Of signs, ads and dirty flags

Of signs, ads and dirty flags

JAKARTA (JP): What do you do while sitting in one of those undoable traffic knots that are the rule rather than the exception on Jakarta's roads?

Getting irritable won't make your vehicle go faster, and may well lead to a premature heart attack or stroke. Especially if you, unlike me, have to do the driving yourself.

Why don't I drive? Mainly because I can't be bothered with getting stressed out by driving. Much better to get stressed out at the office where you can vent your spleen on some lower ranking employee.

So I move around in expensive cabs. But, you know, I've begun to realize that it does have some positive aspects after all. With someone else doing the driving, there are a lot of things that come to your attention. Even things that you see every day, take on a significance you've never thought about.

Take signs and ads, for instance. My trip to work takes me partly through the Jl. Diponegoro and Jl. Imam Bonjol area. Right by the entrance to Taman Suropati, just in front of the American ambassador's residence, there's a sign which says that "you are entering a zone of orderly traffic."

I've seen hundreds of times, but it only recently struck me that there's no similar sign anywhere else in the neighborhood. It made me wonder if the residence of our esteemed Pak Try Sutrisno, on Jl. Madiun and diagonally across from H.E., is located in a "zone of disorderly traffic."

Then there are the ads. How would you like to sail away in (or maybe "on") a housing estate? And maybe, in the process take hefty swigs of a concoction that's guaranteed to restore your feeble stamina?

Take the real estate bit, for instance. If the Japanese can construct a floating airport, couldn't a whole real estate project be far away? Possibly, though sea-sick prone humans and golf freaks would probably stay away from greens that roll up and down all the time.

As for the drinks, well, try imagining a salesman standing on a box at Monas bellowing: "Are you tired of your health being in constant mint condition? Have you had enough of your stamina forever roaring and rarin'to go? Then take this drink, ladies and gentlemen! I guarantee you'll be fragile in five seconds flat!" Possible, but a bit shaky. On the other hand, the makers wouldn't sell the (imported) stuff if they hadn't done a bit of market research and discovered that there really are people who are bored with glowing health all the time.

Here's what the actual signs say. The one about the housing estate is in English and has "Real Estate For Sail" painted on a balloon floating near the Jakarta Convention Center. The drink ad is in Indonesian and it shouts at you from billboards, saying "Memulihkan Stamina Yang Loyo" or "Restore Weak Stamina." In any language it couldn't mean anything else but that you'll be blessed with rotten stamina.

But what keeps me on tenterhooks are the flags. Many of them are unspeakably dirty and some of them even have holes in them, like the ones flapping in front of the PEPABRI office, the Scout Movement office and the rows of them on Jl. Rasuna Said. The one gracing Setiabudi Building could do with a couple of Whirlpool cycles, and so could those in front of Plaza 89, the Ministry of Social Affairs office, the Ministry of Health and Hotel Indonesia. The red and white have turned into something like dark pink or orange-red and dirty yellow or light gray.

But it isn't only the national flags that are begging for a bath. Some foreign ones fare no better. The Yugoslavian flag looks as if it has never been taken down and the Iranian flag across the street is beginning to look like it's headed in the same direction. There is the row of filthy flags in front of Bina Mulia Building from some Scandinavian countries. What keeps me awake each morning is whether there'll be sinners who have mended their ways and tossed their flags in the washing machine or to the pembantu in charge of laundering.

Of course there are clean ones too, Pak Try, may presumably live in a zone of disorderly traffic, but his flag is squeaky clean, as are the ones in front of the Belgian embassy and the residence of the Dutch ambassador.

Should a directive be issued regarding clean flags? It may not be a bad idea. I'm sure there are thousands and thousands of other ones in the country that could do with a good wash. Just think of the boost it would be for the detergent industry.

-- Jak Jaunt