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.
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