So they go to a healer who uses a coin and rubs it, sometimes hard enough to leave marks, on your body to get rid of the ailment. I have a cold right now. Maybe I'll go get a coin rubbed on me.
Anyway, all of these things have added colour to the country and made my stay all the more interesting to blog about. I'm sure I'll come across more. And when I do, you'll hear about them.
This is an addendum: A couple das after I wrote this a few more things came to mind so I figured I'd add them. I was awakened this morning, like many a morning, by the Muslim prayers. I don't find prayer to God odd in the least, but prayer to God broadcast over loudspeakers... yeah, that's odd. I mean what if the guy needs to ask God to please heal that nasty rash or please make Fahtima like me, or please let Chelsea cover the spread tomorrow or Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz... I'm not so sure I'd want my private prayers broadcast all over the neighbourhood. However, I'm told, by my crazy Iranian friend, Mehdi, who understands Arabic, that they're really not saying much in these prayers. Just, "Come pray, wakey wakey, everybody pray to Allah," and things like that only in multi-MULTI-syllabic nasal tuning wails that would be absolutely perfect as an alarm clock sound. There seems to be one prayer time every morning at 4:30. That's the annoying one. But I've almost gotten used to it. And I have my ways of getting my revenge. I actually JUST finished a bowl of Kraft Dinner and two juicy pork chops. Cooked in the communal kitchen. You force me to listen to your prayers, you WILL smell my bacon! Now, I'm not as nasty as I could be, I used my own frying pan and cooking utensils so as not to contaminate the other tenants' but I have to admit, the meat is a touch more savoury when the eating of it is a great big nose thumbing to those who besmirch the noble pig and call it filthy and unclean. And those who wake me up at 4:30 in the morning. To all of you, mmmmmmm MMMMMM that's a tasty chop! Marinated in beer! ha ha ha. I'd be a terrible Muslim.
But that's not the only noise early in the morning. There are noises all night actually. Somebody is always out there hammering on something or other announcing an item they are selling, the time, communicating with morse code, I don't even know. Oddly enough I actually don't mind most of them. It is kind of nice to hear the pipe hammerer whose hammerings end with three hits at 3 o'clock, 4 at 4 o'clock etc. Especially when you have to wake up at 5 AM and you're sure it's almost time and he hits the pipe three times. "Yes! Two more hours to sleep!" Then there are the sewing guys who knock on the coconut shells, the fruit guy who bangs two blocks of wood together, the chicken porridge man who taps a spoon on a bowl and all that with guy knocking on the pipe, it's like, (I'm sorry), a Tony Orlando song at dawn.