Category: Living in Jakarta
7 Fashion NO NOs in Jakarta
Posted by Tatter in Indonesia, Living in Jakarta Sunday, 28 February 2010 12:31 No Comments
Forewarning: This entry is created for entertainment purposes only. If you are easily offended, feel free to close the window or browse along other topics.
After observing some of the fashion trends in Jakarta, I had an idea to put up a list of things you should not try to pull (with some exceptions of course!) in Jakarta.
- SKINNY JEANS: Dudes, please do not try to pull the skinny jeans style if you don’t have the built for it. Unless you are a rock star with mile long legs, seeing an average Joe wearing one is just wrong and there is probably only 10% of the population that can wear skinny jeans.
- CROCS: Yeah, they look cute on babies and toddlers but when you’re old nothing screams more like a red-neck than a pair of crocks! Also crocs turned to be dangerous because it could get easily got caught on the escalator!
- HEAVY COATS & BOOTS: Uhm…unless you want to attempt a heat stroke (or a stinky feet if you’re just wearing the boots!), feel free to look completely out of this planet wearing one in Jakarta.
- SHORTS/HOT PANTS: If you have chunky thighs (much likes mine actually) do not wander in the malls wearing a very short short, safe it for the comfort of your own place and save others from feeling nauseated.
- MINI SKIRTS: Leave the mini for nicely sculpted legs!
- VISIBLE PANTY LINES: Oh yuck, girls…have you ever heard of thongs or seamless panty ? Better investing in one (or two)! Showing the world your panty lines especially if you’re wearing super tight pants (not white! Eeek!) is just a big NO NO!
- SCARFS: Unless you are riding a Harley or an ojek (or traveling on a jet plane), wearing one in the heat of Jakarta is simply ridiculous!
When Did Indonesian Women Become An Export Product?
Posted by Tatter in Indonesia, Living in Jakarta, Musings Wednesday, 24 February 2010 21:14 6 Comments
Only two days after I posted the link to the news about Proposed Marriage Bill (RUU) that claim to protect Indonesian women’s welfare by making the future ‘foreign’ husband pay Rp. 500,000,000 (yep that’s million!) or equivalent of 53,792.361 USD as per today’s exchange rate, I got so many replied on my Facebook page.
Apparently, the Religious Department is mulling over this bill again. This bill isn’t new. It was a hot debate topic and had caused strong opposition from Indonesian women back in 2005, many had thought the bill didn’t pass and life goes on. So to hear the bill has been brought to life is well…revolting to say the least!
This Indonesian scholar, Nuning Hallet had written a very good article about the issue and to quote her, she wrote:
“Explanation on Article 142 paragraph 3 of the draft bill mentioned the deposit is to protect Indonesian women should their foreign husband neglected them. Deposit will be return when their marriage reach 10th years anniversary. However, if you look at it from “Familial State” perspective and nationalism based on body politics, I think this is an effort to suppress the number of mix marriages between Indonesian women and foreign men in order to keep the country’s sovereignty.”
And this one:
“Policy regarding women’s interests almost never being discussed at the parliament. Government institution feel they know more about their women’s needs from their manly specs and waited on the women to reacts on those policies. In this case, the draft bill had successfully provoked Indonesian women’s anger, even those who have no relationship with a foreign man. Their biggest concern is the stigmatization of Indonesian women being ‘sold’ by their own country.”
Although from further reading about this topic, it says it will be applied to Muslim Indonesian women, I still feel outraged and disgusted. I may not be Muslim, but I am Indonesian and a woman who thinks these parliament members had completely lost their minds!
They claimed to protect Indonesian women but the way I see it, this is nothing more than one heck of a pimping legalization or giving mail-order bride a government approval! These women are not a commodity, for God’s sake! Should they really earnestly care about Indonesian women welfare then why the heck they don’t even give a damn about Indonesian migrant workers? Lots of them even got killed, tortured, raped, you name it! What about them? Also, let’s not forget about the Indonesian women whose husband just walked out of them without leaving a single cent and married someone else, fathering more child than he could remember. Are these women getting any attention from the government? Hell NO! Is there even an enforced law about Child Support like in many other countries have?
There’s no money in the world that could stop if a husband is really a hidden sadistic person, you know! Think about it, let’s say a really wealthy foreign man who happened to have that kind of money lying around somewhere paid the deposit, took the new wife back to his home country, beat her up like a punching bag, abused her like a slave or worst killed the poor women what the hell is our noble government can do about it? It would just give these guys more reasons to overpower their wife since he had legally ‘bought’ her from her own country.
Dowry is not a new thing in Indonesia, it is engraved in some part of the culture but not something the government should step into and abused, I think. Following Egypt? Ehm, did anyone do their study first? Let me break it down for you, sirs:
- In Egypt this rules applies only to those who have 25 years age gap between them.
- The foreigner must put 50,000EGP (8,000USD) in the National Bank of Egypt in the wife’s name.
Now that sounds more logical! They are putting the ‘dowry’ in the wife’s name at the national bank, not in their government appointed bank like proposed on this BS bill! 8,000 US Dollars not 50 grand for crying out loud!
As a woman who married a foreign man, I can tell you that more and more Indonesian women rather go to their husband’s country (or somewhere else) just to get marry. Why? Simply because the system here is so not transparent! On paper, the fee to get marry is this much but on the ‘field’ the numbers varies, depending on your ‘contacts’. If this bill passed I can guarantee more of them will leave the country or even abandon their citizenship’s!
Talking from my own experience, the procedure to get marry abroad is more complicated but everything is transparent, the steps by steps are manageable as long as you got all the documentations you needed. I came to the States to married my husband using a K-1 Visa or well known as Fiancé Visa. It was a breezy process to obtain my visa, 3 months and I was well on my way. After the wedding, we applied for my Conditional Resident Permit (Green Card), now this process was more intricate and it ‘only’ took us over a year to get approved, that after we contacted our local state representative (similar to DPR Member here) who took care of our case immediately and with no charge! With that in hands, I can work, I can go to school, I can even buy my own house if I want to. The only thing that separates me from American citizen is I can’t cast my vote!
Sadly, here it is a lot more difficult for Indonesian women to sponsor their own husband to obtain a resident permit. The law even prohibited resident permit’s holder to purchase property here. While the Dual Citizenship law that just passed in 2006 is a great relief for plenty of mix marriages couple, there are still so much that needed to be fixed to honor this kinds of marriage. Needless to say, we got better ‘treatments’ in other countries than our own, which is kinda sad, no?
So, if you really want to protect us here are some ideas:
- Education, education, education! Why don’t you provide counseling to Indonesian women about being in an inter-nations marriage? A lot of women are suffering from culture shock when they moved abroad. Educate these women on why a prenuptial agreement is good to have.
- Clarify the complicated and sometimes shady bureaucracies of either getting marry in Indonesia or register a marriage.
For sure there are many more that needed to be fix to protect the welfare of our Indonesians women about mix marriage but those two are what popped up in my head right now.
Some Ideas To Heal Jakarta’s Traffic
Posted by Tatter in Living in Jakarta, Musings Friday, 5 February 2010 16:16 6 Comments
photo credit: Ikhlasul Amal
Jakarta traffic has been steadily getting worst by the years! 5 years ago it was bad, today it’s one of the worst in the world and if the government really didn’t step in and do something it will only get worst. Did you know Jakarta is estimated to lose $1 billion a year due to the bad traffic and collective failure of urban planning dates back at least 50 years, and has left the city with no integrated system of public transport. Says 70% of Jakarta population uses private vehicles.
By all means, I’m no expert but dealing with the crazy Jakarta traffic almost daily, hey like it or not I will have to go outside and do stuff, can’t help but wondering what can be improved about this nightmare. Here are some ideas:
- Fix the damn public transportation system! With how bad public transportation look and their services here, not very many people are willing to use the bus or train if they have better option such as their own cars/motorbike or taxi. Most public buses here look like it might give you tetanus if you get bump on one! They are very unregulated too besides the obvious cleanliness factor which is almost non-existent, these buses sometimes contribute a lot with jamming the traffic by stopping whenever and wherever they sees fit. God knows, I got so irritated if they stop and wait on people to hopped in and blocked traffic behind them. An intersection in Slipi area is one of the worst where big buses and those smalls mikrolet just stop and do whatever they want, even when a traffic police officer is right there, standing directing traffic with so much failure I feel sorry for the man. I wonder when someone from the government will finally have enough courage to stand up and actually do something about this. I would love to take my son on a public transportation as long as it’s in a decent and clean condition and I’m sure most Jakartans will do too!
- Busway system just doesn’t work! The initial idea is pretty great! When it first opened 6 years ago I gave it a try and it does speed up commuting time. Fast forward it to today, busway seems to do little to help ease the horrible traffic as I saw their routes expanded, they are always full, reminded me of just another ride in metro mini! Very inconvenience! If the streets of Jakarta are as wide and as well constructed as its other neighboring country, busway will works! There are just not enough lanes for this once a grand project of Jakarta old governor.
- Built bigger road, less malls! With its visit Jakarta campaign, boasting about the shopping experience in Jakarta felt like a big joke. Uhm, yeah I’d rather go to Jakarta and shop at their grand fancy malls but I will stay until the mall is close to avoid being caught in traffic jam? I don’t think so! Maybe, the officials should take a little visit to Guangzhou, China and see how impressive their road infrastructures. Granted, I haven’t seen all of China but with that many people there, they really did a great job with their roads. Their highways are real highway unlike Jakarta’s nightmare toll roads! It is a public understanding here that the roads in Jakarta were built only to fatten the greedy corrupted government officials. These companies had to spent tons of money buying their way to win the bid thus, the quality of their job will deteriorate resulting in many roads of Jakarta being in terrible conditions within only a year or two. To get it fixed, again place your bidding to the government, never ending cycle right? But really, Jakarta needs to be ashamed of their road conditions!
- Put a STOP to overpopulated motorbikes on the road. For roughly $50, people can take a brand new motorbike home in Jakarta. Promotions of cheap motorbikes are everywhere. I can go on and on and on about how obnoxious most motorbikes’ drivers in Jakarta, so let’s not go there. The point is, there are way too many motorbikes already and it is nuts to expect people in their cars to pay attention to them instead of the other way around!
- Regulate toll road usage. How many times you’d notice on a creeping toll road (especially the one that goes to the airport?) these big 16-wheelers or 18-wheelers that drive slow and sometimes on the right lane?! It annoys the heck out of me to see this! Why, because these big giants can easily take a detour and use the outer ring toll roads instead of going through the city. Back in the US, most big trucks like this especially ones that goes from town to town will take the highway/interstates that doesn’t connect them through the city, in other words they stay off the city traffic! Should these giants really need to go through the city for construction reasons, regulate it so they can only go into the city after let’s say from 11 PM until 4 AM!
- A stricter Driver License Regulation. The rules are there and has been there by the book (probably dusty somewhere!) that everyone must take a test before being handed their license. I remember how funny it was when my father went down to make a new license because he had lost his wallet in Johannesburg and the police simply told him that all will be ‘taken care of’ if he paid this much money. Being, the competent driver that he is and an expert in defensive driving course, he demanded to take the test. Now, imagine if these rules are being strictly implemented? It would mean fewer idiots on the loose in Jakarta streets! Accidents numbers will probably go down. Use the point system like in some other countries. Speeding tickets will reduce your points and worst come to worst, one will lose their license! Maybe implying this plus the vehicles insurance alongside the registrations, tax will also help in healing Jakarta’s traffic.
I maybe just a mom…but I think about these stuffs and I believe whoever it is in charge in our government better thinks for the people too instead of fighting like bullies in the parliament seats.
Noisy Much?
Posted by Tatter in Living in Jakarta, Musings Monday, 1 February 2010 14:47 10 Comments
Today’s article on The Jakarta Post about In Search of A Good Night Sleep got my mind reeling and I know I just have to blog about it.
With the recorded population number of over 8 million (and I’m sure it is more), Jakarta is definitely one of the loudest city I have ever known. Not very many people especially the locals are aware of this because when you born-raise-grew up here and pretty much never left the city you will not get to see how loud Jakarta really is.
Let’s look at the malls here; just about every shop has music blaring at what seems to be 120 decibels. That is loud! Not to mention when they are having special events with stage and all then you can be sure the noise can be heard miles away. We are currently living right next to one of the many fancy new malls that seems to be popping out of the ground every few days! Advantage, groceries shopping is just a walk away; in fact they just opened an underground pass that goes straight to the Lower Ground where Carrefour is located. But, on some nights I swear I want to torch down that mall simply because they are being obnoxiously too loud! Last Friday, I noticed they had set up yet another stage by their outdoor park. Sound check? Possibly! But why on earth would they do that until way after 2 in the morning is beyond me. This is not the first time; since we’ve been living here they had ‘parties’ with blaring music a lot! Saturday night is forgivable, but Sunday or Friday night? Totally made me cursing my night away! And they are building an adjacent hotel to that mall? Maybe they should make sure that the walls are soundproofs!
Then you have the mosques! Where we are living now, it gets quite loud during the evening calls of prayer and in early dawn. There must be more than 10 mosques competing with one another. Imagine horrendous American Idol auditions with 10 or more wannabes put into one room each holding a microphone! At first, it gets really annoying because you know in its country of origin in Middle East, the call of prayers are not as loud as what you will hear here. I’m sure it does not only bother me, it also bothers other people whose houses are within close proximity to these mosques. If we, who are living on the 30th floor, can hear them loud and clear, imagine how would it be if you’re just a door away? But most people are afraid to voice their complaints for religion is still very much a super sensitive case on this country. Now, I’m used to it although I still miss the calmness of early morning breaking into my day. Noise ordinance is simply non-existent in Jakarta unless you have a sound proof home.
Fortunately some people are starting to realize the long term damage this type of pollution. Free from Noise Society is one of them (I hope they’ll have a website done soon!) to spread more awareness and give others courage to speak up. The group claims that 10.7 percent of people who conduct activities in the streets of Jakarta have hearing problems. Shocking? NOT!
Takes Two To Tango
Posted by Tatter in Living in Jakarta, Musings Friday, 22 January 2010 21:35 4 Comments
Last month we found a domestic helper. Let’s just call her “Y”. Explained to her what I needed and wanted also gave her a week of ‘probation’. A dear friend of mine told me about her ‘1 week probation’ that she’s been using for years with her domestic helpers. No string attached, if within that one week I’m not happy or vice versa then I’ll just pay her for that whole week. Simple as it sounds I had a hard time…
First, adjusting to have someone, a stranger in your house daily is pretty weird at first. We never have any domestic helper before although when I grew up my mom always has at least one lived-in helper. Secondly, it’s not easy to trust someone that fast.
A week passed and she seemed ok when it comes to the cleaning but I do notice how she interacts with Little A, there’s just something that doesn’t click, you know. At first I thought it was just because Little A would get frustrated from her not understanding his mixed language (he speaks both English and Indonesian but sometimes he mixed them).
Then on the 9th day, she came and asked if she can have half of her monthly salary upfront, said she needed to pay rent. Told her I must speak with DH first about this. He, who also never has any experience with having a domestic helper, urged me to help her. I was wary tho’ because I don’t think that’s a very good sign when someone who just started working for you asked for their salary upfront. But I caved it not wanting to get into an argument with DH over this.
Since then I continued to notice the lack of enthusiasm when she had to deal with Little A like say when I had to get on the phone, when we went out to run some errands, which is one of the reasons why I needed a domestic helper. Just can’t help but comparing her with Ipah (my mom’s helper) who is just all over Little A. You can tell just from one glance that Ipah loves him, meanwhile Y was completely cold with him. My imaginative minds starts to wonder what’s going to happen when the two of them are alone…
In early December, not long after she went home, her husband sent me a text message asking what’s going on, why did Y came home from my place crying and refusing to talk? Honestly I was like “WTH???” but kept my cool when I replied saying nothing’s wrong, she was completely fine and nothing’s going on. He replied and continued to pester me over it which made me furious. I tried calling her cell phone but she didn’t answer so I texted her if she’s having some kind of problem that she needs to take care of, she doesn’t have to come to work. She quickly replied and said “I’m so sorry. Someone cut my purse on my way home and stole everything. The money I suppose to send for my daughter was stolen too and I was so upset when I got home.” That just made me so uncomfortable! If it was me, the first thing I would do if something like that happen to me would be to tell DH not cried myself and got mad at him, right? Logically, that’s how I see it but who knows what’s going on I just have a feeling that she’s going to try and ‘borrow’ money to cover for what she lost.
Okay, it may sounds like I’m being mean and cruel but I would gladly and happily help out people that I know I can trust and have been working for us awhile. There’s just something that doesn’t feel right about the whole situation with her and her husband messaging me felt like a ‘conspiracy’ way to make me believe her story.
After a discussion with DH, he too thinks that was probably a ‘conspiracy’ the way her husband pester me. He left it all up to me on how to handle this so I made up my mind and told her 2 days later that we have to let her go. I felt such a huge relieve after that (first time ever I had to fire someone!).
You see this is one of the many of common thing here, some people sees you are married to a foreigner then they’ll assume you have money trees growing in your backyard! Some will try to take advantage that’s why finding the right person to work for you is quite a challenge. It takes two to tango, even when it comes to this department.
Let the search continues…
