Editor’s Note:
This humorous article was contributed by a Living in Indonesia reader and reflects one expatriate’s personal experiences and observations. While some details may be exaggerated for comedic effect, many long-term expatriates will recognize the uniquely Indonesian situations described. Published with permission of the author.
I’ve decided the best way to thrive as a Western foreigner in Indonesia is not to ask too many questions or worry about unexplainable things. Not because people are reluctant to tell you anything (far from it), but because even though many strange things happen here that are confusing to the Western mind, questioning such things will often leave you far more confused than the event that prompted the question.
Life here can be surreal. If you’re not careful, you could develop a permanent look of bemusement, or a blank expression that makes small children stare at you pityingly. As an illustration of what not to worry or ask about, I’d like to share my typical Sunday in Indonesia.
My wife, who is Indonesian and was a Branch Manager for a large cosmetics manufacturer, asked me to join her on a company family picnic to be held on a Sunday up in the hills, in the middle of a tea plantation.
Being the supportive husband I am, I agreed.
“Sounds fun,” I said. “How many people are going?”
“About twenty or thirty. We have to leave my office at 6 a.m.”
We arrived at her office on Sunday morning, the traditional 30 minutes late, to find the place already teeming with excited people going in and out, and boarding and alighting from two old buses that said Steady Safe on the side.
I hoped they were.
After much organising by my wife, everyone found a seat and we set off.
Outside Jakarta, we had gone about five kilometres along the toll road when both buses stopped and people started getting off and standing on the roadside—a dangerous place to be.
“Why are we getting off?” I asked.
“We have to. The bus is on fire.”
Sure enough, clouds of black smoke were billowing from the engine compartment.
The driver helpfully advised everyone not to go too close in case it exploded and chirped, “We leave it here, lah! I’ll get a new one soon. Now we all go in the other bus.”
We all clambered aboard like sardines.
Luckily, the air conditioner still worked.
Being the only foreigner, everyone insisted I get one of the seats, so I was placed next to the driver with the gear stick between my legs. The driver kept jamming and wrenching the stick into gear perilously close to various sensitive areas.
I noticed a large lump of wood on the floor.
The driver explained he used it to wedge under the wheels when he parked because the brakes were “not so good.”
Seeing my concerned look, he added:
“But don’t worry, we’ll be going uphill. Mostly.”
By now we were climbing the winding narrow road to the plantation. A bus behind us decided to overtake on the inside, cutting a swathe through somebody’s front garden.
Strung across the road were banners advertising villas for sale. One looked insecurely fastened and rather low. The bus clipped it and it spread across the windshield, completely obscuring the driver’s vision.
Someone screamed.
One would expect the driver to slam on the brakes in such a situation (WHAT brakes?), but instead he nonchalantly opened his window, leaned forward and peeled it off without slowing down.
In that time we travelled about a hundred metres.
Thankfully, we were still pointing more or less in the direction of the road.
When we arrived, there were hundreds of people already there, all wearing similar T-shirts, one of which I was promptly presented with. More buses were arriving every minute.
I asked my wife:
“I thought you said about twenty or thirty people were coming?”
“No,” she replied. “I meant about twenty or thirty busloads.”
I guessed it was closer to sixty.
We were on a field about the size of three football pitches surrounded by mountains and tea bushes as far as the eye could see. There were tents, stalls, a stage with instruments, and everyone was enthusiastically greeting each other, organising each other, forming queues and then rearranging the queues.
Every time I stood still, a queue formed around me and I had to move.
Eventually, I realised this had been going on for half an hour with no sign of stopping, yet nothing had actually happened.
Happiness is infectious, and Indonesians are never happier than at an event like this, so I didn’t really care that I was totally baffled about what was trying to be achieved.
People at the front of the queues were wearing cardboard signs saying things like Midnight Mist and Purple Pear.
Suddenly all the queues started wandering towards a mountain.
I couldn’t stand it any longer.
“What’s going on?” I asked someone.
“Everyone’s excited about the bicycle,” she replied.
“Huh? What bicycle? And why is everyone wandering off?”
“It’s a walking competition, four kilometres, and the first prize is a mountain bike.”
“So if it’s a competition, why is everyone walking really, really slowly?”
“Because they all want to win the bike.”
Aargh!
I never learn.
A small truck carrying a mountain of shoe boxes unloaded beside the stage and drove off.
I didn’t ask.
A ladies’ football competition was arranged using four shoe boxes as goalposts.
After a few kicks, dangdut music started playing from the stage and both teams forgot about the ball and began to dance.
Everybody was ecstatic.
I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be a football match or a dancing competition.
Eventually the walkers wandered back and someone was presented with a mountain bike to much cheering.
The shoe boxes were distributed, revealing a welcome chicken-and-rice lunch and a banana the size of my thumb, accompanied by a dollop of red sauce that was the hottest thing I have ever tasted.
I sat under a tree with my wife until I noticed a dinner-plate-sized spider above us that had wrapped its web around the entire palm tree.
“Don’t worry, darling,” she reassured me. “It’s not dangerous. It only eats birds.”
I remembered the “harmless” black flying thing that bit me the previous week and moved.
A nice lady wearing an enormous green nylon Stetson sideways approached me and cheerfully informed me in perfect English that I was sitting on a pile of horse droppings.
The girls singing beautifully on stage turned out not to be professional singers as I had assumed, but lipstick sales consultants from Bandung.
Here, everyone can sing.
Tug-of-war, sack races and various other games were played, dances were danced, photos were taken, announcements were made and prizes were presented.
A long round of kissing, handshaking and saying goodbye took place before we finally returned to the buses.
Some enterprising vendors wearing plastic shopping bags on their heads were selling strawberries around the parking area.
I wasn’t looking forward to the downhill journey.
The second bus had disappeared and two new ones were in its place.
I had expected to find the original bus at the bottom of a ravine somewhere.
Instead of Steady Safe, the new buses had Astaga! written on the sides.
At least they’re more honest, I thought.
Our new bus had its brake lights inside the cabin, at the front next to the driver.
I hoped there were more behind.
We pulled onto the steep winding road and the driver immediately overtook another bus right before a blind corner.
“Satu arah, sayang!” (One way, darling!) said my wife.
The police close the road to uphill traffic for a few hours on Sundays because of the volume of vehicles heading back to Jakarta.
Still, there’s always somebody who stopped for lunch on the way up and continues driving anyway, creating total chaos.
People were asking each other where the smell of horses was coming from.
We passed the first bus, still abandoned on the toll road, with all the paint burnt off its rear panel.
Back in Jakarta, I vaguely noticed a bicycle tied to the top of a utility pole.
“Why is there a…”
“It’s a prize,” said my wife.
Two in one day, I thought sleepily.
I bit my lip.
At home I fell into bed exhausted.
“Are you tired, darling?” asked my wife.
“Shattered.”
“Was it what you expected?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“Are you happy?”
“You bet!” I smiled.
I was.
By a Living in Indonesia Reader
Copyright retained by the author.
