A GOLDEN DAY

Rays of Young Gold caress my skin softly as I walk out of my apartment, demanding the big black SUV to respect me as a pedestrian and stop for I can cross the street. Fresh still, are the blue sky and out-of-shower effect scented bodies passing me by on the long pedestrian bridge that leads me to the bus stop. In a small box of glass in the middle of the main road am I, sandwiched between traffic towards the business area on one side and the political centre on the other. The bus arrives quickly today and I even have the privilege to be seated. I lean back on the soft cushy seat, close my eyes for a moment, and enjoy the coolth of the air conditioning before I will hit the warmth of the underground bus terminal. Jakarta by morning can be such a blessing.

I reach what once used to be bushy field with plants and wild grass up to a meter high; a green strip along a small river. Immigrants, mostly from all over Java, but also from Northern Sumatra, have come to this wild area to set their base since early 90s. This non-official, thus illegal, neighborhood is yet a settled one today. Kampung Buaran. A girl is pushing the hold of a water pump up and down so that her naked little brother can enjoy a shower of fresh streaming water. When I step out of the van I receive a warm and enthusiastic greeting from the little children. The teachers open the door of the playgroup and the toddlers enter the tiny square classroom, leaving me standing underneath the sun that hits the open and treeless neighborhood strip without mercy. Where are the blows of crispy breezes as usual at? My tanned arms feel no single one at all. Some children, merely dressed in their underwear, are playing cards and others are throwing ceramic tile pieces that are used to fill up the gaps in the street to each other. But the porches are empty and even the eager men and women of the gambling club are inactive today: everyone is sheltering for shade behind cloth sheets hanging outside the doors. The rainy season is coming to its end, so it is getting hot. Hotter and hotter. I feel sweat drops pouring out of my pores, running over the skin of my back, and I freeze. Another move means another flow of sticky smelling liquid underneath my clothes. I cannot anymore... The heat weakens my body.

A very long, unbearable hot, and incredible hard-working day is at its closing stage. Old Gold laughs at the Black Sea of vehicles honking their way home, and strikes its last bits and bites of light over the newspaper vendor passing through the labyrinth of the traffic jam. He holds today’s headline of another criminal convict up high, showing very explicit images of the till-death beaten persecutor next to a picture of the hottest celebrity’s new lover. Somewhere behind the clouds of emission, the sound of the adzan from a nearby mosque echoes, announcing it is time to pray.

Darkness brings along calmness, but in Jakarta it will never reach full serenity. In this never-sleeping metropolitan I am deprived of the sight of celestial bodies that passionate me most. I gaze at my screen, as if I am waiting for another source of inspiration. The moment I lit up my sigarette a big thunder clashes somewhere afar. Another one. And another one. The vivid sound of the cosmic battle covers the noisy noises of the never-pausing neighboring constructions work. The expressive thunder lightning enables me to see the green leaves of the trees outside my bedroom window. The gloomy sky pictures a show of sparkling light shocks, flashier than any fully-booked photo studio. Rain drops start falling. Heavily. And stormy. I think of my informant who lives on a cemetery. “On a kind day like this it’s very lovely to sit on this graveyard underneath these big trees and watch them children play around. But when the rainy season hits, this place will turn into one big mud pool.”

After the Culture Shock

‘KILL MY EGO? NO WAY BITCH!’

I have passed the first phase of my research journey, although I occasionally face cultural aspects that still cause me a great shock. But more important is that I start to see positive things in whatever I perceive(d) negative.

[Graffiti painting at Semanggi]

There is no politer way to say it: social make up is just a mess. There is a great lack of discipline, people are egocentric and careless, and I feel no respect. I try to hold on to my principles and stand in line at the bus stop and not push the crowd of people (‘the queue’) once the bus arrives, but others think differently. Life in Jakarta is very tough, and if you want to survive the struggle you have to be aggressive to become the fittest. Public rules can be ignored in this urban jungle and social concerns come way after egocentric needs, so who cares about queues, or possible accidents to happen, when more important is for one to get on the bus and get a seat? As the title says: ego comes first. I picked it from a graffiti painting that has a shout out next to it saying: "Don't gain the world and lose your soul".

[The traffic, the flood, and the pedestrian]

This generalized thought counts for both the upper as the lower class, but the latter surely has to work even harder. When perceiving this from a different sight, my friend Erwin was right by commenting they have a working mentality of great determination and full spirit, all in order to survive in this hot urban jungle. I never really enjoyed tropical climates, especially ones that are fused with urban pollution. I find the sweat unbearable and the high temperature tiring, so that is another aspect for which I give respect to the lower working class: I could not have last a full day selling fried rice from a tiny market stand with no running water at a bus terminal among dozens other shouting vendors and numerous vehicles of all sizes passing by continuously leaving nothing but aggressive driving styles, stressful haste, noise pollution, and clouds of both visible as invisible dirt underneath the striking sun.

[Great slim body and beautifully designed apartment complex next to the green]

GLOBAL WARMING

Surprising yet is that during this stay, I hardly ever experience that humidity from the heat blanket covering the city anymore. It is either pleasantly warm or windy warm. Believe it or not: I sometimes, both during day and night time, find it even chilly! Perhaps agreements of the Climate Top last January in Bali were extremely quickly implemented, or this is instead another effect of global warming. The global warming issue is reaching the people here, but is still very much in process. Last week for example, a political and environmental conscious radio station celebrated her anniversary and changed the name into Green Radio: ‘The Eco-lifestyle of Jakarta’. But the public party was not provided with garbage bins, so that plates and leftovers from the free dinner were collected randomly all over the green garden.

[The green trees and the urban-polluted river]

THE GREEN CITY OF BANDUNG

There is still a long way to go, but at least Jakarta has become much more greener. But to enjoy some real nature, Jakarta people drive two hours westward to spend the weekend in Bandung. After Amsterdam and Jakarta, Bandung is my third hometown. My grandpa has passed away a while ago and the family house just recently got sold, but this third or fourth largest city of the country that is surrounded by mountains, and has therefore a much colder temperature, still feels like a nostalgic home to me. I always receive a sincerely warm welcome from this green city where taking walks through the very nice, shadowed by the large trees streets are still very possible.

[In Lembang, on the edge of Bandung]

[With Aldi and Ance, my friends from Amsterdam]

New in Bandung is ‘Paris van Java’. Do not mind the choice of words: Indonesians are always very consequent in (multiple) language issues. It is a semi-open complex of mainly restaurants and cafes, but of course also has a little mall attached and not to forget the cinema. It is similar to Citos in Jakarta, but the U-construction and ambiance of Paris van java (PvJ) is much nicer. My cousin is now the manager of The Mansion that is located on the second and third floor: Bandung’s newest and hottest clubbing scene with a beautiful view over the city and the mountains.


[At the rooftop of the Mansion Club]


[Our living room]

HAPPY 23

For my 23rd birthday I held a little gathering with some of my best friends at my place. At the end of the deck we held a picnic by night in what Indonesians call pegola, which is something in between a terrace, a porch, and a wall-less cottage. Unfortunately it rained quite a bit, but at least we had a roof, a beautiful city skyline by night, food, drinks, and fun. When it was midnight and I turned out not to have a permission for this party, we were sent home, where we continued a game in my room, that allowed drawing on the other’s face as a punishment…

[In the pegola, telling jokes]

[Playing the whisper-game]

[With my dear Keke ]

[My room]

[Our beautifully decorated faces]

RESEARCH UPDATE

After try-outs on the field and a first month of orientation I have built up a considerable amount of trust and relationships in two districts. Kampung Buaran, the first neighborhood is quite far (Klender, Cipinang), and consists actually of one very long unpaved, rocky and muddy road, located along and partly above a dirty river. Most houses are made of wood and random pieces from different materials, and the people make use of public toilets. Twice a week I go there with the Mother & Child Health Foundation Indonesia, and while the two teachers give free playgroup classes, I hit the field.

[Kampung Buaran]

My second research field, Menteng Atas, is right next door, and I often walk there outside research purposes to have lunch, so that I have become quite familiar with some inhabitants. The area is big and at first does not appear very poor at all: on the outer part there are even a few very beautiful gated houses with cars, but the inner part consist of small and narrow streets, or actually passages. Everything looks very nice and very green though, and perfectly function as a walking area, but motor bicycles still insist to pass through it. Most of the area can be considered a lower/middle class neighborhood, but what physically emphasizes their mental self-conception of a lower class is the concrete and barbed wired wall that totally surrounds the apartment complex and therefore literally separates and highlights the social boundaries. What is more is that there used to be a huge cemetery in the given district, that for the most part has been dug out and moved already, but some of the really lower classes have settled themselves on the old cemetery, literally above very old grave yards-leftovers.

[The passages of Menteng Atas]

Three days after my arrival it became clear already that the tension area between play and work does not account for my research population of lower classes. Among the extremely poor, those living on the streets and sleeping under bridges, it might. But what I perceive instead is a tension between play and learning. The main objective of kindergartens no longer seems to be a place where children learn to play and play to learn. Instead, children of age four and five learn to read, write, and do maths: all to prepare them for elementary school where they are expected to understand, or at least be aware of, this basic knowledge.
There are some other fascinating aspects I observed in the field, but I need to keep focused. It is hard for me, but luckily I have a fellow anthropologist nearby, my friend Fauzi. He is also a student from Utrecht University and in Jakarta for his research, yet for his Master-degree. We meet each other on the regular to discuss and evaluate our findings (his research is on Dutch ex-pats): it helps, enlightens, and encourages us.



THE BLUE TENT

Unfortunately, the blue tent that took the center of my bedroom window view did not last long and has vanished for some weeks already. Instead, they now often burn up, probably, small amounts of garbage that, especially when raining, draws spectacular sceneries. Also, have they dug up some big holes at the spot the blue tent used to be… As I have discovered that other towers of the apartment complex have a view on the cemetery leftovers that are used today as a garbage dump, I greatly thank the fresh trees, plain green field, and older typical Indonesian houses to picture my bedroom window with such a simple but natural ambiance.

Reliving the Culture Shock

[The drainage system in the slum parts of the city center]

A WARM WELCOME

I have reached the Eastern equator during the rainy season: a traditional disastrous period for the apparently modern, but in fact extremely poor metropolitan of Jakarta. Java is the most populated island in the world, and its capital city is unimaginable overcrowded, overbuild, and polluted, making it for both the land as its inhabitants hard to breath. Today’s technological advances and developed reason should offer a solution to cope with this modern dilemma, but it somehow does not seem to reach the Indonesian government. There is no way of escape or absorbance once the rain pours down the city. The drainage system horribly sucks. Or actually it does not, it is just horrible.
Annual floods have now reach the freeway to the airport up to a meter high. The airport can thus only be reached via a regular route, a traverse unsuitable for the mass of traffic that daily travel from and to the international airport. My plane landed at 3.30pm, but I did not reach my place until 8pm. The traffic jam of three and a half hours is not that remarkable in a city where each member of a rich households usually has an own cars because it refuses to take the public transportation that indeed is not very neat. But it surely is a bad matter, and caused me an acute despair upon arrivel. Unfortunately, I have not been very much optimistic since.

THE CELEBRATION OF MULTI-CULTURALISM

My trip started very blessed though. At Heathrow airport, I discovered a ‘multi-faith prayer room’, which turned out to be located in other terminals too and for a considerable period of time already. It was a small, not very much inspiring room, but equiped with the essentials of different holy books, seats, and sajadahs, the Islamic prayer carpets, allowing me to do my midday prayer, coincidently a Friday one. I cannot remember Schiphol offering a space that raises awareness and encouragement for some spiritual and personal time at a place of work and travel. In this realm of ultimate haste and stress, expressing the relationship between life, faith, and God seems unlikely, but is yet possible. Above all, I find the ‘multi-faith prayer room’ very positive because it acknowedges cultural and religious diversity and urges understanding for this. Ironic, how Amsterdam as well is one of the world’s most multi-cultural city, but has not celebrated this fact with initiatives of the alike.

[An affiche inside the multi-faith prayer room]

[With Torik before he headed home to Amsterdam]

EXPLORING CHILD RIGHTS

As I of course wish to see all of my family and dear friends after two and a half year, I also want to make the best out of this research. As some of you might know, I have been very nervous about this long-intended project. For a long while I have been fascinated with early child development and its link to the condition of this world in the era of Globalia. In fact, I started my study of Anthropology because of my great urge to figure more about it. During my last stay in Jakarta, I have been involved with several projects with children, play groups and pre-schools, conducting a sort of a ‘pre-study’ on my area of interest, convinced that I would return any time soon to continue it more specifically. And here I am. My research is basically on the perception of mainly lower-class urban families on the universal child’s right to play, but there is actually so much more behind it. It is not as easy to explain, nor to conduct, and I have been worried that I will not be able to express myself clearly in my mother tongue. Clearly, one of my informants (a man from the lower class I interviewed) noticed it immediately, when he expressed his doubts on my Indonesian origins: “But you speak really funny”.

[A girl holding her doll in one of the slum areas]

CELEBRATING THE CHINESE NEW YEAR

[One of the Vihara's]

The original concentration of Chinese-Indonesians lies in the old quarter of the city center of Jakarta, where the streets are fully embellished with red lampoons and other decorations. Gong Xi Fa Chai, or happy new year, it is the Chinese year 2559. Chinese-Indonesians dedicate prayers to various deities on big altars in the temple (Vihara) where giant red candles celebrate the year of the Rat. The candles and camp fires heat up the crowded semi-open area, but what is really suffocating is the immensity of smoke out of the bulks of insences the mass of believers are suppose to devote to their gods. There is one main deity, the Almighty, of which the emic term is Tikang. In daily use it is Tuhan Allah, wherein Tuhan means God, and Allah, well, also means God.

[Among the huge candles in the Vihara]

[Praying Confusion Chinese-Indonesian, holding bulks of incenses]

Remarkable are the ‘outsiders’: some tourists, but mostly young amateur, yet very commited photographers. With very advanced photography equipment, this distinctive group of students seeks to capture beautiful shots of praying Chinese-Indonesians inside the gracious temple, and of the even greater proportion of the literal outsiders, namely the mass of poor people assembling behind the gate.

[Young photographer on the right, waiting poor behind the gate]

Like in Islam, and probably most religious traditions, the Chinese also knows the way of celebrating a festive by sharing one’s wealth with the less fortunate. The poor thus waited for envelopes with money (angpao) to be handed out. But the prayers happen individually, and I witnessed no single angpao being hand over during my observation. Then again, how do you distribute a symbolic amount of money over the mass of people that have settled down outside on the semi paved/mud square in await for somewhat more than a fortune cookie? The ambiance on the square was tensed and harassing, and the young photographers sitting outside the temple, though claiming merely to relax, waited as well for this one messiah-like person to step out of the temple and throw bags of money over the poor. My father was optimistic and praised the fact that great improvements have occurred since the fall of president Soeharto a decennia ago. Now, Confucionism is a national recognized religion, so that Gong Xi Fa Chai has become a national holiday and can be publicly celebrated. I wish I could see something positive in everything I can only critique about.

[Waiting for some angpao]

[Being photographed, while playing and waiting in the mud]


LIVING THE BEARABLE, DEALING WITH THE UNBEARABLE

[Just as home in Amsterdam: near breathtaking canals]

You pass through three security points of guards, but after that you are welcome to my new residence in Tower 17 of the Taman Rasuna Apartment Complex. I can take you to the fifth floor, to a platform above the parking lot, that connects the multiple towers of the complex. On this deck we can play basketball, or soccer. There is also a tennis court if you prefer. Or we can swim in the beautiful swimming pool and have a drink afterwards at the Dixie Lounge Restaurant. Meanwhile the kids can play at the two big play grounds. Enjoy the variety of cultures you will walk into: many Indian, Arab and White expats inhabit the complex. There is a laundry service, a beauty salon, a food delivery service, and many more little shops to serve the Taman Rasuna residents.

[The swimming pool on the deck]

[My cousins at the play ground on the deck]

It is a good fortune my father temporarily lives in Jakarta for his work now, and his old friend offered him this apparetment, so I have not many worries concerning my living conditions. I enjoy my new room, spacious and airconditioned, with my own walk-in closet, and my own bathroom with a bathtub. Life can be good. But what about that of the maid who was suppose to live also in our appartment of hardly 80 squared meter. From the kitchen there is a door that leads to a space that precisely fits a one-person matras, which can be folded during the day so you can reach the boiler. Immediately next to the matrass there is the ‘traditional’ squatting toilet (assuming the maid is too rural to use the ‘modern’ sitting toilet), surrounded by three walls but no door.

[Tower 17, my new residence]

I find it hard to believe how people dare to violate the human dignity by designing such inhumane interiors. My father luckily already closed the toilet off so we can use the space as a storage room. Frightening it is to be reminded of the many households in the appartments who, despite of the relatively small space still need a maid to take care of the daily house chores, and probably do make use of that tiny space as a bedroom. Scary too is the question of what happened to the poor people who used to inhabit the land before it was cleared to build this complex.

[The view from my room]

The right part of my big bedroom window offers me, unfortunately, a sight of the parking lot because we only live on the third floor. But this also means that I have the trees still near me. From my desk table I enjoy the left part of the window that depicts a big green field, and some urban outlines of skyscrapers, constructions, and a mosque. In the middle of the green there is a blue tent, and sometimes I see groups of children playing on the field. I wonder how long the tent will survive before that field as well will be transformed into a chunk of concrete. The super deluxe apartments (way more fancier than my relatively old one) that mushroom all over the city drive off the poor into smaller and even more devastated areas, and literally emphasizes the social hierarchy of Jakarta. I have experienced no city in the world that is so cruel to its lower-class citizens. The city, and the whole country in general, is build and designed to serve the upper class, the fittest of the battle. But in this urban jungle the poor make up the majority, therefore they survive too, somehow. One nation, two worlds. It frustrates me, it saddens me, and it makes me hate the country of which I once used to be so proud of.

[Constructions next to my apartment]

Salt Lake City

Instead of the common panoramic view of mountain landscapes, we woke up in the train from Denver to Salt Lake City, realizing we were riding on the actual Rocky Mountains, and having an outlook from uphigh on the lowlands.


[Couchsurfing]

The three days spent in the quite big, but seemingly smaller town-like Salt Lake City was a wonderful reminiscence of Burlington to me. Our outdoor-spirited couchsurfhost Eddy, a freshly graduated from the University of Utah, lived in the campus district with four more roommates in a house with a porch, in the same street the only Hybrid card driving Democrat mayor in a Republican-oriented state resides. Our agenda was fully booked with hanging on the roof top, attending a bluegrass concert, visiting a typical open houseparty, climbing a cliff at a river, and hiking by night to observe the city under the full moon.


[SLC-view by night from Ensign Park]


[Climbing...]


[...and then chilling]

An amazing concept found in SLC is the One World restaurant that aspires reducing food waste by having the customers decide themselves how much they want from a certain dish and allow them to have more anytime. Depending on the available ingredients that are authentic organic and from the actual back garden, the menu differs daily or even by the hour. But the most remarkable aspect is that the customers decide themselves how much the dish was worth to pay. On top of that, the cook was a graduated student from UVM!


[One World Restaurant]

The Mormons, officially named The Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints, have originally established themselves, and are therefore concentrated, in Utah. In the literal center of the city on Zero Street is the Mormon bussiness district and the virgin white Temple, which is exclusive to the Mormons, where on that day sixteen marriages took place. At the museum-like visitor’s center the ‘sisters’ from all over the world who were on their optional 18 months mission (for the early twenty males it is mandatory) explained us about their Christian derived religion, intentionally to convert people. It’s an amazingly interesting and wealthy community and we were really fascinated by it. Their common present does give the city a somewhat different, not necessarily bad, ambiance; strange enough an affluently moderate one.


[Mormon Center]


[Just married Mormon couple]


[University of Utah]


[Golf Course on campus]




[Life's better on the couch in the front yard]


[Last-minute bbq]


[I manage to eat this burger without messing it up too much...]


[Life's better ON the porch!!!]


[Supporting Eddy's soccer game]


[Life's better when sneaking out]


[Life's better on the rooftop!]


[Doing laundry in the back yard]


[Juggling on a parking lot]