My Trip to Jakarta

On the last day of school, I flew off to Jakarta with 2 of my Indonesian friends, namely Wendi and his sister Wenny. It was my first visit to that country and I'll be staying at Wendi's house. The flight took about one and a half hours. There is 1 hour difference in time zone. So we flew off at 5pm and reached Jakarta's airport Sukarno Hata (named after the 1st president) at Indonesian time 5.30pm

Upon reaching the airport I asked Wendi to contact his driver. In Indonesia it is not safe to take public transport such as taxi and bus if you ARE a Chinese. Ever since the riot that took place in 1998 the law and order in the country has broken down. There is a strong a anti-chinese feeling among all natives. So if we take taxi, the driver probably will drive us to a country side and get us killed. ( I'm not joking.)

The driver is from Wendi's father's company. He never met him before but he said he'll be wearing their company's hat so he'll be able to recognise him. At this time I had lots of doubts and felt very insecure because I'm fully aware that this place is not safe. So we went out, and met the driver. His name is Ali, a native. He was very polite, about 50 years old and short. Soon we reached the car. It's a jeep. In Indonesia, roads are not well constructed, many areas have bumpy roads so jeep will be the best car to travel in such places.

The traffic jam in jkt was heavy. We took half an hour just to get onto the express way from the airport. The window of the cars are all mirrored glasses, people cannot see from outside. Wendi told me, never ever take out my handphone while I am in the car, and most importantly, all doors are to be locked at all times. There is also a rod in every car. I was feeling uncomfortable, looking at the poorly built house and roads. I asked him about the riots and what do those people do. Normally the native will break into your house and take your things away, sometimes they rape the women. So I asked Wendi many things along the way.

His house is located at Duta Mas. Before the riot, it was a famous area where many chinese lived. On the 1st day of the riot, Duta Mas was the 1st place the natives attacked. Wenny was there while the riot took place. She told me they were lucky. The native attacked the house opposite of them and was about to move to her neighbours. The neighbour fired a gunshot and the crowd ran away. What a close shave. Now, fences and gates were built around Duta Mas (so were other places) to prevent people from entering. However, it's still not safe because in Indonesia, everyone accepts bribes so the security guards will let anyone in if they are bribed.

Wendi's house was a bungalow. 2 storeys, quite big. On the ground floor there's a garage. The house has 2 maids. Both married and have 1 daughter each. One of their husbands was also living there. They look after the house. This is because Wendi and his sister are schooling in Singapore, their parents are living in Guangzhou and doing business there. So basically it's the maid's house. Wendi told me his cousins will arrive shortly. To fill up our stomachs, we bought some fried rice from the mei tektek. These people will pull a cart with them, they'll hit on the cart to create a "tektek" sound. They'll move around in residentail area to sell food such as rice and noodles. They were extremely cheap, all less than 1 SGD. Life of a mie tektek is tough, what they earned is just enough to feed themselves. They cannot save any money, they have no chance to become rich. Many other natives are like this.

At about 10pm, his cousin arrived. One is his elder cousin, called Arfandy or Sau Pin 21 years old(Chinese name), the other is of same age as Wendi, called Tony. Tony had a interesting background. He is an adopted child by the elderest son, who's the eldest brother of Wendi's father. He's a native, dark skin. He's also the most obedient among all others. He only asked for 50000 a week, which is equivalent to SGD 10. The 1st impression that Arfandy left was bad. He came off from his car and shoke my hands. His face is covered by cut which looked fresh still. There were about more than 5 cuts on his face, longest is about 6 cm. Wendi told me he fought with some natives in his university. Arfandy is actually a very friendly and funny person. So we went out for some supper. Wendi took this opportunity to test his driving skills which is bad. Arfandy sat beside him, and was contantly giving instructions and guides. We ate some indo mee and Arfandy said, " Let's go for some karaok." By then I was already tired to the core. Arfandy is able to speak in English so I can communicate with him. Tony's English is not so good and he's quite a shy person so we did not talk much. Arfandy picked up his girl friend and we went to a popular KTV. I sat on the sofa and fell asleep. We returned to Duta Mas at 2 or 3am in the morning. I KOed immediately.

Arfandy and Tony stayed over. The 2nd day was Tony's belated birthday celebration. We woke up at noon. Ate some mee cooked by the maids. Arfandy suggest we go and play some basketball. He drove us to the basketball court and left to pick up his girl friend Niti from work. The place was totally different from my imagination. There were many natives playing. They were poorly dresss, bare footed some even smoking. They looked dirty and bad. I didn't know how to approach them for the simple reason that I cant speak in Indo. While Wendi was also a bit lost. They're like gangsters! We waited for their game to finish and we joined them for the next game. Well, completely no organisation and tactics in the game. Everyone will chase after the man with the ball. They'll just shoot if there's no one blocking, just pass if they cannot dribble anymore, just fight for rebound when the ball hits the ring. No rules, no fouls. At first I didn't even know where to stand, they were running everywhere! Later I joined in the fun. I didn't talk, I just smile to them. Wendi and I played happily while Tony watched. He's a soccer fan, Beckham lover. He doesn't like basketball. We played until the sky turned dark and left. The game was pleasant, by then I no longer feared this place. It's actually not as dangerous as I imagined. Those people are pleasant, they'll not laugh or be unhappy with you when you failed to score. They just play the game for fun. While resting we met a Taiwanese. That was the first time I heard strangers speaking to me in Chinese. I asked him why he stay in Jkt. He said he's from a poor family, only rich people can leave this country. Wendi felt sad hearing that. Obviously he doesn't know what his father did to get his family out of there. Well so do I, I guess you'll need to bribe lots of government officials.

Arfandy drove us back to Duta Mas for a bath. At night, we went to a popular shopping centre called Ciputra, it was the place where I first saw other Chinese besides us. Tony treated us to some pizzas. We ordered 2 large pizza, 2 jars of drinks, 2 pastas and it only costed SGD 7 each. I said it was cheap, but Arfandy said it's considered as expensive to the locals. Average income of the locals is <800 SGD a month. The exchange rate is 1:5000 As we ate, Tony began to talk more. At 9pm, we finished our dinner and went to the cinema. We watched The Day After Tomorrow. The ticket is only 4 SGD while the cinemas is of same standard as those in Singapore, clean and big. We finished the show at mid night. Wendi's parents had also arrived at Jkt that night.

Went back to his house, had some usual talks with his parents. Then we played PS2 untill we fell asleep. ( Play PS2 or watch DVD is our late night activity)

On the 3rd day, we visited Wendi's ama's house. As the parents just returned, they'll pay a visit to the elders first, so I went along. Outside ama's house there were a line of jeeps. Wendi told me all other relatives have came. His ama can only speak in Hokkien so all I can do is smile and call her "ama". There I met another cousin of Wendi, William. He's 18 year old, studies architects in University. He's able to speak Chinese so we chatted. Arfandy did not come because he do not like to be spotted by all these parents. His mom divorced with his father and married another man. This man ill-treated Arfandy. There was once he fought verbally with other adults in the family during Chinese new year at ama's house. Everyone in the family disliked him. I guess Arfandy is ashame of that background of his therefore he do not wish to be spotted, he'll feel awkward.


2 b continued

2 much 2 tell... hmm, i'll upload sm photos also, maybe... 2 or 3 weeks later :p intending to submit tis as a portfolio entry.
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14:43 Tata