Yes, I am dreaming of the good old days

Aida Greenbury, Contributor, Jakarta

I sighed deeply, daydreaming about the good old days. I was not benignly pondering Siti "Mbak Tutut" Hardiyanti Rukmana's virtuous expression while yelling for a return to the era of her dad, with the twisted irony of her speaking before hundreds of tired, hungry people doing their best to earn enough for the day.

My mind was actually full of black and white silhouettes of the 1950s in Indonesia. Yes, it was a time when some people could only afford to wear rough flour sacks as their everyday clothing and eat salted rice as their staple diet, but still there were better opportunities.

In my daydream, an older man in a pair of khaki shorts and a worn-out T shirt sat before me, telling me of the day he came to Jakarta with no money in his pocket.

Today's expat suburb of Kemang in South Jakarta was pretty much jungle at the time, inhabited only by native Jakartans. But he did eventually get a car, and exchanged it for a piece of land in the sleepy area.

" I needed to build a house on that land, so I had to find a job," he told me. "There I was working as an illegal taxi driver for a while, then as a construction worker for a year. I put my earnings toward the construction of my house.

His house gradually took shape, piece by piece, getting walls and doors, but with no locks for the latter until there was enough money. Then, with help from a Dutch friend, he started tending hens and selling the eggs door to door.

Although his local neighbors preferred eggs from kampung chickens, one or two expatriate residents in Kemang were enthusiastic buyers, recognizing the similarities of the eggs with those from back home.

"Then my Dutch friends sent me a couple of broiler chickens. I raised and bred the chickens and started to sell chicken meat as well. I opened a little shop in my house selling chicks and eggs, the shop grew and developed to become the well-known expatriate oriented supermarket you see today."

The story ended there. The gentleman, now a successful businessman residing in Jakarta, got up from his plump sofa and asked me to follow him toward the back veranda of his garden house. My eyes drifted to his horse stable engulfed in the lush green backdrop, but my mind was elsewhere.

For I love learning about people's success stories, especially when they start out with almost nothing but have the brains and strong will to move forward.

Another story I treasure is that of my ex-boss, one of the country's timber tycoons. I learned that he spent a simple childhood in a traditional village in Kalimantan, but worked tirelessly at various manual labor jobs when he was a teenager to get ahead.

Now, the humble entrepreneur with the kindly Buddha smile owns a diverse portfolio of businesses, from plywood to pulp factories, while preserving the nation's green treasures and paying close attention to the welfare of villagers living close to the forests he manages.

Both of these men were not born with silver spoons in their mouths, but were regular folk who saw an opportunity, grabbed it, worked hard and succeeded. Nowadays, to do the same, it's almost impossible without serious backing to feed the greedy hands that promise to clear the way. Over the years, our society has created a labyrinth of unfair, unhealthy competition, where might and connections are all conquering.

One of the problems is the lack of copyrights and innovation.

Take a stroll along Jl. Kemang Timur, with its creative bare- chested guys who love to cover themselves in sawdust. If one furniture shop makes a particular style of furniture (the design likely copied from a European magazine), and it proves successful, within a few days every shop will produce the exact replica.

The second problem is the bureaucracy and tax issues. Currently, although it's slowly changing, before you can produce anything legally, the paperwork, energy and money involved in processing the nebulous licenses and permits in the bureaucratic maze eats away at the initial capital.

The last problem is a bit passe: as always, you have to know the "right" people to be successful in any business.

I have witnessed many occasions where businessmen recognized the success of a certain small business. The big and powerful didn't think twice to copy the idea, establishing a similar business that was naturally stronger and larger. There is no protection for the small and powerless.

I own up that I partly agree with Tutut's idea, for I want the really good old days to come back. I am dying to taste and witness the bittersweet success that hard work yields, that the much-maligned people of this country are capable of. For they can reap success when given fair opportunities, instead of just watching from the sidelines the rich yuppies wallowing in their bountiful hand-me downs.