Cruising the cities’ streets

I’m back in Indonesia now. It’s been a month and few days I step back my foot on this land. Quiet interesting as I walk around the city streets I see many faces of the inhabitants. I sense the habituals.

The crowdedness of living in a country of 220 millions people struck my eyes open of what makes this country a bit hard to live in. People with inadequateness(es) <– if such word exist- refer themselves to many choices of habits they can (may not be) live(d) in.

Indonesian TV channels as the main member of the family show arrays of promises, happiness and tragedy suspended by exaggerating voices and scores. They present themselves like how TV present itself. They say what the TV says, they talk about what the TV talks, they think like how TV thinks. One difference: they watch while the TV actually produces.

TV is the time-killer, and it is a must-have item in every house holds. No matter how bad their house is, a TV, no matter how expensive it is, will somehow get an honour to be afforded. On my way driving to Banda Aceh from Lhokseumawe, I passed village houses. -This is quiet a common view in Aceh- I noticed some satellite dishes mushrooming on top of zinc roofs and on the front yards. it may be understandable to put a world vision on a coffee shops / kede kopi / as part of customer service, but spending hundred of thousands for personal entertainment? It’s their right, it’s our right, it’s their money, not my money. But why?

Time-killing is the habit that has evolved into habit and becomes a need. Of the 24 hours there should be an off time, a spare time. not bcoz of exhaustion, not becoz we have other things to do, not becoz we have other resposibility to attend. Sometimes it’s just becoz we want a break. this once become a problem in this part of the world as we prefer to sit on a couch and watch TV rather than do somethingelse.

I’m now in Surabaya, the city i had never been into, but often represented as the tougher part of Java. It looks not so like it though. The javanese accents that still attached to most people here have overshadowed the image of the Eastern Javanese people who are often portrayed as a loud, rough and cruel. it has so far been a pleasure meeting the people here. Comparing to the malays in malaysia and aceh, the bataks of north sumatera, the javanese is a softly-speaking and appologetic BUT, highly potential to retaliate. they speak with their heart, not speaking out their heart. their feelings are sensitive, not sensing with their feelings. the norm is the regulation, they agree, everyoneelse must agree. stubborn? not if you are the regulation.

The Javanese who lived in Sumatera and absorb the Sumaterans way of speaking speaks heavier than when it is spoken by the sumaterans?. It hurts you more when a javanese ’shoot’ you. Does the Sumateran speak heartlessly or does the Javanese put too much heart on their words? (At this part of the world, the word ‘heart’ contains kindness, but what i mean here is more of an emotion, which may be of a good heart or a sick heart).

The country of 220 million people left only few spots to cultivate, or at least that’s how we view job opportunities here. it is about being an employee, part of big companies than being a business partner of the big companies.

BUT, some youths have begun to shift this laziness paradigm and shift it to entrepreneurship. Lots of new stores, lots of new companies, lots of new business made by the youths these days. not on owner-worker base, but on mutual partnership base. More young millionaires take up the chance and lead the countries’ productivity. Cooperating with the peer and the young and the old. In Bandung, Surabaya, Medan, and Aceh, I see this country’s hope to revive.

2.4.07 / 12am