Taking a bite from jaunty Jakarta

Taking a bite from jaunty Jakarta

JAKARTA (JP): Living in Jakarta can be great fun; but not for
the faint-hearted or finicky. If you are the type who would
sterilize a finger before putting it in your mouth, you are
better off staying in Singapore.

The naturally adventurous will have no trouble at all in
falling in love with Jakarta. The unexpected always happens
naturally here. Jungle trails and white-water rafting are no
equals to the hair-raising adventures that only Jakarta can
provide spontaneously.

In most cities a cab ride is dull and boring; certainly in
organized Singapore or Frankfurt. It may be a little hairy in
Seoul or Delhi when the driver strongly believes that the meter
is lying or when he wants to show you around town at three in the
morning at your expense.

When I invited a newly arrived business associate for lunch at
a downtown club, I made sure he had the address written down.
Half an hour after the appointed time, my secretary tracked the
prodigal guest down. He was in a taxi heading in the opposite
direction, and already about six kilometers away. Thanks to the
days of cellular phones, my secretary could speak to the driver.
Apparently the driver could not read, nor could he communicate
with his passenger in English.

Therefore with all good intentions he took the foreign guest
to where he thought he would have a good time.

One's own personal driver can be equally helpful. I remember
the occasion when I dozed off on returning from my regular visit
to our factory, and woke up to discover myself in a strange
environment, with the location of the sun indicating I was
heading away from home. My driver had no explanation as to why he
was going the opposite way. Perhaps he wanted proof that the
earth was indeed round.

Our daughter once rang from school rather late in the evening,
by which time her mother was already having kittens. Her driver,
normally a very responsible person, had driven off without her in
the car, and she was trying to hitch a ride home. Just then our
car drove into the yard. We found the driver muttering to himself
as he circled the car trying to locate his lost ward. It turned
out that our daughter had opened the rear door of the car to put
her bags in, and gone off again to talk to a friend. Since then
we have ensured this driver always counts his passengers before
setting off.

House servants, who are indispensable to Jakarta life, always
contribute to local excitement. Often, it is due to a total lack
of communication. In Indonesian, the word for grass (rumput) and
hair (rambut) are similar. A friend once got the gardener in a
tizzy with her demands for his "green hair" to be mowed. This
lady also roused her houseboy to great excitement by asking him
to air the house, and wanted him to open his trousers (celana)
instead of the window (jendela), since the words sound similar.

Recently a friend had to rush her young unmarried maid, who
was complaining seriously of severe stomach cramps, to a doctor.
Half way to the doctor, she and her driver discovered that the
girl was about to deliver a baby. For once, the driver had the
presence of mind in an emergency to locate a hospital, where the
baby was delivered safely. It was the mistress who was in
distress for a few days, while the maid cooed at her new
treasure.

Vegetarians need to be particularly wary, since most
Indonesians eat meat, and fish is a staple diet in this
archipelagic country. Friends of ours who were strict
vegetarians, were once staying in a local five-star hotel. They
relished their special meals that were guaranteed to be free of
all forms of once-animate beings. Till the day the lady found the
remains of a once proud prawn at the bottom of her soup bowl. Not
being very familiar with the anatomy of the object that was
decidedly not a vegetable she was familiar with, she shrieked for
the manager. To the best of my knowledge they never resolved
their philosophical discussion on whether a prawn was or was not
a vegetable.

-- Ram S. Ramanathan