When it feels good not to be taken as Indonesian...
"Do you need a boyfriend?"
A young man abruptly posed this question when I strolled along Legian road in Kuta, Bali one evening. This rather short guy had bleached his curly hair, which did not suit his round face, wide mouth and big, flat nose.
He smiled -- or grinned, to be more precise -- as I looked him straight in the eyes. Not because I was interested in his offer. Oh no. I just never expected to hear those words, and was startled by his proposal.
I have heard about gigolos in Bali. A friend told me that they like to snag foreign tourists, especially those from Japan, where the highest number of visitors come from. During my holiday in the so-called isle of gods, I saw several Asian women being accompanied by local men. But that does not necessarily mean the locals were gigolos.
Having a drink at a cafe, I noticed two foreign women enjoying themselves at a table not far from mine. One of them was smoking. A group of local men arrived and sat at the table next to them. A red-haired man asked them for a lighter and then tried to strike up a conversation in Japanese. A minute later, the two women got up and gave the guys a look of disgust as they left. The men just laughed and enjoyed their meal as if nothing had happened. The red-haired man impolitely put one of his legs up in a relaxed manner on the chair.
When I told my Balinese friend about what I had experienced, he sighed, saying: "There are so many gigolos here. And also pedophiles and drugs."
"And also female sex workers, not just gigolos," his wife added. "Talking about gigolos, I don't know what their selling points are. They are dekil (dark-skinned, unclean). Certainly not my type."
Maybe some foreigners find dark skin exotic. Maybe that's also why the gigolos target foreign clients.
"They must have thought you weren't Indonesian," my friend said, laughing. She said her Javanese friend recently came from Jakarta to spend a few days in Bali and did not encounter any gigolos.
She was right. The gigolos must have thought I was a foreigner, given my Chinese blood. In Jakarta or Central Java where I grew up, some racists may call me Chinese, but no one would ever have thought I was a Japanese, Taiwanese or a Singaporean. But in Kuta, it happened. And it just so happened that I was in Bali with a companion of the same ethnicity, who speaks a little Japanese. Her charming looks must have mislead the gigolos more as she has fairer skin and bleached hair while her style would have looked more "touristy" with her Balinese sandals.
So they thought I wasn't Indonesian. Okey-dokey.
In a way, that is good. Many of us may be ashamed to be one. How can someone feel proud to be a citizen of one of the most corrupt countries in the world? A country where the House of Representatives speaker, Akbar Tandjung, and the central bank governor, Sjahril Sabirin, have both been convicted of graft charges?
Two weeks ago, the Central Jakarta District Court sentenced Akbar to three years in jail for embezzling Rp 40 billion (US$4.4 million) of non-budgetary funds from the State Logistics Agency. While in March of this year, the same court also handed down a three-year jail sentence to Sjahril for his role in the high- profile corruption case involving the disbursement of Rp 904 billion of Indonesian Bank Restructuring Agency (IBRA) funds to privately run Bank Bali in 1999. The Jakarta High Court last month acquitted Sjahril of all charges, a decision that prompted the attorney general to launch an appeal. Both these cases are not over yet as these decisions have not become legally binding. This is also the excuse that both the defendants are giving to shamelessly reject public pressure to step down from their seats.
And how could you be proud of being a citizen of a country whose President, Megawati Soekarnoputri, prefers to take a whirlwind tour abroad for 15 days, rather than address the migrant worker crisis and other mounting domestic problems?
The President, who is scheduled to arrive on Sunday, took with her a sizable entourage, including two special photographers and two cameramen to provide family albums of the trip to six countries in Africa and Europe.
In the end, the tour will reportedly cost the state Rp 22 billion. This may seem to be just peanuts compared to state expenditures for this year's state budget, which is Rp 344 trillion. But it is a large amount of money compared to the income per capita, which was only Rp 6.4 million in 2001. Broken down, that means the current monthly minimum wage in Jakarta is Rp 596,000.
As one of the most corrupt countries in the world, it is not surprising that Indonesia is also one of the poorest in the world even though it has many skyscrapers and other modern buildings in addition to the luxury cars owned by some tycoons and a few rich people.
By the way, when I told another friend about the gigolo I met in Bali, she just laughed and said: "Look on the bright side. He must have thought you were rich."
-- T. Sima Gunawan