Now that I’ve settled into our apartment in the heart of Jakarta’s business district, I’m trying to get my head around the culture here. This is a place where you can buy a dress for £400 or a woman for £10. Where the population is 80% Muslim but so tolerant and relaxed, you’d hardly notice, but for the lunchtime stampede to the mosque.
Dancing girls take to the 'stage' - interesting view from the ground
Indonesia a big place of 240 million people scattered across a variety of islands stretching from Singapore to Papua New Guinea. Some of the people are Chinese, or just Chinese looking, some look Indian, others are Melanesian and therefore look more African (melanin) or like Aborigines from Australia. They speak many different languages, aside from Bahasa, the official Indonesian language and besides being 80% Muslim, the world’s largest Muslim population, they have very different cultures ranging from rural village culture to wannabe Western, commercialised culture.
Every aspect of Indonesian culture coalesces in Jakarta, aka The Big Village, a sprawling megalopolis thick with smog from its bumper to bumper traffic, dust from its ruinous pavements and the smell of the roadside nasi goreng (special fried rice) stalls on every street corner. Its jutting skyscrapers blot out the meagre sun in the rainiest city on earth. Public spaces are less boulevards than ‘scurry-throughs’ – narrow backstreets and precarious strips of walkway that end abruptly in a pile of unfinished rubble.
This is a place of work, not vacation. Good luck finding a bench from which to leisurely watch the world passing. Life must be experienced through the kaleidoscope of glass walled offices, restaurants, malls and nightclubs. Every air-conditioned fantasy imaginable is available here. Splendid malls rising out of the red earth that house waterparks, giant slides, revolving restaurants, decadent jazz lounges, hedonistic bars, wharehouse-sized nightclubs, designer stores, American fast food joints and haughty French restos.
To the ordinary Indonesian, the Johnny Come Lately, freshly arrived from some Javan tropicale with his knapsack and his lunch wrapped up in banana leaves – this must seem like Alice’s Wonderland, a place that makes little sense and needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Huge inequalities hump each other here like Sumo wrestlers. 40 million are unemployed, and the average minimum’ wage appears to me to be about £1/ hour – although of course there is no actual floor, no statutory worth to a person’s labour, time or feelings. Most people cannot afford to own cars or take taxis (even though the average 15 minute journey will cost about 90pence). Most people here take the bus – you can go as far as you want for 15 pence or hop on and off motorcycles, a sort of informal taxi service that works pretty well on Jakarta’s myriad snailways. Helmets optional.
10 pounds in your pocket and you’re rich, for the day. Where lunch in the food hall of a mall will cost about £1.50, a dress £3.00 and a VIP double bed at the cinema with cashmere blankets and your snacks brought to you bedside table as you enjoy the movie for about a fiver.
skycraper city
I could not presume to know what the average Indonesian thinks, working in a store like Gucci (super luxury stores abound here), assisting someone in spending a month’s salary on a pair of sunglasses. Like the Japanese who practice ‘smiling’ for clients during their lunch hour, the Indonesians similarly give ‘good face’. But by nature they are warm, friendly and graceful people. Compare this with surly Paris where even Oprah can’t get service, or London where contempt is par for the course for any customer trying to interrupt a pair of gossiping shop assistants with a product query.
The quarter of a million or so us Western Expats do indeed mostly live the much lampooned life of Riley here, followed by legion of bowing scraping servants, drinking gin at 3 in the afternoon, chased by scantily clad women in bars like the aptly named Red Square or Eastern Promise. Its almost a tourist attraction in itself, the middle aged white or arab man whose bald patch glows shiny with sweat as he gyrates like a drunken 18 year old fresher against the supine limbs of a girl less than half his age, reduced to the calculated absurdity of a professional flirtation.
For those who can afford it, Jakarta is everything your heart can desire and more. For those packing up their food stalls, its just another day in the big crazy village.
