Yuppies reap fruits of economic boom

The success of the New Order economy has allowed the emergence of a group of young people who have better access to education and working opportunities. Most of them are well-educated, well- dressed and relatively well-paid. Popularly called yuppies, these young professionals often lead a lavish lifestyle and have become an integrated part of the middle-class in Indonesia. The Jakarta Post's team of reporters, Meydiatama Suryodiningrat, Sugianto Tandra, T. Sima Gunawan, Ridwan M. Sijabat, Stevie Emilia, Benget Simbolon and Arief Suhardiman take a close look at the phenomenon. More stories are on page 3 and page 9.

JAKARTA (JP): Well-educated, young, affluent and often extravagant. Meet Indonesia's yuppies.

The phenomenon that became a class of its own in North America and Europe in the 1980s has also been adopted and evolved here.

Young, upwardly mobile professionals, or yuppies as they are popularly called, now dominate the middle class here.

They are easy to spot. Just look for young people, usually under 35, with high paying professional careers and leading a fashionable way of life.

In recent years, yuppies have been considered somewhat of a bane with descriptions of vain beings often attached.

The Longman Dictionary of English Language and Culture, for example, describes yuppies as those thought of "being insensitive, ambitious and too interested in material goods".

Is this an accurate portrait of the yuppie lifestyle here?

The economic boom and successful development of the New Order economy has created a conducive climate for Indonesians born from the mid to late sixties and afterward.

Political stability and upgraded infrastructure has allowed them to pursue a good education and offer their knowledge to the highest bidder.

Yuppies are free from scrounging about working for the minimum wage like a majority of the population. While the minimum monthly salary in Greater Jakarta is Rp 172,500, yuppies are afforded the good life with salaries from Rp 4 million upward.

Given such a high income bracket, much higher than the official per capita income, one is automatically prone to consumerism.

Yuppies spend well. Never out of fashion, they become trendsetters. Such is the popular persona of the yuppies elite that a new breed of yuppie "wanna bes", playfully called yippies, also exists. They try to adopt the cosmopolitan lifestyle even though they are not really able to afford it. These yuppie wanna bes might live in stuffy rented rooms in a small alley of the city and take public transportation to work, but they wear expensive clothes.

Yuppies spend most of their money on enhancing their exterior looks. High-class brand names, expensive hobbies and exquisite goods are not only a daily necessity but abettors to enhancing their yuppie image.

They argue that picking brand name items are necessary to enhance the expected image of their profession. Others argue that it to ensure quality while some say they do it simply because they can afford it.

Assistant managing editor of lifestyle magazine Tiara, Widya Saraswati, noted an intriguing trend among married yuppie couples: permanent baby-sitters.

"You'll notice they often take their baby-sitters with them to the mall. You see the couple walking in front while the baby- sitter pushes a baby carriage behind them," she said.

"In fact, they also take them to parties. It is an increasing trend that at parties there will be a room where baby-sitters wait and look after the kids," she said.

She believes that baby-sitters have become a status symbol.

Rolling good times is another rudiment of a yuppie lifestyle. Fast parties and designer drugs are more often than not associated with yuppies.

Hence the mushrooming "cafe" hangouts and flood of designer drugs like ecstasy onto the market. Some say its part of a trendy lifestyle, while others say it's a stress relief.

But has Indonesia's new bourgeois-liberal class been that "corrupted"?

Both Saraswati and sociologist Francisia Seda highlighted diverging religious tendencies.

While the average yuppie is still associated with the hard partying and glitzy lifestyle, others have purposely taken the opposite approach.

"There's a trend by a small group to be almost intentionally insolvent; living the simple life," said Saraswati.

Seda said that like a pendulum, there will always be a backlash when it swings too far.

Many attest to maintaining a religious conviction.

Despite her high earnings, Lela Pello, 29, still teaches Sunday school at the All Saints' Anglican Church in Central Jakarta.

"When you're around children, with their simplicity and innocence, you get a different perspective of life... they remind you of what's important in life," said Lela who is director of Corporate Communications at PT Star Motor Indonesia, distributor of Mercedes-Benz sedans.

No one has the right to judge another's way of life, and given their economic and professional accomplishments yuppies are entitled to pursue their particular fashions.

But these yuppies are the backbone of the country's middle- class. A class, which in developmental theory, has been described as the agent of societal change.

Can yuppies here fulfill the role of a much needed actor for a developing country like Indonesia?

Seda has her doubts. She believes yuppies here have simulated all the elements of Western yuppies save for the single most important element.

"They know how to party, look good and fun. But many haven't picked up on the professional side," she said. Seda questions whether yuppies here are truly as professional in their work as their Western counterparts.

In fact, she holds little faith that true agents and elements of professionalism which can be a model for society at large will ascend from home grown yuppies.

"It will change slowly but I think it will be sparked by the increasing return of our graduates from abroad," she said.