Jakarta offers nighttime entertainment for all tastes
Jakarta offers nighttime entertainment for all tastes
By Mehru Jaffer
JAKARTA (JP): Nothing seems easier in today's world of glamour
and glitter than to amuse oneself. Cosmopolitan cities like
Jakarta have become the center of gravity for millions of people,
both for its unlimited economic opportunities and for the fun and
games available to the prince as well as to the pauper here.
Especially after dark.
During the day there is much going on in Jakarta, the home of
over 12 million people, but at nighttime the city throbs with
quite another kind of hustle and bustle. This is the time when
people prefer to jam instead of simply cutting deals like during
the daytime. The young and energetic move straight out of the
office even after nearly 10 hours at the desk to chill out at
air-conditioned cafes or a bar at a five-star hotel. Students
prefer cheaper joints like roadside eating places or open-air
cafes. With them the emphasis is less on eating and more on the
airing and sharing of ideas. Many housewives are happy simply to
have their husbands back each evening and entertain friends and
family at home. Those heavy in pocket but light in spirit pass by
fast food counters for burgers, pizzas or sandwiches day in and
day out, remembering to fuel the body but without realizing how
they starve the soul.
The more adventurous, however, go in search of new excitement
evening after evening. Maybe to a massage parlor? According to a
regular, these parlors can range from a couple of grotty rooms at
the back of a house in the middle of a crowded commercial center
through to swish, well-appointed parlors in major shopping
arcades and hotels.
For the uninitiated, especially foreigners, it is advised that
if by chance half way through the exercise the massage lady is
heard saying "suck it", "suck it", to please listen again, for
all that she is probably repeatedly saying is "sakit, sakit?" as
she kneads and loosens all the knots in the body with her
deliciously, delicate hands.
But it was not always so. So hectic, so full of choices or so
costly to amuse one's self. Even a few decades ago stepping out
of the house for amusement was a rarity and eating out was an
occasion that was indulged in literally once in a blue moon. Many
more people lived in rural areas working very hard from sunrise
to sundown. After dark there was little else to do except to tell
stories, sing, dance and play musical instruments or simply sit
around talking. Out of this same tradition was born the wayang
(shadow puppet) performances that have kept audiences enthralled
for centuries.
Today it may be easy to catch a wayang performance anytime
during the year but in earlier times communities had to wait for
the appropriate occasion to witness the grand, night-long
spectacle. A lot of games played today were perhaps invented by
children working in the fields and living in rural surroundings.
Since adults left the simplest and most boring chores for the
children to do, work was imaginatively turned into different
kinds of games to make the time pass more quickly or to make it
seem like work was fun. Two children might have a contest to see
who could pick more tea leaves or collect the most wood for the
night's fire.
These games taught children how to aim and throw, how to solve
problems and to do things with their hands following certain
rules and regulations. They also learned to be fair, patient and,
above all, found a wonderful opportunity to let their imagination
run wild. Before there were no factories making toys or stores
selling them and children in the countryside learned to make do
with whatever they had. Toys were invented out of what nature
provided or objects lying discarded in the house. So rags became
dolls and leftover wood and string were used to make spinning
tops. Very often games were invented on the spur of the moment by
those lucky enough to posses a higher flight of imagination.
Several games involving marbles, stones and sticks were played in
villages around the world.
Very little money was needed to have lots of fun then, with
each family invariably having several children combined with all
the children of the neighborhood who kept each other company
night and day. And few youngsters complained of boredom as they
were left to play by themselves in large gardens, fields and
homes after their chores were done.
Today the most popular forms of entertainment remain theater
and film performances, cabarets, casinos and sitting at cafes.
In fact, it is inside a cafe that the liveliest spirit of
Jakarta's nightlife lies; cafes that are essentially pubs where
alcohol drinks are found along with live music, coffee and eats.
While cafe Jimbani creates a Balinese ambience, CNN meets
Starbucks at the News Cafe where the day's top headlines jostle
for attention with the dish and drink of the day. More and more
cafes have installed the Internet along with coffee machines to
make the manic surfer spend many more hours on its premises.
A night prowler faking a complaint said that the amount of
choices available in Jakarta actually hindered his passion for
keeping himself constantly amused. There are clubs, bars, discos
and restaurants galore. The difficult task remains to find a
place that one really enjoys. To do that a lot of hopping from
place to place is required for a while.
A nighttime walk down Jl. Mangga Besar is said to be a walk on
the wild side. Here, outdoor vendors, street-side cafes, massage
parlors -- advertised as health centers, discos, nightclubs and
restaurants are situated shoulder to shoulder. Mangga Besar and
the surrounding Kota area is home to the largest concentration of
nightspots in Jakarta, ranging from the seedy to the posh.
At Fatahillah, the entertainment offered is similar to that in
Hong Kong with mouthwatering Chinese flavors available inside
well-known restaurants that invariably have facilities called VIP
rooms as well where it is suspected much more goes on aside from
eating, drinking and talking. Here Chinese pop music and soft
rock in English is also to be found. For those still hooked on
karaoke, this is the place to be.
Other performances in a number of languages with wild costumes
and some crude jokes will remind one of the vaudeville of the
1920s, but with a very Asian flavor. Some of these shows in Kota
(downtown Jakarta), especially on Jl. Hayam Wuruk and Gajah Mada
are descendent from the French cabaret that simply meant, at
first, a restaurant serving liquor and offering musical
entertainment. Later dancing was included around the 1880s in
different corners of gay Paris.
Cabaret soon became the center of all cosmopolitan existence
and cultural activity. It served as a small club in which the
audience was grouped around an entertainment platform where a
series of amateur acts were linked together by a master of
ceremonies. The coarse humor here was usually directed against
the conventions of a bourgeois society. By the late 1920s, the
craze for cabaret had spread all over Europe. The German cabaret
was no longer just musical entertainment but with the fear of a
second world war lurking in the background it had become an
entire political and literary movement.
It was no longer bawdy entertainment but biting satire
patronized by artists, writers, political revolutionaries and
intellectuals. The German cabarets were usually located in old
cellars that had become centers of leftist opposition to the rise
of German fascism and often experienced retaliation for their
criticism of the government by staunch supporters of Hitler.
Taproom concerts at city taverns go by the name of cabaret in
England and the Americans call it a nightclub where an
entertainer usually a comedian, singer or musician can establish
rapport with an audience in an intimate atmosphere that
encourages improvisation and spontaneity. This kind of
entertainment is considered to be the best sort as it does not
just tickle the ribs but also stimulates the gray cells.
Whether it is during the day or at night, the best relaxation
as far as this writer is concerned remains a visit to places like
the Cafe Utan Kayu, not only in search of a good cup of coffee
that is reasonably priced but also in the hope of bumping into
someone like an Ayu Utami or a Goenawan Mohamad simply to hear
them talk perhaps of what is essential in life, and what is not.