Today is International Women’s Day, but I dedicate this post to the man who s*xually assaulted me on the street this week…
This one’s going out to you, buddy!
Prior to moving to Asia, I don’t think I’d given much thought to the ways in which my ’femaleness’ determined my place in the world. As a girl lucky enough to be born into the right family, society, and era – I have enjoyed freedom and opportunities to pursue the ideas, lifestyles, and challenges that suit me, irrespective of my gender, rather than despite it.
Admittedly, I can and do play the ‘I Am Woman, Therefore I Am Correct’ card when it’s required. Like when I need to win a dispute with a straight man about upholstery (i.e. never) or when giving advice to a gal pal after a man made her cry (i.e. always). Obviously I’m reluctant to refer to myself as a feminist (mostly because I don’t really know what it means to be one) but generally, I prefer to see myself as a human who is female rather than a female human.
I guess it was inevitable that a move to Indonesia would challenge my broad, unabashed, and relatively uninformed perceptions on what it means that I AM A WOMAN.
Isn't this how ALL ladies drink champagne?
Because it is a developing, predominantly Islamic, Southeast Asian nation, Indonesia is quite a conservative place. Even though Jakarta is the most diverse and internationalised of all Indonesian cities, half of the women here wear jilbab (a head scarf which covers all but their face) and the other half keep their shoulders, chest, upper arms and legs to themselves. Over half of Indonesian women who are my age (that’s 29 tomorrow!) have been married for around six years and have popped out at least two kids.
While I mustn’t bore you with my complaints about the long-running and endemic gender imbalances that exist within a society that I have actively chosen to make myself a part of, that is exactly what I am going to do.
Come on down, Negative Nancy!
Given my predilection for prancing around town like gold plated strumpet, I think I have adapted astonishingly well to the modest dress standards here. I genuinely adore the people of Indonesia, so when I first arrived in the Jak, I made a noble, respectful, and culturally sensitive effort to dress modestly. I do understand that I am very welcome to go wherever I like in this country, but my shoulders and decolletage are not.
These days, my (not one, not two, but THREE) leather mini skirts remain folded up, neglected, in tiny little squares at the back of my wardrobe, while my high-necked, mid-calf batik print atrocities are on a seemingly endless wash rotation. But now I don’t cover up to protect the people of Indonesia from my humps – I cover up to protect myself from them.
Wherever I go in this country, there are dozens, hundreds…MILLIONS of people to remind me that I am not only the whitest person on the street at any one time, but also I am the whitest s*x object on the street at that. I genuinely do love the language of Indonesia (for example, here speed humps are called “polisi tidur” which translates to “sleeping policeman” CUTE!)…I just wish I understood LESS of the adorable prose which fills the air as I go about my business.
“I love you”…”want a ride?”…”you beautiful”…*wolf whistle*…”susuuuu (milk)”…”look at that chicken”…”do you want an Indonesian boyfriend?”…or the one that really is funny in any language, “Hey look! (*nudges friend*) There goes your girlfriend!”
It’s not flattery. It’s not harmless. It’s harassment…and according to the Mayor of Jakarta, I bring it upon myself.
“If [a woman] wears short skirt…” he explains, “it could be inviting.”
Had I heeded these sage words of advice on Monday, perhaps I could have avoided “inviting” the passing motorcyclist to extend his revolting, sharply nailed hand and grabbing my boob. Had I been a good girl and listened to the Mayor, I would have known better than to wear a skirt above the knee. Had I been at home practicing my needlework and fluffing cushions, I wouldn’t have scratch marks on my chest.
So thank you mystery man on motorcycle (in Jl Kirai, Cipete Utara jam 7.43 malam, tanggall Maret 5, 2012). You reminded me why I brought those leather mini skirts in the first place…
Because of none of your gosh darn firetrucking business, that’s why.
*statement may be paraphrased
For dinner last night, I sat on a plastic stool on the side of the road and ate steamed crab brain-matter with my bare hands. What can I say? I am a lady.
A lady who likes to eat.
As a self-proclaimed adventurous eater, I will try just about anything once. I like to think that nothing is too rich, too salty, too alive, or too “on the floor” for me to give it a good seeing-to. I am that person who ruins the ornamental centerpieces in the middle of large hotel breakfast buffets (“Does anyone else think these sugared almonds kinda taste like styrofoam?“). In preschool, while all the other kids glued macaroni onto toilet rolls, I just sat there crunching the macaroni with my three teeth and eating the glue (mmmm….claaaaag).
- A mouth-watering buffet of Clag
I once dated a guy (I know, right?) who, after silently observing me over dinner, announced, “It’s such a shame you’re gluten-free. I mean, it’s obvious you really enjoy your food.”
To a woman such as I, who teeters precariously on the cusp of the slippery slopes of Definitely Not Skinny Land that lead straight down to Fatty Town, words like those are as volatile as, “I like having something to grab on to” or, “it’s what’s inside that counts” or, “should you be drinking in your condition?“. Fortunately, over the years, I have worked hard to be OK with myself…and I took his comment as an affirmation that, in moderation, greed is good.
(The same guy also told me, “you’re pretty funny, for a chick” and I actually tolerated his verbal back-handers for quite some time because he was pretty handsome, for a balding man).
So, yeah…as I was saying, “MODERATION”
MO-DERRR-AAYYY-SHUN. Moderation.
No, I don’t have Tourettes. It’s just that my self-control does wane at times in Jakarta: The City that Deep Fried Built. Sometimes, this enthusiastic eater needs the occasional reminder to PUT DOWN THE FORK!
Sometimes I need reminding that eating half a watermelon is not ”basically the equivalent of drinking a glass of water” - particularly when said watermelon is deep fried.
I do need reminding that eating the entire leg of a duck, bones included (thanks to thirty minutes in the deep fryer) will not actually “make your bones stronger”
- Take THAT osteoporosis!
I need reminding that despite it being made from fresh vegetables, the fact that Gado-Gado is covered with five thousand litres of peanut sauce probably disqualifies it from the ”light snack” category of cuisine.
I need reminding that Soto Ayam (Indonesia’s own chicken soup) is actually a great healthy meal if you can handle the occasional mysterious stomach tubing and dead insect.
I even need reminding that most normal people travel to Central Java to see the ancient Borobudur temples and marvel at the stunning volcanoes…not to take photos of themselves in front of giant food parcels.
- It tasted even better than it looked
As my lovely grandma says, “thank heavens above” for the blessed warning signs which have guided me through Indonesia’s gastronomic wonderland these last 16 months.
Yes, thank goodness indeed, Ma. Thank good golly gosh for the July, August and October bouts of food poisoning, and the countless occasions on which Indonesian people have informed me that I am “much stronger and fatter” than they are. Without these reminders, I would be nowhere (and by “nowhere”, I mean “wearing stretchy waistband jeans”). Thank goodness gracious me for that time I realised a spell of light-headedness was being caused by a dress so tight it was restricting my breathing. And most of all, dear Keeper of Self Control, thank you for the Personal Trainer who approached me at the gym last week and said, “I can help you with that” as he gestured at…well, me.
So, I now find myself in the midst of yet another moderation frenzy.
The most awesome thing about about health-kicking in Jakarta: The City That Pretentious Wealth and Misappropriated Funds Built (apart from virtually nothing), is the opportunity it provides me to partake in a pastime I favour almost as much as eating MSG-salmonella-laden street food.
That’s right, I’m talking about supermarkets. It should come as no surprise to learn that I, a woman equally as interested in consuming materialistic goods as she is in consuming breakfast, gets a massive kick out of perusing heath-food aisles and spending stupid amounts of money on groceries.
Now, instead of going on a $1 Fried Tofu with sweetchilligarlicvinegarlicamazingsauce binge…
I go on an imported grocery binge which includes:
$30 bags of Cheddar Cheese…
- It had better be f*cking TASTY!
$12 Cauliflowers
Here, I shall quote my British/Indonesian friend, who beautifully surmised my own thoughts when she said (in one of those intimidating International School accents which makes the rest of us feel completely small-town), “I wouldn’t pay that much for a vegetable even if it was watered with beer, massaged by blind Swedish masseurs, and fertilised with diamonds!“
$6 Unidentified Animal Foetuses!
- Ok, I am totally exaggerating. I didn’t buy this.
I never could relate to that woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love. She crapped on and on (and ooooooon) as she ate her way through Italy, embraced her outer fatty, arrived in Indonesia and stumbled upon the Latino man of her dreams in the countryside. In real life, white women arrive in Indonesia, lose the battle with their inner fatty and watch Latino men meet the Indonesian women of their dreams in nightclubs.
While I do appreciate the concept of working hard to be OK with oneself (inside and out), I don’t have a $30,000 book advance, a daily ride through rice paddies, incidental exercise, skim flat whites or non-peanut-drenched salads with which to do it.
Instead, I have the power of moderation, and the supermarkets, bacteria, and personal trainers of Indonesia to remind me that what doesn’t kill me (assuming the roadside crab brains don’t) makes me…”stronger”.
Sorry about the blogging hiatus. Of course there’s been a lot to tell you…but as the diplomats among us say, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, it’s best to say nothing at all.”
I guess August was a hard month for me. Were I to have written something during August, you (who constitutes one half of my readership, unless you are my mum in which case you constitute the other half) would not have been treated to the musings of the optimistic delusional Freya who has lovingly populated this blog every other month. Instead, you would have been forced to endure the bitter rantings of one of my grumpy alter-egos – a trio that I have affectionately named Debbie Downer, Negative Nancy and Sour Sally.
Had I blogged during August, Sour Sally would have written 5000 words about how Ramadan (which took up the entire month) made my life almost unbearable. “My fried tofu cart man went on holidays! The 24/7 calls to prayer kept me up all night! All the bars were shut so I had to go dancing in a hooker bar…A HOOKER BAR!” she would whine.
Negative Nancy would definitely have bombarded you with some self-indulgent diatribe about the multitude of reasons why I should not have “tried something new” by dying my hair brown (“It was actually more of a ‘pond scum green’ than a brown” – Nancy)…and that would have provoked Debbie Downer to chime in with the mother of all rants focused on the scary yet amusing satirical comedy that is my “love” life (I can’t publish what Debs would actually say here – she is not very PC).
Thankfully, neither Debbie, Nancy nor Sally wrote a blog – the internationally celebrated diplomat pictured below did!
I’m the one in the pink, in case you were having trouble distinguishing me from the locals
Indeed, my illustrious career as a Southeast Asian “nomad” did kick off at a very young age. Despite being quite small (in fact, I don’t think I have ever been that small since) when the above shot was taken some twenty-two years ago on a family holiday in Thailand, I think I was already developing characteristics of high diplomacy well beyond my six years.
I remember riding atop an elephant and pretending to look comfortable; I tried to act like I was interested in the process whereby you can boil silkworms to extract their silk, when really I was just super, super, super grossed out; I even vividly recall making an effort not to stare at the amputee who charged 10c at the door of the squat toilets at the Jade Buddha. Back then, as you can clearly see from the above photo, I was refined, gracious and impeccably dressed.
Sadly, the toothless diplomat of 1989 grew up to be the pushy, assertive, straight-talking woman that I am today. I am a nice lady, I promise! I love people! And things! It’s just that here, I am a part of the “bule” club and sometimes we struggle with the guiding principles of Southeast Asian manners;
- Smile through your rage – aggression earns you nothing but smiles of rage which will only enrage you further.
- Grin through your disappointment – if you cry, people will point and laugh at you.
- The more you offend someone (which, if you are a pushy bule, you always do) the less likely they are to tell you.
Ok, maybe that is a ridiculous over-generalisation. I’m actually not sure if the same rules apply throughout Asia as they do in Indonesia, but a cheeky google of the words “Western Vs Eastern Anger” would suggest that they do…
Needless to say, the “grin and bear it” concept continues to test my patience here in Indonesia (THAT’S BECAUSE SH*T IS ALWAYS GOING WRONG. ALWAYS. – Nancy) but of course I DO TRY to internalise my frustration as much as I can…
Unfortunately, last month I didn’t try very hard.
It’s hard to know the precise moment when (what will henceforth be known as) “The August of Anger” began for me, but I think it might have been around the time I was trying to buy a sweet faux ‘vintage cassette tape’ mobile phone cover at the market. It was pretty rad. I wanted it. Bad. But the lady in the shop was asking for $11. I’m like “Whatevers lady, I’ll give you five.” and she’s like “ONE PRICE!”
I’m sorry, but $11 is more than I paid for my amazing Marilyn Monroe wig from Paddies Markets…
and this was a rectangle fashioned from toxic rubber, so Sour Sally was not going to take this lying down (unlike Marilyn who would take anything lying down – Debbie). A simple transaction turned quickly to a high-voltage altercation, when phone lady refused to bargain with me. Nothing new. Definitely nothing important, but it was the August of Anger so I was all like…
The August of Anger progressed at top speed when my Indonesian dentist told me I was going to need to fork out $3000 to pay for his work on my chompers. Despite the fact that this is about half the price of Australian dental care; despite the fact that my insurance will foot the bill anyhoo and despite the fact that it is unfathomably rude to object to a medical professional’s billing rates, Debbie came out of nowhere and spewed forth with some…
Shamefully, as the weeks passed, the rage did not. When yet another creepy motorcyclist drove up onto the footpath in front of me and was getting all up in my grill nagging me to go for a ride, Nancy made him regret it. Normally, I just ignore these skeezoids, but it was (after all) the August of Anger and I was out to make some enemies so I marched up to guy, pointed my finger in his face, and bellowed a swift, perfunctory…
Unsurprisingly, as the month drew to a close I was growing weary of living in this heightened state of crankiness. My patience was wearing thin with the fact that my patience was wearing thin. However, on the last, fateful week of August, I decided to brave the 6pm traffic and take an ojek to meet some friends for dinner.
Thanks to the “design” of Jakarta’s road network which is based up on the assumption that we are all like Derek Zoolander and can only turn one way (in this case, left) my poor driver and I were forced to take the below route…
(I wish I were exaggerating)
Then the bike started backfiring. Then it started to rain (it never rains in August). Then Debbie, Sally and Nancy banded together and unleashed the fury…
When we finally arrived at our destination one hour later, the driver and I were both quite relieved to be parting ways. He laughed nervously and apologetically, as I took a deep breath, dismounted, and emptied the water out of my shoes. Within two squelchy steps I managed to tread on an innocent, unassuming feral cat (It was dark. It looked like garbage – Sally). The cat was like “WTF?”, the driver started apologising again and I was like…
The whole evening–no, actually the whole MONTH–was hopelessly undignified and pathetic and I only had myself to blame. I am not proud of this behavior or any of the other outbursts I inflicted upon Jakartans last month – but I also wouldn’t take them back. The August of Anger actually taught me why it’s important to keep my temper in check.
One of the reasons most Indonesians complain less than their Western friends may be, in part, due to that fact that they have bigger priorities than arriving to a meeting on time or eradicating the exploding feral cat population. If everyone here was as petty as I was during the August of Anger, then the country would self-destruct within seconds.
Yes, I am still happy living my delusional life as an exbrat. No, I am not coming home any time soon. Yes, I still have tantrums. No, I have not found anywhere that sells gluten free bread or cider but yes, I am ok with that…for today, at least.
I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t feel comfortable expressing anger, sadness, frustration–or my most common affliction, hunger rage–but a little bit of patience goes a long way here.
It needs to go a very, very long way if you need to make a right-hand turn.
While I was in Sydney last month, I ran into a guy I used to hang out with when I was an undergrad at uni. Apart from that time one of my friends pashed him at a toga party and the fact that we occasionally car-pooled to the glamourous bars in the shining metropolis of North Sydney on Thursday nights, we didn’t really have a whole lot bringing us together as friends. Over the years we’ve lost touch. It happens <gentle sob>. At least we’ll always have our 34 Facebook friends in common.
So, when I bumped into this guy at the pub (surprise, surprise, I was wearing my Miami Vice disaster at the time) there was a lot for us to catch up on. I can report that he’s now working at a large accounting firm in the city, lives in a sharehouse in the inner Eastern suburbs and is currently single (ladies, please read on before you start bombarding me with requests for his number). I, in turn, filled him in on what’s been going on my life, at which point the conversation went something like this…
Me: “Yeah, Jakarta, as in…Indonesia Jakarta.”
Him: “Dude! Why would you do that?”
Me: “Hahaha, why? Coz it’s fun dude! I love it!”
Him: “But do you? Really? Why would you live in Jakarta? I have absolutely no desire to go to Jakarta.”
Me: “Ah, Jaktown is the most underrated big city in South East Asia. It’s the place to be. Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”
Him: “Better than Bangkok? Ho Chi Minh? Singapore? I doubt it.”
Me: “Oh look! <pointing at nothing>There’s Jaahermahayaaaahhh’ll see ya later, hey? Great running into you…”
What was I running away from? His dangerously well-maintained haircut? His constant glances over my shoulder every time a pretty lady walked past? His skin-tight mandigan?
No! I was running away from the truth. That truth being that I didn’t really know why I’d chosen to live here.
That’s because I myself am a highly skilled practitioner in the art of denial. Not in the self-sacrificial sense (Ha! God no.) but the delusional “let’s not think about that” sense. My hasty departure from that conversation serves as a perfect example of this…as does the fact that I have elected to stay in Jakarta for another two years instead of moving to New York and marrying into a rich leatherwear empire as was always my ‘plan’ for two hours back in 2004.
Some psychotherapists (in my family) suggest that one of the most effective coping mechanisms humans use for dealing with stressful situations is the act of denial. To get by day-to-day without having a mental breakdown, we deny the fact that we may be killed crossing the street. Deny that we wouldn’t mind having a boyfriend some Friday nights when we have no one to go to the movies with. Deny the fact that we do, actually, live in an unmanageable shithole.
Therefore, to feed my addiction to delusion, I spent several weeks recounting the story of the mandigan run-in for my Jakarta friends. I’d open with something like, “well, you wouldn’t believe what this guy said to me while I was in Sydney…” as I waved dengue mosquitoes away from my feet and picked the chicken skin out of my soup. Then we would pass around the hand sanitiser, shake our heads in disgust and make that smug, “oh how I pity they that are not as culturally enlightened as I” face that only expat aid workers living in a chronic state of denial are truly capable of.
Those chats and these people are always great for validating my decision to live here. The flaw in this formula is the fact that some things are simply impossible to deny.
Like, really, really bad diarrhoea.
Last week there was NO DENYING the fact that Jakarta had given me my first real, bad, aggressive bout of food poisoning since I got here (GODDAMMIT!). Lying there at 2am with a fever, staring up at the fan, surrounded by empty Pocari Sweat bottles and Gastrolyte sachets like some wack scene out of a Halal (that’s like the Islamic version of Kosher) David Lynch film, the rose-tint of my self-delusion faded away. It was then that I found the answers to some of life’s tough questions. Specifically:
1. Why did they invent the bedpan? I now know.
2. Why do you need to cook Indonesian tinned seafood prior to consumption? I now know <cue: gag/retching which accompanies this thought>.
3. Why would anyone choose to live in Jakarta? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY HY HY HY HY HY? I now know.
And I’ll tell you why.
It has lots of Indonesian people
…and Indonesian people are great. I like the way people here almost never lose their temper despite how frustrating life can be and I love the influence that this attitude is having on me. I love that there is just one word for me, I, my, mine and I’m but four ways to say hi. I love that kids give you a kiss by placing the back of your hand on their tiny little foreheads. I am amazed when people from a culture which is over 3000 years old and invented the domestication of chickens, humbly seek to learn from and understand the people of a country that has been around 220 years and invented the Traveller Pie. Here, people giggle off a near-death experience several times a day…and now I do too (hi mum!). I love that most days a complete stranger will give me a generous, warm and selfless compliment. I love that people here who live in the most startling poverty will share all they have with me in exchange for a moment of my time, a conversation and a smile. I f*king love the fact that Indonesians enjoy sweetened condensed milk as much as I do.
It’s in the tropics
Jakarta greets me with a warm embrace every time I walk outside. I love that 80 minutes on a plane and $150 can get me to some of the most beautiful beaches, reefs, forests and mountains to be found anywhere (and I mean ANYWHERE) in the world. I like paying $1 a kilo for bananas, papayas and mangoes. I love the butterflies in my garden and the geckos in my kitchen. I love that you can wake up at 6am in Bali and be back at your desk in Jakarta by 9am. I love that my nextdoor neighbour is letting off fireworks as I type this, because he is a crazy man and he damn well wants to (good for you buddy!).
I enjoy living like a princess.
It’s true. I do. There’s no way I could live like this at home. Living in a sharehouse reaches a whole new level of awesome here, where (for a fraction of Sydney or London rent) I can have a big house with a lush garden with a swimming pool and can pay someone to look after it. My housemates and I don’t fight over changing the toilet roll; access to the washing machine; doing the dishes; throwing out old food in the fridge or popping down the road to buy a bag of ice for the esky when friends come round for a BBQ. We never hassle each other when we lock ourselves out of the house because, truth be told, we don’t even need house keys.
I take a lot of taxis, because they cost $2. I often spend an ENTIRE DAY at the beauty spa which sets me back about $20. I can have my clothes tailored to my physique, my shoes crafted bespoke and if I’m caught in the rain, I can pay an umbrella boy to walk me to my destination.
I’m no Varuca Salt but I do love a treat and I can be very lazy. There’s no denying the fact that I live a very nice life indeed.
Don’t hate. Contemplate.
I have a great job
You’ll soon tire of me talking about my job but I won’t. When some people start a new job they go out and buy a new briefcase, join a different gym and start collecting loyalty cards for the cafes near their new office. I’m buying an underwater camera, getting my open water dive certificate and signing up to three frequent flyer programs. A job working on the largest marine conservation program in the world? Across the six countries of the Coral Triangle region? That’s a job worth staying for. Did I mention that I get to work in Bali?
It’s different
There are 13,466 islands in Indonesia. The diversity across the archipelago is so rich that a visit to another island can be akin to entering an entirely new country. I like my fruit salad with sweet chilli peanut sauce. I like my avocado served with chocolate and cheese. I love taking a motorcycle (Ojek) to work every day. I even enjoy it when my Ojek driver (who I have on a retainer) doesn’t put up with my shit when I try to break from our verbal contract and get him to pick me up from a third location (8am house-work/ 6pm work-house. That’s it.).
I love the audacity of the nightclubs here that request a $17 covercharge, insist that all ladies wear high heels to be “classy as can be”…
…but will offer patrons the chance to dance on the tabletops or better still, take advantage of one of the several super-elegant WHEELCHAIRS which are available for those who can no longer walk in their high heels due to being paralytically intoxicated. Please note that I do not speak from experience on this matter…I guess I’m not ”fancy” enough.
Because I live here.
This great book I’m reading (The Boat by Nam Le – I’m totally into ethnic writers now that I am ethnic myself) may provide the most honest answer to the question about why I choose to live here.
“…any place is beautiful if you treat it as the answer to a question you’re asking yourself every day, just by being there.”
Hey! Look over there! <pointing at nothing>
Freya throws down virtual smoke bomb and runs away, at lightning speed, from the truth.
The End
Who was the genius that came up with the idea that riding a bike is something you never really forget? What a load of nonsense. I have been riding bikes since I was four years old and remain the shittest bike rider, ever.
Anyone who has seen me riding a bike would have also seen me falling off a bike. I am such a crap cyclist that I have even wiped out (on a completely stationary bike) during a spin class.
(Sorry bike nerds, this post is not actually about cycling. I’ve read Lance Armstrong’s inspirational documentation of two testicles and seven le Tour wins. I dare not compete.)
As my visit to Australia comes to an end, I must admit that my ability to adjust to life ‘back home’ has been remarkably like my bike skills; Undignified. Awkward. Exhilarating. I’d only been absent for about ten months but that’s all it took for me to forget how to do many things - some important, some useful and some just plain stupid. Such as…
1. how to hold my booze.
The regular enjoyment of wine was a favourite past-time of mine before leaving Sydney. Cracking into a good ‘bots’ in the evening was as much a part of my routine as was walking out of a Les Mills fitness class halfway through the sit-up track or hearing/uttering the worlds, “well, it’s his loss” over poached eggs at Sunday brunch. It was an intrinsic part of my life.
The brutal combination of Indonesia’s 400% wine tax and my non-existent income have prevented me from upholding this tradition. Even if you are shaking with desperation and in a wine-starved panic as I often am, $65 really is a lot to pay for bottled urine. The result? It would appear that I am now a lightweight (not physically. Oh, that reminds me…stay tuned for the Fatness of Freya post which is a continuous work in progress).
During my first days back in Sydney, after a few quiet drinkies at the pub, I decided to stop off at my old Woollies to pick up some ‘essential gluten free supplies’. THIRTY MINUTES LATER, I emerged with only two bags of Allens strawberry&cream lollies (one bag of which I had already started eating prior to arriving at the checkout) and this photo.
This whole episode is highly disturbing because a) it was only about 10.30pm b) those lollies weren’t even gluten free and c) I have no recollection of taking this photo. I can only assume I was in a state of such horror and dismay at the fact that the health food aisle had been converted to the cleaning product aisle that I had to feed my face with sweeties to dull the pain. Coz that’s normal. “TRAINWRECK, AISLE FIVE”
In Melbourne, I drank three glasses of wine over a three-hour period and promptly walked straight into a glass door on the way to the toilet. I do tend to have mishaps such as this even when I am completely sober (see any one of my previous blogs for confirmation of that), but the Manager of the winebar-cum-tapasresto-cum-gastropub-cum-cafe-cum-wateringhole clearly knew I was just a cheap, two-bit drunk given the way he kept apologising for…um…the fact that I am me.
2. how to dress in winter…actually, how to dress full-stop.
Look at what I wore to the pub. Just look at it.
Blow that whistle, I am ‘fashion red card’-ing myself here.
This wasn’t taken on the night of the crazy supermarket abomination (although that would have almost made more sense). No, this was taken when I asked a large group of mates to meet me for drinks starting at 5pm at a local bar.
I can’t work out what’s worse; the white plastic pumps teamed with the grey shimmer tights? Or the leather micro-mini at 5pm on a 7 degree Winters eve?
What’s even more disturbing is the fact that Miami Vice on the left here was actually a vast improvement on my preferred attire for the majority of my time in Oz, which is pictured below.
This…how would you describe this?…eyesore below is the only outfit that, during the entire three-week visit, kept me genuinely warm. Those polartech socks were the most bitchin’ part of the outfit, because they allowed me to slide around the house like I was riding an invisble skateboard.
This was inflicted upon my parents quite frequently (in fact, I am wearing it right now) and its powers of repulsion stayed strong right to the end of my stay.
My dad is hardly in a position to be a fashion cop but even he couldn’t help himself from blurting, “What on earth are you wearing? I am going to take a photo and put it on facebook.”
They say the best way to prevent other people from defaming you is to take the wind out of their sails by defaming yourself constantly instead (and by “they” I mean “I”).
So…
3. how to park
LEARN HOW TO USE A QUESTION MARK, WANKER!
4. that I am not a size XXXXXXXXXXL or a 98Z
If you want the laugh of your life, be me and attempt to go bra shopping in Indonesia. It’s a riot.
Thank you David Jones Intimate Apparel department for the support.
_______________________________________________________________
Apart from the hairy moment in which I almost purchased a box of laundry detergent instead of gluten free cornflakes, I can’t say that the above could be described as critical, life-altering failures. I’ve actually had a lot of fun bringing myself up to scratch.
Besides, I’m pleased to report that there are some things I will never forget, such as…
1. how to be shallow
Jakarta is like so totally awesome for buying stuff. This meant I was able to hit the ground consuming pretty much as soon as I landed in Sydney. In Jakarta there are like, seven Zaras, three Topshops and the largest Louis Vuitton store in South East Asia. The fakes are off the hook too. It is like, soooooooooo awesome for heaps. And things.
If you don’t believe me, refer to the below excerpt from a skype chat with a lovely Indo-dwelling friend, which took place while I was in Sydney.
[6/14/2011 8:50:25 AM] Friend living in Ubud, the spiritual centre of Bali: how is oz, are you having post-ayad “you are all so commercial and shallow” blues?
[6/14/2011 8:51:02 AM] Me: It’s freezing…and I am still commercial, materialistic and shallow myself. but I find people here are very grumpy and uptight. It’s nice to see I’ve chilled out a bit 
[6/14/2011 8:51:33 AM] Friend living in Ubud, the spiritual centre of Bali: yes, i forgot you were in jakarta.
2. how lucky I am
According to the 2010 Human Development Index, which compares life expectancy, literacy, education and standards of living, Indonesia is the 111th least shit country in the world.
Australia is the second (after Norway, wherever that is).
I hope I don’t forget how blessed I am to have been provided with such rich opportunities, choices and support for my (often stupid) ideas throughout my life. We have it so good here. So. F*cking. Great. Don’t you go forgetting that either.
- Mum’s wall of knowledge and ideas
3. how many wonderful people I have in my life
I caught up with a stupid number of lovely people while I was in Oz. In fact, it was kind of nuts how many catch-ups I had, some planned, some completely f*cking random. So, I made a list (spot the anomalies!).
In alphabetical order…
Abs, Abbie, AC, AD, Alekzandra, Amber, Annaloise, Arseman, Baker’s Delight, Ben, Boundtown, Cal, Calli, Cam, Cass, Mrs Catts, Chris, Chris Tina, Cristina, Cleo, Dad, Dan, Dan, Dan, Dave, Duncs, Dustin, The East Sydney Roosters, Esjay, Ewan, Grellman, Gus, Guy, Guy Pearse, Haz, Hutcho, Ishman, Jaarn, Jase, JC, Jeremiah, Jimmy, Jono, Joshua, Jules, June Justin Hemmes, Kate, Kate, Kaz, Kilton, Kris, KTG, La Fou Fou, Lara, Lauren, Leelee, Louis, Louis, Luce da luce, Ma, Maddy, Marc, Marina, Mark, Mark, Matt, Matt, Michael, Michigan, Mittens, Mum, Muzzbuzz, Orlando Bloom, Oolie, Oscie, Pablo, Pat, Poyta, Q, Quent, Rani, Richness, Rick, Rosie, Roxy, Sarie, Simon the Stingray, Soph, Square Bourquoise, T, Taaarsh, Tim, Tom, Tom, Tones, Tones G, Tori, Valeska, Vanessa, Vivvy, Whingey Whinge, Will and Zali.
4. Avalon Beach
5. how I ride a bike
Maybe it isn’t such nonsense to say, “you never forget how to ride a bike”.
After all, during my three weeks here, I crashed three different bikes on three separate occasions…but that’s the way I’ve always (not) rolled.
It’s good to know some things never change.
Kermit the Frog – what a champ!
He’s chilled without being lazy. He’s funny without being cheesy and he doesn’t dumb himself down just so people like him, unlike some Muppets we know **cough Elmo**. He really is the Thinking Person’s Muppet.
I’m not sure Jakarta would make the ideal home for our singing, amphibious puppet friend, given the fact that he is one of the most environmentally sensitive animals on the planet. Then again, it’s working out for me and I like to think of myself as the Thinking Man’s Crumpet, so you never know.
Because I’ve decided to make this garbage dump my home for a little while longer I’ll continue to do what I can to make it a bit cleaner. Yes, I can smell the rancid open sewers and the incomprehensibly bad waste-management system (Who am I kidding? There is no system) but I will keep separating my recycleables in the hope that one day my shampoo bottles won’t end up in the open sewer which runs alongside our house.
Yes, I know Indonesia is the third-largest carbon emitter in the world after China and the USA (80% of which is result of deforestation) but I continue to walk from A to B despite the absence of footpaths and the presence of highly toxic fumes produced by people burning off my recycleables…
- don’t let the footpath deceive you. It only went for another four meters…
This is because I refuse to become jaded by the enormity of the environmental problems Indonesia faces. I’m striving for a different shade of green: the positive, optimistic (and some may argue naive) kind.
I guess I was raised that way. That’s right, reared by a man and a woman who wore pastel blue flares with ruffle shirt and a hippie floralprint mumu (respectively) on their wedding day and who named their offspring Cal, Sophie and Freya when everyone else was going for Andrew, Kate and Sarah. My environmental parentals went that extra green mile in a time and place where being a Greenie meant you purchased your Christmas stocking fillers from the Community Aid Abroad (now known as Oxfam) catalogue and shook your head with concern whenever anyone mentioned “the hole in the ozone layer”.
We didn’t conform to the norm and growing up, our family home featured ecofittings long before they were cool. Our water-saving shower heads allowed us to luxuriate in the 20 mL per hr flow which was delivered with excruciating bullet-like “massage” pressure. If you don’t believe me, I still have the physical scars to prove it. To save energy, they had skylights installed in just about every room (rise and shine, it’s 5am!) which were particularly awesome during winter when the “no heating unless you can see your breath and you have three layers of clothing on and still can’t feel your toes” policy kicked in.
Oh, and let’s not forget the aroma of the compost bin after a curious Ringtail Possum became trapped in there for several days.
Many of you who grew up in remote or rural settings may want to tell me to shut my face and take my first world problems elsewhere. To those people I would say, “you shut YOUR face, redneck!” because growing up in suburban Killara in the 90’s, I don’t recall many other families living like mine.
Where was I? Oh yes, my traumatically sustainable childhood.
I like to remember my mum as a legend in my own lunchtime. She famously campaigned against waste and landfill by denying her children any pre-packaged snacks in the (brown paper) lunch bag and banned cling-wrap in favour of brown greaseproof paper (more like deliciousproof, if you ask me). I vividly recall throwing a tantrum in the aisle of Macquarie Centre Woolworths after mum refused to buy us Spacefood Sticks OR Roll-ups claiming they were, “plastic food in plastic wrapping which is a complete waste. The best way for us to stop global consumption is to reduce our personal consumption.” I’m pretty sure this only made me kick and scream louder but we were allowed those little cardboard boxes of raisins instead. Good onya mum!
Sure, I was bullied a bit when we were dragged through the low-joule cordial instead of a poppa/juicebox phase but on the upside I never had to worry about the other students stealing my lunch and it took the focus off my shaved undercut hairstyle (well, at least they let me be who I wanted to be…which at the age of eight was apparently an emo teenage boy).
These days, the oldies have modernised and have rainwater tanks, solar panels and hybrid vehicles emblazoned with “Vote Green” bumper stickers. They’re still green living pioneers, finding fresh, new and individual ways to have an impact on the future of our planet and to their credit also finding fresh, new ways to embarrass their children.
I’ve also modernised a bit and only have tantrums in the supermarket aisle very occasionally. I’m also developing some gratitude for the effort my parents went to, in order to instill values of sustainability and environmental consciousness in their children. Along with my small carny hands and my inability to sneeze less than four times in a row, I think I also inherited their strong sense of environmental optimism.
So when I look out the window of the WWF Indonesia offices and see this…
I don’t see a grim cityscape blanketed in polusi…I see a world of inspirasi and motivasi and opportunitasi!
And when I stumbled upon this (somewhat unfortunate) amphibian halfway through writing this very blog, I saw it not as a tragedy, but a beacon of hope!
- hey, at least there WAS a frog, right?
I really, really empathise with Kermit when he sings about that fact that he was green when nobody else was…
but the right way isn’t always the easy way (and it deffos isn’t an undercut).
As far as I’m concerned, being a little green is really the only way I can be sure that there’s a healthy planet on which my children’s children can embarrass their children with enviro-rants…just like this one.
This comparison to Australia’s Queen of daytime talk TV came about after a good friend read this blog and deduced that I am having the time of my life getting to know the people of Indonesia (which, for the record, I am). I chose to take this as a compliment and assume she was referring to the virtues KAK and I share, such as our ‘way with people’ and our ‘smiles that light up a room’ rather than our failed radio careers and that regrettable phase we both went through in the 90′s when we enjoyed wearing choker necklaces.
I have to admit that KAK and I do have a fair bit in common. Like me, she probably can’t leave the house without strangers pointing, shouting, following and asking to have their photo taken with her. We also both hate Bert Newton. I probably wouldn’t go so far as to describe myself as quite as ’famous’ as Kerri-Anne Kennerly but rather, ‘obtusely apparent’ here in Jakarta, on account of my blue-ish toned skin, bizarre green eyes and poorly maintained bleached hair.
That’s right, I AM A “BULE” (pronounced “boolay”). I am, by definition, an albino and proud of it.
Sorry if this makes you cringe a bit. Those of you from certain parts of the Western World have had your views of race, religion and gender shaped by a society governed by (sometimes stifling) political correctness. It probably makes you VERY uncomfortable to see or hear someone identified and treated according to the colour of their skin. Like me and KAK, you probably use words like “Mediterranean” when referring to someone who is Greek/Italian/Turkish/Woggy looking and use lots of descriptive hand gestures instead of saying “black”. And you should. But here, things are different when it comes to people who look different.
Despite all my efforts to ‘blend in’ there is just no ignoring my whiteness. Unlike in Bali, where the majority of the population is made up of bogans visiting from Perth, I am one of a mere 5,000 caucasian foreigners estimated to live in a city of 10 million people and as such, in Jakarta I stand out like a whale at a shrimp convention (I like this metaphor – it is appropriate on so many levels).
Bule or Bully?
Being the new bule on the block isn’t always great. Thanks to centuries of colonisation, exploitation, aid and tourism from Western countries, foreigners are not always welcomed with open arms, floral arrangements and traditional dances in this country. Sometimes bules are caught up in scams and fraud, others are subjected to theft and verbal abuse and some even become the targets of unfathomable, unforgivable violence. But usually…actually, pretty much always, us bules are shown the warmest, funniest and most interested hospitality imaginable by the beautiful peoples of Indonesia.
“Interested” being the operative word here.
Personally, I rarely walk down the street without someone making a friendly ‘bule spotting’ observation as I pass by, much in the way at home I might shout at the top of my voice to someone sitting beside me, “Oh look! There’s an Asian. Look at the Asian everyone. Hey Asian! Helloooooo!” <waves>.
If I’m lucky, I can find myself trailed by a group of small children who laugh and joke and call me “mister” until they eventually tire of asking me the same questions (“What is your name? Where are you going? Mister! What is your name? Hello mister!”). I never tire of them. Ever. Indonesian children are better than sunshine.
If I’m very unlucky, I am followed home by a dirty old man on a motorbike who harasses and scares and prefers not to speak to me, in favour of making a spine-tinglingly creepy “pssst” noise every few seconds. I usually see this as an opportunity to practice my “I am a big bule woman and I will f*ck you up!” face which is invariably effective in moving him on.
Bule or Bleached?
Occasionally and equally as creepily, random women will reach out and touch my hair or skin on public transport, often without my permission. I find it strange, but in true KAK form choose to gracefully accept this as a compliment. Not just in Indo but throughout Asian culture, darker skin is perceived to be an indicator of poverty, as it suggests you tend to the fields rather than sit indoors on your throne…I dunno…eating goldleaf lotus flower cakes or something. Apparently, the lighter your skin, the more money you have. The more money you have, the more status you bring.
As such my fair, sun-damaged, flawed and freckly skin is regarded by many here as the ultimate and ideal physical trait. I can’t say I share this view, as I continue to meet smoking hot people of all ‘colours’ but Ponds, Nivea, Loreal, Rexona and their billions of marketing dollars claim otherwise.
The Bule maketh the party
This may explain why I often find myself invited to numerous private events by virtual strangers. At first I naively thought this was because people wanted to be my friend but I’ve since been informed that no, they just want KAK in their photos.
Like Nur, our pembantu (meaning domestic helper…we bule don’t like the word, “maid”) who one Friday asked me for my number and uttered the words, “party”, ”tomorrow” and “my house”. Oh boy was I excited. In addition to being relieved that Nur didn’t hate me despite the fact that my fellow bule housemates and I continue to leave the kitchen like this for her most Monday mornings…
I was just so thrilled to have a conversation with her that didn’t revolve around the washing and hanging requirements of my enormous bule clothes (“Bikinigate” comes to mind). Besides, I’ll turn up to the opening of an envelope, so I enthusiastically accepted the invitation to the mystery event without knowing where, when or with whom it would take place.
The next day, around 10am I was unwinding at home after a typical bule activity (vigorous exercise) with some typically obscure bule breakfast (cereal) when I got a call from Nur. Again, my Bahasa failed me but I understood, ”outside”, “now”, “let’s go.”
Um…
One of my housemates once referred to me post-workout as, “looking my absolute worst” and I would say that is a fairly accurate description of my appearance at that moment. Indonesia is hot and gigantic bules like me are hopeless at staying cool. Having completed my 60-minute run about ten minutes earlier, I was still sweating profusely from every pore in my body, as evidenced by wet patches all over my running tights and my Lorna Jane slogan singlet which reads, ”NO EXCUSES” (Yep. This is, without a doubt, my sexiest blog post yet).
Not only had Nur arrived at my gate looking amazing in full make-up and traditional dress, she had brought along a friend with a motorbike, who was waiting (with the motor running) to take me to the mystery party. If I was a normal person, I would have asked them to wait while I showered (or at least put a paper bag over my head) but I was so excited to be invited that I just ran upstairs and threw on a cotton dress over my revolting Supre running tights. I was beyond hot, in every sense of the word.
Part-way into the short motorbike journey, which wound through the tiny lanes of the nearby kampung, it occurred to me that in addition to my tights I was also still wearing my running shoes and that they didn’t really scream “party.” Thankfully, when we arrived at the wedding (Yes, THE WEDDING!) I was required to take them off at the door.
That wasn’t exactly great for anyone, really (Definitely. Definitely the classiest post yet, too).
Look, I still don’t know who’s wedding it was. All I know is this:
- That was the best Beef Rendang I’ve ever had
- The bride touched my white arm and declared that my skin made me more “cantik” (beautiful) than her. Puh-leez.
- My sweaty head will be immortalised in this family’s official, formal wedding photos until the end of time
- My sweaty head was captured in approximately 500 other photos taken by the 500 other wedding guests present
- There are no bounds to the generosity shown by people here, irrespective of wealth (or lack thereof)
- This generosity extends to choosing to overlook how bad the big bule lady smelled
- That was one of my favourite days in Jakarta so far
- Even Kerri-Anne Kennerley wouldn’t have got away with gatecrashing a wedding in her gym gear
What can I say?
I am kinda a big deal around here, in fairness.
I have been forced to censor various words in previous posts after so many hits to my page were generated by unsavoury search terms.
Don’t worry, I can’t see who or where these searches are coming from but it does make me wonder…
Who ARE you people?
Whoever you are, thanks for stopping by to make me feel like slightly less of a creep.
Here’s what I love: silly accents. I LOVE THEM.
Particular favourites are those borne by the good people of South Africa, Ireland, New York, Essex and more recently since my housemate referred to that large hemispherical frying pan as a “vok”, Germany.
After spending my entire life living in one city, speaking only one language and outrageously mocking everyone who attempts to do the same, it never occurred to me that I TOO have a ridiculous accent.
Sure, I have been known to occasionally fall into that cringe-worthy Sydney Lower North Shore habit of finishing sentences up high? like this? But apart from that I thought I was rather well-spoken (Oh yes, indeed. Bravo! I say, that is marvellous).
Apparently not.
Recently, a French friend of mine, after tolerating my continued fascination with (and impersonations of) the way he said, “digursting” (disgusting) or, “airsaloon” (hair salon) and “zehbedgayz” (the bad guys), finally cracked it, threw his baguettes and delivered me some hard truths about my Australian drawl.
“I don make fun of zeh way you don speak corhect Anglish!” he retorted, “Faaaboooh, yummooooh (Fabbo. Yummo), zey are not words…and zeh way you say ‘faysss’ (face), it is digursting…croissant, la tour Eiffel, le petit fromage…orh horh horh.” Ouch.
Since then I’ve toned down the mocking and now limit my French impersonations to when I am with friends, behind his back. In fairness, I should show more respect given the fact that he and most of my expat friends here have more English than I have all other languages combined. Sure, my extensive vocabulary of 40 Indonesian words has allowed me get by day-to-day, but only by using abrupt, nonsensical statements, most of which are contextually incorrect and highly insulting to the person with whom I’m speaking.
Thankfully, unlike many countries around the world (like, oh I dunno, France) the lovely people of Indonesia are very understanding about these linguistic shortcomings. In my office, they give me the benefit of the doubt after I naively demand they, “sit down!” rather than “please have a seat.” They are kind enough to reward me with polite nods of encouragement when I attempt to utilize a new word – “Book in cupboard that! Cupboard, it in them!” They even indulge my need for positive reinforcement after I make a ground-breaking food revelation such as, “I have already eat enough egg chilli this day” or, “It fried and I very happy.”
Of course, not everyone shares this appreciation for my fledgling Indonesian language skills.
Specifically, the coconut lady at the wet market down the road. The other week, I couldn’t (be bothered to) work out the word for ‘grated’ coconut and she couldn’t work out what the HELL I was doing at her coconut stall. Despite what I believed (and still do) was an excellent mimeshow in which I performed such classics as, ‘sprinkling something over something’, ‘scratching at imaginary thing’ and ‘stupid idiot foreigner’ (a particular talent of mine) instead of coconut for my gluten free ANZAC biscuits, all I got was a blank stare.
When I walked into the back room of her stall (with her permission) and found an enormous metal drum of the grated coconut, things started looking up. “That!” I bellowed, and began stuffing fistfuls of coconut into a plastic bag by hand, “want this very!”
In hindsight, as I picked through the contents of the drum to get the whitest, freshest coconut, I do recall coming across an instant noodle wrapper and something which looked suspiciously like a cigarette butt…However I was so overcome with food-induced gratitude that I failed to give this nor the increasingly animated looks of grave concern on coconut lady’s face a second thought.
The ridiculousness (and the confusion on coconut lady’s part) went up a notch when I asked her how much it would cost. “Free.” she said, “I don’t want your money. Please.” Of course a freebie was out of the question, so I gave her Rp10,000 (about $1.20), took my 5million kilograms of ghetto coconut and skipped off to bake, bakety, bake.
Then a couple of days later, I was cruising by another coconut stall and saw this:
- magical coconut grating machine
Apparently in Indo they grate coconuts in on the spot. Apparently you can hand-pick your coconut and they will do it fresh, ready, bespoke, just for you.
Apparently I had paid the coconut lady to let me eat her garbage.
Not long after this, work gave me a week off (I can’t imagine why?) to go to Bahasa Indonesia school in Yogyakarta. For those of you unfamiliar with this Javanese city, it is famous for:
- being pronounced “Jogjakarta” (Why? I don’t know. Don’t even get me started.)
- its linguistic academia
- its highly active volcano - Mount Merapi
- being Indonesia’s hub of universally flattering batik clothing
After seven months of getting around this country speaking like Yoda and eating garbage biscuits, my stint in Jogja couldn’t have come sooner. For those of you unfamiliar with Yoda:
- you should be ashamed of yourself
- go to http://www.yodaspeak.co.uk/ to acquaint yourself with the Master of the Force.
In Jogja, I learnt all the essential phrases, including how to say, “he is hot”, “can I borrow some money?”, “Does this come in any colours apart from leopard-print?” and most importantly, “grated coconut.”
- KELAPA (farking) PARUT!!!
Now I’m learning to speak a new language, I’m also learning to appreciate the efforts of truly accomplished multi-lingual human beings…and coming to the cruel realisation that I am not one of them.
At least I can make a mean gluten free ANZAC biscuit…anyone who says otherwise is talking absolute rubbish.
I was born on the ninth day in the month of March in 1983 but I’m not 27. According to most people who meet me in Jakarta I’m actually 24.
I guess I had noticed a fair few raised eyebrows after telling people my age (“Really? Wow…ok. For some reason I assumed you were younger.”) but the extent of my *epochistic regression hadn’t really become obvious to me until my first visitors from home were here recently. For the first time since arriving six months ago, my new and old worlds collided and I saw “Jakarta Freya” reflected in the scandalised looks on their faces.
Apparently I’ve become quite immature.
Like, whatevs.
I wish I could blame this age-related misapprehension on my appalling potty mouth (ya mum’s a potty mouth) or my fiscal irresponsibility…or perhaps even my silly long stories that always seem to begin with, “So, like, there I was up dancing on this like, podium…”
But interestingly (and much to the ongoing horror of my family) these are all attributes which pre-date Jakarta Freya and have shaped the dense moral fibre which sits at the core of my personality. I know three years is hardly a drastic age-gap but after at least half a dozen people have accused me of being 24, it did make me curious. What in particular has pushed my juvenile ridiculousness up a thousand notches and turned me into this crazed, maniacal lovechild of Vicky Pollard and Ja’mie King?
Unlike Oscar Wilde who humbly admitted that he was, “not young enough to know everything,” my new found youth makes me an expert on all matters of the universe, so I’m pointing my flawless, supple, Botticelli-esque finger at that sneaky culprit, *NEWNESS.
I guess having only 30kgs of baggage when boarding my plane to Jakarta left me with very little room for the uptight, over-analytical and restrictive habits I carried with me each day while living in Sydney. Here, everything I am surrounded by is brand new; the work, the city, the food, the fashion, the challenges and above all the people.
None of my new friends here know what I was like back at home. They would probably find it strange to learn that the Old Freya was fastidiously tidy, that she would never, ever, ever go out on Sunday nights, that she didn’t always carry her cash around in a grubby batik pouch and that she has, in fact, always been this excellent at karaoke.
So, with the help of some of the great old thinkers, here’s what I know about age…
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“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.” (Henry David Thoreau)
Take for example, this man who lives around the corner from my house.
Despite the fact that he’s told me his name at least four times now, it’s very Indonesian and I keep forgetting it, so let’s call him “Jason.”
Jason makes a living from the second-hand clothes he sells from the side of the street, including this shithot pink jacket which I actually bought off his back moments after taking this photo (before you get all uppity, please be aware that it was for sale and that I paid him three times what he asked AND bought him dinner – not like in the ‘date’ way but the ‘mie goreng in a styrofoam box’ way).
Jason is almost completely blind, yet every single day he kits himself out in the freshest, funkiest threads, takes up his position on the little bench, fires up some hardcore Indotech which sounds exactly like this and gives me a wave and a, “Pagiii ibu cantik!!!” (Morning beautiful lady!!!). Every single day.
It goes without saying that I am his best customer.
So, how old is Jason? According to him, 18…or maybe 19.
In Indonesia, many, many people don’t know their actual age. It’s not relevant to their status in society. What matters is your life experience.
I respect the fact that Jason feels young enough to have a crack even though he is clearly ancient…and he in turn respects my stupid blonde head because I get excited about buying his shitty old clothes (which probably came from the morgue) at grossly inflated prices.
Does it matter what year either of us was born in?
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“Youth is the best time to be rich, and the best time to be poor.” (Euripides)
My seven years working in the not-for-profit sector have made me very accustomed to being pitied by my better-paid friends. I’m all too familiar with the pangs of envy that fire up when I spy a Qantas club tag on their luggage or I hear about a meeting that they had with their “HR Department” or see an invitation to their “Christmas Party”. But here my pathetic ‘Charity Case Battler’ status has become almost comical, given the fact that I basically living the life of a uni student again.
Jakarta Freya has been known to plan social arrangements purely around the places with the best happy hour (“I know we said we’d go for Sunday brunch, but how about we move it to Tuesday 9pm Ladies Night drinks at the Mandarin?”). On payday, Jakarta Freya can be found at Lowey Bar, nursing her single $14 glass of goon whilst resisting the urge to sprint across the restaurant to quietly maim and pillage the lucky person at the nearby table who can afford to order a cheese platter.
Sure, I’ve had to adjust to my modest monthly allowance, but compared to a local Indonesian salary (around $700 a month at the professional level) I’m doing very well indeed so I try not to whinge.
24 is a great age and Jakarta is a great place to be poor but in reality, very rich indeed.
_______________________________________________________________________________
“A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.” (Groucho Marx)
What I really want to share with you here is a photographic collection of men who embody the above quote. Sadly, even Jakarta Freya is not irresponsible enough to post these online for fear that the 67-going-on-21-year-old men in them will be identifiable and I will get thrown in the slammer and risk my chances of becoming our first non-ranga female Prime Minister.
Instead, I will direct you to www.realage.com, a pharmaceutical marketing site veiled loosely beneath the guise of a health-assessment site. I was inspired to visit this highly reputable online medical institution after recently being diagnosed with low blood pressure and mild exhaustion (it would seem I didn’t leave my hypochondria back in Oz). Given the way Jakarta Freya has been treating my body I had to lie in quite a few of the questions but am pretty pleased with my real age of 28.8.
I highly recommend you do this if you too would like to feel good about your own aging process. I daresay a visit to this site will produce a significantly more reassuring result than any online dating site or Facebook where 500 friends are in the process of changing their surnames and posting their gorgeous wedding photos.
On that poignant note, I will close with some wise words from one of the great philosophers of our generation – me.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Drinking in a burkini can lead to severe dehydration. Sh*t gets steamy, yo.” (Jakarta Freya)
Now, if a 24 year-old can come up with new pearls of wisdom like that, just imagine the life experience I’ll have by the time I’m 18!
SO THERE.
*Jakarta Freya has also taken to inventing NEW words when OLD English does not satisfy.
