Plis Deh Jakarta!

Upon my return to Jakarta, I posted this statement through Twitter:

These are some of the responses I received:

But seriously – we might be in the business capital of Indonesia, but it doesn’t mean we have to wear three-piece suits at the office and turn the aircon down really low to justify it? I’m not saying that Jakarta has to revert to bikinis or swimsuits, but we really should dress to match the climate – it’s just healthier. That way, those aircons don’t have to be turned on so low (although, some women dress like they’re at the beach in the malls, which is beyond me) and we can save energy, thus holding off global warming for a bit. 

I think the teeming masses of office workers have forgotten that we live in a tropical area. Maybe it’s because the office buildings seem like they’re in the mountains.

When I read the headline, I thought the term ‘smart park’ was used like it is used for ‘smart phone’, ‘smart car’ and ‘smart house’, whereas the object involved becomes ‘smart’ and can anticipate a user’s needs due to certain hardware or software. So what of ‘smart parks’? Automatic irrigation, automatic umbrellas, and when you leave the park money is automatically deducted from your bank account for parking or something? Oh, nooo.

These ‘smart parks’, or Taman Pintar, are meant to give an experience of reading outdoors to students, giving an alternative to the classroom, where reading interest is low.

This is interesting – some government officials, obviously appealed by the romaticism of relaxing in a park to read a book, just like in those American movies, made this move – where I don’t think said officials have hardly ever read a book outside in Jakarta’s daily weather, even under a tree’s shade. The scorching heat or the torrential rains, complete with air and noise pollution, wouldn’t be a very attractive place to read. Can you imagine some high school kid trying to get through a quantum physics book, sweating like a pig in the heat, or sitting under a small umbrella in a storm?

My opinion? The desire to read is actually high – but just not study material

One sunny Saturday afternoon in the Pondok Cabe area, traffic was as packed as it usually is in the area. While stuck in traffic on a small bridge over a river, a motorcycle rider passing by suddenly stops on the bridge, takes a plastic bag from a hook on his motorcycle, and throws it in the river. He then goes on riding…

And yet we are always puzzled why it floods in the rainy season.

Finally! We get a non-seasonal break from the scorching heat to cloudy skies and lower tempratures. A lot of people have been talking about the nice, cool weather for the past few days, but being the sarcastic jerk I am, I would like to remind you of the virtues of the rainy season:

• get your umbrellas ready. In that case, might as well take the gumboots out of the closet as well.
• when was the last time you checked your car? don’t let the windshield wipers stop working on a late, rainy evening.
• friends in the flood-prone areas – better get ready for anything.
• put those buckets at the leak-prone points in your house. Or maybe it’s time to fix it already.
• clean up those water drains! Or else you’d be facing your very own, personal flood.
• companies with give-away merchandise – this is a good time to give out those odd-coloured umbrellas, this time people will just take them, no questions asked.
• Motorcycle riders – get those ponchos, sheets of plastic, riding boots or plastic bags with rubber bands ready. Might as well use swimming goggles.
• Don’t leave your laundry outside! Somebody might steal it, whether or not its raining. (yes, laundry gets stolen)
• Make sure you have appointed strategic waiting points to wait out the traffic jams. Yes, not waiting out the rain, but waiting out the impending traffic jams it brings with it.
• Jakartan government – do what you always do when rainy season comes. Whatever it is. I never figured that out. Should be something, right?

You realize that Jakarta is so hot that even motorcycles install heavy-duty air conditioning. Example: note the motorcycle with the air compressor attached to the back.

So what else is new. There are so many student or union demonstrations today, a lot of the time we don’t even care what they’re trying to say! Try to swallow the amount of demos scheduled today in this article. Paling tidak sekarang kalau demo ada jalur hukumnya, supaya teratur dan tidak mengganggu lalu lintas pada umumnya… at least secara teori. Kenyataannya tetep macet, toh? Dan keliatan dari daftar demo ini, informasi yang ingin diketahui orang banyak itu tentang jam, lokasi, bentuk kegiatan. Mungkin ada yang peduli siapa yang demo, jadi ditulis juga. Tapi apa yang didemokan….

Ayo, demo hari ini tentang apa?

Pliss dehh…

(Originally posted Dec 11, 2005)

It’s the rainy season in Jakarta, and the new King has arrived.

Whatever happens, when the water comes, everybody just stops. They stay in their buildings, they stop their cars on the street… giving a moment for the new King to pass. Why?

Because, when it rains here… IT REALLY RAINS.
when it starts raining hard… the defunct drainage system just lets the water flow onto the streets, even the main roads (yes, including those big four-lane roads)… motorcyclists stop under flyovers for cover from the rain… thus creating a city-wide traffic jam. the motorcyclists on a 2-lane road take up one lane (as there are tens of thousands of motorcylces in Jakarta), not to mention the flood, which can break down most of the older cars rolling in the street… as if we don’t have enough of these traffic jams on usual sunny days…

so if it’s raining outside… better to stay in.. or take your chances… taking forever to go where you’re going to.

plis deeeeh…