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