Feet of clay? Time to deflate those airs and graces

Feet of clay? Time to deflate those airs and graces

Broto Dharma, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A sigh was heard amid the clinking of plates and coffee cups
being cleared from the table behind me at a five-star hotel's
coffee shop in Central Jakarta.

I have been a regular there for years, occasionally stopping
in for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat on the way to the
office.

"That's what we call a real stuck up Indonesian," the waitress
said, referring to the man who had just left, as she passed me on
the way back to wipe down the table.

She proceeded to pull down from a back shelf a book on the
court batik of Central Java: Its cover showed a Javanese
aristocratic family in the late 19th century.

"He pointed it out to me and said, 'Mbak (miss), look, they're
water dressed in all their finery but their feet still look like
buffalo hooves,'" she blurted out.

"Then he said that he had a photograph of his own grandmother,
and how embarrassing it was that she had no shoes on."

I had not really paid attention to the man or the statuesque
Western woman with him, although I did hear a snatch of their
conversation about his grandmother.

A bit taken aback by the waitress' story -- and also her
seething anger -- I told her that obviously Mr. Arrogant was
trying to impress his significant other. It was his sniveling way
of showing her that he was a higher rung up on the sophistication
scale from his compatriots -- and even his own flesh and blood.

"Maybe, but he must know that some people in the provinces
still don't even have shoes to wear. That's arrogant for you."

The irony of the situation was not lost on me. Travel back two
generations on both sides of my own family and there is a steam-
engine driver and mill worker to be found. Fortunately,
educational scholarships gave both my parents opportunities, and
afforded me and my siblings a relatively privileged upbringing.

I have no time for airs and graces, the pretending to be
something we are not. I giggle inside when I see people put on
pedestals or others standing on ceremony merely because of
someone's name or inheritance.

It was not always the case. Years ago, when I was a high
school intern at a museum in New York City, the big deal was that
Caroline Kennedy -- the daughter of Jackie O and the second
youngest member of Camelot -- worked in the Film and TV
Department.

A CK sighting was a big deal for 17-year-old me, and it
suddenly became a possibility one day when a document had to be
taken upstairs to her office.

When I got to her cubicle, taking the elevator with a guard
posted in it, she was on the phone and I sheepishly put the paper
down on her desk.

"Thanks," she called to me as I left, a simple, polite gesture
but one that took me aback.

What had I expected? A harrumph and a shouted, "Don't bother
me when I'm on the phone, you lowly ignoramus"?

But some of us can lunch quite nicely on an exalted name and
pedigree for the rest of our lives.

On the same morning as the coffee shop encounter, a popular
quiz show featured teams of the descendants of national heroes.
OK, people, let's get our foot in the door, whether it's a quiz
show or a cushy job, simply because granddad stood up to the
colonialists, regardless of our own personal characteristics or
achievements.

Of course, as an American friend pointed out to me when I told
him the "hoof" story, some of us enjoy our own elevated position
here just by being Western expatriates. Given a massive head
start in the competition of life by being born into affluent
societies, we now get to ride around in taxis and occasionally
feast in luxury hotels. Ooh, and we can bitch and moan about it
too.

Wow, we really lucked out: Even for the non-Irish, we are
living the life of Riley.

I understand a bit better the anger of the waitress, even
though I am supremely fortunate to be the served, not the server.
But I also know that her desires and ambitions are not any lesser
than mine.

Blue bloods? Seems like it bleeds red to me, regardless of who
we are. Or as my Indonesian partner once bluntly said to me
during a particularly nasty fight, when I had smarmily pointed
out the difference in our backgrounds (read: I'm better), "Well,
your **** certainly doesn't smell any different." Now, that's a
great leveler.