Stuff Indonesians Like

Stuff Indonesians Like #15: Name Dropping

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:17:00 +0000

If there is one thing we like more than sambal (tr. chili sauce) it's name dropping.

Indonesians, well, Jakartans to be exact, love to name drop. It's one of the things in life that's free and will impress the person we are speaking to.

This article is a piece to teach you how to name drop like a pro.

Now imagine you are in a party, or a wedding reception, or in a crowd where there are a lot of people you think look and sound more impressive than you do. What to do? Don't despair! One trick that can help you with your confidence and change what people think of you is to name drop someone famous you know.

Of course, this only works effectively if you happen to know this person you are about to name drop.

If you are a Jakartan, this is not too hard. If you are a South Jakartan it's not hard at all. If you are a social South Jakartan who went to one or more cool schools and at one point of your life was a party animal/lived overseas (choose one, better if you have experienced both) and you speak one (or more) foreign languages, this just became a lot easier.

However, if you are part of the Jakartan 'Tatler tartelettes', have more clothes than Rebecca Bloomwood and shop at all the shops frequented by Serena Vanderwoodsen and Blair Waldorf, you need not do any name droppings because it's usually YOUR name that people drop in conversations (and you have no business reading this blog).

Now, back to the imagination.

You see a group of well clothed Jakartans, your friend, the girl who invited you takes your hand and introduces you to those people. You clam up, you feel shy and unconfident in your new Zara dress and pumps (one that you bought after saving for it for three months, due to the unbelievably expensive price tags once it entered the Indonesian market) and you try oh so very hard to clinch your Mangga Dua bag hoping nobody will notice it.

You observe and listen in to their conversation, and then someone mentions a well known celebrity who just happens to be: your childhood neighbor/a friend of your brother's/a schoolmate of yours/an ex girlfriend of a friend/someone you met at a rave/a friend from AA/your rich uncle's mistress/someone you had threesome with.

JACKPOT! Now you too can join in the conversation. What's good is if you have dirt on the celebrity, or if you can make up a believable dirt on the said celebrity.

But it doesn't just stop there. You have to master the art of 'story telling'. You need to be able to sell what you are saying as to make people believe what you say.

How to do it? Well, you need to be indifferent when telling the story. No gushing at the sound of the celebrity's name even if he is a hunk of meat that you would jump at the first chance. You need to be cool as a cucumber and act as if the names you drop don't matter to you, like you're not impressed by them. This will make you appear as if you are 'in' at the same time.

Even better is if you can name drop real people with real achievements as opposed to beautiful celebrities that are nothing but glorified blow up dolls. Name dropping a person with real achievements will make you appear as if you have achieved something too to be able to know and or mingle with that person.

The best is to be able to name drop various names from various groups. Celebs, real people with achievements, socialites, rich Jakartans, 'Tatler tartellettes' etc. Remember, name drop with ease but be believable and indifferent. Like popularity or how people view you is unimportant to you.

What also does wonders is to drop a few foreign words along with your conversation, just make sure they are grammatically correct and you need to practice your pronunciation as to not make you seem like a fool. French impresses the middle to upper class much more than English, but when speaking to middle to lower class people, English is enough, as they are convinced that the correct way to pronounce Carrefour (a french hypermarket chain) is 'care-four' and not 'karfur' like the way it should be. Your French googling will be a lost cause.

But remember, you must avoid at all costs name dropping people you don't know at all. You must have a legitimate connection, however slight it may be. It's your credibility you are betting on, and once people find out you lie, your whole cred will go down the drains and it will be next to impossible to re-penetrate the world of the fascinatingly ignorant and superficial.

When you have mastered the art of name dropping, you will see doors being opened to you and new opportunities will rise. So good luck and do not forget to comment here when you have practiced what you have learned!

Stuff Indonesians Like #13: Posing

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 14:16:00 +0000

Indonesians all secretly want to become models, even ones that has no chance or looks or talents whatsoever. The current digital camera phone technology has opened the doors wider for the even the most average of the average Jokos™ and Inems to realise their dreams of becoming models, even to just publish it in their fb profiles.

The Indonesians' dreams of becoming models is the reason why we love to strike a pose, whether just to stand around and talk to one another, or for pictures.

When you look at a friendster/multiply/facebook or any other social networking site photos of an Indonesian, what you will notice first is their pose. In some (mostly girls, although there are some guy exceptions), what will first ~~slap you in the face is their strange contorted lips they think is sexy but actually makes them look ridiculously similar to a trout~~ enchant you is their sexy pouts.

Posing with pouty lips is a favorite among Indonesian girls (and some guys) from all social status. Socialites to the slutty celebs, even normal average teenagers do the same, with some daring ones who try to imitate the queen of posing (and lazy eye), paris hilton or the queens of trout lips, the olsen twins.

Here are just some of the examples of pouty lip posing for the camera done by socialites,

here is one by a ~~slutty~~ sultry celeb (how and why she became a celebrity, nobody knows),

here is a group of pretty indonesian girls, again pouting,

and, an Indonesian guy who pouts,

The dream of becoming a successful model is so deeply embedded in Indonesians that some of us may become delusional as a result, and think that we are the next batch of Mr. Universe (or pretty boy band). These handsome future models below is the solid proof of how Indonesians love to pose.

*pictures taken from various sources in the web, if anyone reading is the rightful owner of the pictures, and objects the use of their pictures here, please contact blog owner to have it removed.

Stuff Indonesians Like #11: Eurasians

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:03:00 +0000

Anonymous had suggested that Indonesians like Eurasians and I concur.

Eurasians or what Indonesians call 'Indo' are a product of an Asian/Indonesian and Caucasian marriage/relationship. Most of these racially mixed products are aesthetically pleasing, or in layman's term, easy on the eyes.

Indonesians do not only like these Indos but we absolutely looooooove them.

Having mixed heritage in Indonesia is like winning the genetic pool lottery. Good looking female Indos may not have to work hard in their whole life. All they have to do is to sit there and be pretty and wait for a rich pejabat (Indonesian government official) or businessman to sweep them off their feet and make them their mistress/second wife/first wife.

As a cause of Indonesians' love for anything and anyone racially mixed (not just dogs and cats), many Indonesians aspire to marry those from the Caucasian race just to have good looking kids they call "The Next Indonesian Top Model" and by the next Indonesian top model I mean, "mommy's meal ticket when things go sour between mommy and daddy and we are sent back to bloody jakarta/tegal/pekalongan/[..insert kampung name here..] with nothing but the clothes on our backs".

Indonesians' love for Indos are so deep that many of us do everything in our power to look like one. This includes nose jobs, other plastic surgery procedures that will give us Eurasian features, dying our hair blond, constantly wearing colored contact lenses and usage of dangerous whitening creams to make our skin fair just like them Indos.

Indonesians love Indo so much that they can have an IQ of 70, a brain the size of a peanut, zero talent but if they are goodlooking they will be rich and famous by way of becoming movie stars or models or singers or tv stars and produce shows or songs which will be loved and bought by native Indonesians.

All this is just because we like to see beautiful things, and we like to sweep ugly things under the rug.

Stuff Indonesians Like #10: Malls

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:25:00 +0000

Indonesians love Malls. We think it's God's second greatest gift to mankind after rice.

Americans might think their malls are awesome, but they are sadly mistaken, because what we have is simply awesomer.

We have adjacent hotels and apartments in some of our malls, one has a water park, a giant climbing wall, another has an ice skating rink and a gigantic Marrygold Clock (every hour on the hour the Seiko clock opens up and visitors are serenaded by a 6-figure orchestra), some have bowling alleys, offices, internet cafes while most have gaming centers, mosques, churches and fitness centers/gyms. But all of them have movie theaters, supermarkets, beauty salons, restaurants, cafes, bars/clubs, foodcourts and banks. When your feet aches from all the walking and shopping, there is even a mall with a foot reflexology treatment center!

What is also important for those who could not bother with finding a parking space, there is almost always valet parking service in our malls. Our malls also provide call service for our drivers to pick us up wherever it is we are waiting in, and to call someone we are meeting or kids we have lost along our shopping frenzy.

Not only do we have high fashion and family malls, we have malls that cater to those wanting to buy replica watches, fake designer label items, pirated DVDs, handicrafts, computers, pirated softwares, traditional Indonesian medicines and potions, prescription medicines without the prescription, cell phones and a myriad of other items. We have absolutely everything in our malls that we could literally spend our entire day and night in malls.

It is clear that malls have become a center of or human interaction for Indonesians in general, but not only that, malls have even become a place where you can find a date! Most of us dress to kill when they go to malls, even the attached ones, for the sole purpose to be seen and to be drooled over.

Indonesian girls are blessed with good genes, but imagine good genes in skimpy outfts and flawless make-up! Gorgeous Indonesians girls like these are abundant in our malls, and they come in every size, shape and age. There is one (or four) for every man.

Office workers choose malls as the place to relax an unwind after a long day of work. Most office workers wait in malls for the traffic to subside before heading home. Business people also conduct business meetings and sometimes business deals in malls. It is always impressive to bring a prospective client to one of the many plush cafes or restaurants in our malls.

White people might think that a mall is where to go when they need to buy stuff, whether groceries, shoes, clothes, perfumes or leopard printed faux-suede handcuffs; but it is the Indonesians that have turned the art of malls for shopping into something else. We have invented 'malls as a way of life' and we have given a new meaning to 'one-stop shopping'.

Some of us have turned to Malls for answers, turning it into a religion with devout followers. Mall is a fun religion where you get to worship in a cool air conditioned atmosphere, amongst beautiful people and breathe delightful brand-new smelling air ~~except when there are smelly 'orang kampungs' nearby~~.

We have turned malls to recreational centers where we cheerfully spend our weekends and every single one of our public holidays because, yes, our malls are open 7/7, from 9 am to 10 pm. Why go to a boring beach or mountain or national park or go sightseeing when we can go to malls and have more fun?

China might have the Great wall of China, America might have the Grand Canyon, Paris might have the Eiffel Tower and Firenze might have the leaning tower of Pisa, but we have something better; Jakarta has Senayan City, Plaza Grande, Mall Taman Anggrek, Pondok Indah Mall, Plaza Indonesia/Plaza EX, Citos and or course, Jalan Casablanca that will soon be turned as a shopping street, our way of saying 'Eat your heart out Orchard Road!' (Singapore's famous shopping street)

That is why Indonesians love malls with a vengeance.

Stuff Indonesians Like #8: Light Skin

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:35:00 +0000

The previous poll showed how 'light skin' is preffered by 8 people to be the next topic. So here it is.

Indonesian girls like having light skin. We obsess about it. Why? Because our culture dictates so. This is deeply embedded within our society that we think having light skin can change our lives and improve it dramatically. This obsession is not only among the majority of the lower class, but surprisingly among the middle and upper class too.

You might never see a woman (or man) walking with an umbrella in broad daylight in your country, but in Indonesia, it's the norm. Some of us make a point to never go out in broad daylight. Some call it life deprivation, we call it sense and sensibility.

We think having light skin, especially for a girl, is better than winning the lottery. It's better because it's genetic lottery. Having this particular trait will ensure our life happiness because the lighter we are, the richer men we may get as our husbands.

While having a (natural) tan among white people is more desirable - it shows how one is able to afford to have vacations in a warmer climate - Indonesians feel light and pale skin is more 'high class' because dark skin is associated with those who do manual work under the sun.

Indonesian women also wish to have light skin because Indonesian men love women with light skin. Indonesian men, however dark their skin might be, prefer the light skinned over the dark ones any day. This is one of the pressures among young dark skinned girl which will drive her to spend millions of rupiahs she cannot afford to go to doctors to lighten their skin color.

Indonesians will go at arms length to ensure having lighter skin, including utilizing dangerous cancer-inducing lightening creams. There are many warnings about these so-called creams, but we don't care, we feel having light skin is worth the danger of cancer. At least with cancerous light skin we will finally get a man, while having cancer free dark skin will get us nowhere.

Although umbrellas and hats are in common use among Indonesians to protect us from the sun, we seemed to have not yet discovered the use of sunblocks and we are not familiar with creams with SPF yet either. This is because as a nation we strive to look good and nothing else, health included, is as important.

Stuff Indonesians Like #7: Being Fluent in a Foreign Language

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:14:00 +0000

Indonesians really like to be fluent in a foreign language. English is the most popular language we like to be fluent in, with Chinese and Dutch on second and third place. Indonesians who speak French will also be envied by many.

We all know how being fluent in a foreign language is good for our jobs and career, but one thing Indonesians value more than that is their social life, and foreign languages really boost our position in the social strata, especially when we learn the language while living overseas.

You will find many Indonesians in restaurants or malls who speak mixed languages. There are those who speak Engdonesian™ (English-Indonesian), Mandonesian™ (Mandarin-Indonesian) and even Dutchonesian™ (Dutch-Indonesian), the latter usually spoken by older Indonesians who are either products of Dutch-Indonesian mix marriages or who spent their childhood in Catholic schools with Dutch speaking nuns and whatnot.

Some Indonesians do not only like being fluent in a foreign language but do so up to a point of not being able to speak Bahasa Indonesia anymore. There are those who have lived overseas for so long - for example two years - that they have to dig deep when trying to converse with their fellow Indonesians in their mother tongue.

What Indonesians like more than being fluent in a foreign language is dissing fellow Indonesians who are not very fluent in a foreign language, especially those who have lived/been living overseas for sometime and still do not have the grasp of the local lingo. But we also diss those who have never been abroad and cannot speak a foreign language very well, just because it's funny and just because we can.

If you are a foreigner and would like to have Indonesians welcome you with open arms, learn a few Indonesian words, use it and you will instantly be accepted. If you are white, you don't need to do a thing, you will instantly be accepted even if you are an ass, just because we love your language and we would like to practice our conversational skills with you.

Stuff Indonesians Like #6: Jazz

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:41:00 +0000

Indonesians love Jazz, even if we don't understand the music. We love Jazz so much we are willing to sit through an excruciatingly long fusion jazz concert, while holding in our yawn and secretly wish we have several matchsticks to jam in our eyes and hold them open.

What we love more than pretending to love Jazz is attending Jazz Festivals. Some Indonesians will go as far as attend Jazz Festivals around the world, after which they will casually throw in their experience into their conversations.

If you are unsure of how to appear like a know-all of jazz and have no time to do research, you can always say neutral remarks like this, "Yeah, I went to the Montreux Jazz Festival, it was great!" (although you have to realise nowadays the artists performing in this festival aren't exclusively Jazz musicians anymore, but pop, rock, rn'b etc)

If you know a bit about jazz and happen to know names of great unknown jazz musicans you can say things like this, "North Sea Jazz Festival was awesome! I had such a great time watching [...insert obscure jazz musician name here...]" Remember, the more obscure the better. It will be a win for you if the name you mentioned is unheard of by those you are having the conversation with.

If you have the time to do research about jazz, do throw in obscure names and don't forget to study who those musicians' influences are and throw their names in as well. Something like this, "Yeah I saw [...obscure jazz musician/group here...] at the montreal/umbria/monterey jazz festival. Their performance reminded so much of [...miles davis/bb king/duke ellington...]"

Remember, as much as Indonesians don't understand Jazz, we will go at arm's length to make sure we appear to love it. That is why we now even have our own Jazz Festival, which is quite a big event in South East Asia. The JakJazz/Java Jazz Festival in Indonesia is so lucrative to the promoters of the event because each year the number of visitors increase, regardless of them actually enjoying/understanding the music or not.

Stuff Indonesians Like # 5: Being Friendly

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:15:00 +0000

We Indonesians take pride in our friendliness and our willingness to be as friendly and accommodating as possible, even if it means ~~secretly cursing and swearing while doing it~~ doing stuff we wouldn't normally do.

We have somewhat different standards when it comes to being friendly. Foreigners might think we are ~~rude, annoying and irritating up to a point where they cannot stand us anymore~~ crossing the line when in fact we were merely showing real interest in their culture/life/self and being friendly.

Some of us are extremely interested in foreigners, white foreigners. When we see one we like to bombard him/her with questions. You might meet one or twenty of us who might ask you personal questions on the first day of meeting.

Questions such as:
What is your religion?
Are you married?
with an Indonesian?
Are your kids from a white father/mother or from and Indonesian one?
Why are one of your kids brown and the other one so pale?
and so on and so forth.

We might let out statements and questions we think are appropriate, appreciative or complimentary such as; "So, you must be rich!" or, "Do you have a swimming pool?" or, "You're a white person, so how much do you make a month?" and even, "it must be easy for you to get girls with all the money you have!" We would most likely smile innocently while saying/asking these things because we really were complimenting you.

Indonesians are not familiar with the wily and sarcastic ways of the west, with all the sneering, sly grinning and false/slick smiling. We are warm, honest and sincere individuals.

When you have Indonesian friends you have hung out with several times, the questions and statements will become even more personal. But it's because we think of you as a very good friend by then. Maybe even a bestfriend!

If you haven't seen us in a while, when we meet again you might hear things like: "Ooh you're so fat now!" or "You look older, is that wrinkles I see?" or "Are you losing hair?" or the combination of two or all the questions/statement above usually followed by a head tilt, sympathetic face and a "What happened to you?"

Do not, under any circumstances, reject an Indonesian's offer of hospitality no matter how menial or humble it may be. To do so is to cause pain in our hearts. Not only are we warm individuals, we live to please others, be friendly and extra accommodating. Anybody who says otherwise is a fool.

Stuff Indonesians Like #4: Having Well-Behaved Children

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:25:00 +0000

Indonesians like to have well-behaved children so much that we have various ~~cruel ways~~ methods to discipline our children. Our parents were highly imaginative and resourceful that they thought of many creative ways and ideas as to educate their children.

Although the following methods are more common among the older generation, some of us still use it due to the high success rate of the methods in question. One of the most proven methods of which is to ~~scare them into being good~~ use strict/stern disciplinary methods. Another is to ~~lie and use superstitions or even ghost stories~~ tell them them of ancient cultural/folk stories passed down to us for many generations.

Disciplinary Methods

When we are caught doing something we're not supposed to, some of us may experience the occasional well intentioned, albeit painful, rattan/belt/stick lashings; some might have been used to several hours of being locked in a room for the beneficial 'introspection and self-reflection'; some parents prefer to pinch, ear tug or humiliate their child but most felt the need to inflict some kind of pain in order to make their children regret their poor judgment/wrongdoing and promise themselves not to ever do it again.

In most cases, these children will still do whatever it is their parents told them not to do, but they will come up with ingenious and inventive ways as to not get caught. More often than not, these children will grow to be tough bullies or bad boys or tough and slightly slutty girls (and some 'special' boys, slutty as well). You might think our parents' rough way is some form of child abuse, but make no mistake, we don't hate our parents. In fact, many of us swap beating stories and regard this as normal.

Parents from the younger generation are fans of Dr. Phil and Oprah, some read Deepak Chopra's book and are not big believers of child beatings anymore. Instead, they use ' child psychology' and will not lay a hand on their children, which is why you will find many children in Indonesian malls these days who do anything they want, while their ~~wussy~~ enlightened parents ~~can't do shit~~ sit still and let their children run around to ~~be annoying and torture the rest of us~~ express their little selves.

Passing down ancient cultural/folk stories

Most Indonesians have ~~absurd~~ colorful stories from their childhood. Some of us know they're made up stories to make us do what our parents wanted, whether it's to make our beds, eat our food or not hurt ourselves.

To keep the doorway free, girls are told not to sit in it because girls who do, will not be desired by any men for marriage (I have known many girls who sat under one despite the 'scary' story and ended up having 2, 3 husbands). To keep children from running around outside after dark children are told that after sunset child snatcher ghosts roam around to look for prey. To keep us from having appendicitis from eating fruit seeds we were told if we swallowed a fruit seed, a tree will grow on our heads. To keep their children from gastric reflux or gastritis parents tell children not to lie down or sleep after a meal if they don't want their heads swollen up like a big balloon.

Those are just some sample stories we might have heard growing up. It seems Indonesian parents prefer fantastic stories rather than common sense when it comes to educating their children. Maybe it was done in hopes that their children have extraordinary imagination and be the next Stephen King, M. Night Shyamalan or even just one of the Punjabi producer brothers (anything as long as the money's good).

Having ~~false mannered~~ well-behaved children is something of a general obsession among Indonesian parents that they cannot understand white kids with their free and liberal ways. White kids call their friends' parents by their first names instead of 'aunty' and 'uncle' (we call all adults aunty and uncle), white kids often have their feet on the table and sometimes *gasps* on the sofa arm/headrest (instead of down on the ground nicely like they're supposed to) and even worse, *double gasps* they talk back to their parents when told off (a BIG no-no in any Indonesian households!)

Indonesian parents will never let their children grow up like white children.

Stuff Indonesians Like #3: Designer Brands

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:24:00 +0000

Indonesians like designer brands. The fondness of designer brands is not limited to women but also to men, and now more than ever, kids are starting to feel the need for designer brands too, whether toys or shoes or clothes.

When you find yourself in a crowd of Indonesians, it is always good to sport one or two designer items, better if they are adorned by a very famous monogram. Some Indonesians will ask where you buy your stuff and how much it cost. If you are ~~stupid and honest~~ modest and trying to be helpful and reply with a, “oh I got it in a sale/garage sale, very cheap!” don't, cos we will not be comfortable hearing that. Some of us might go as far as implying the stuff you own might be fake after hearing you say that.

To get our attention and approval, it is imperative that you go all “Gossip Girly” and insist you bought your designer branded items at wholesale price. Throwing in stuff like, “I can’t be bothered to go to an outlet store,” or, “I really needed the purse/watch/shoes/dress for an event that week that I simply cannot wait until the sale season!” in the conversation is always a good thing to up your coolness. But if you really want to gain our respect you can say things – casually, of course - like this, "Oh I got it at a vintage store in Paris/Milan/London two summers ago. I was told it once belonged to a dear friend of Carla Bruni's" This way, although you are divulging information about how your stuff was not bought at wholesale price, you will appear more sophisticated and 'in the know'.

If you want to be accepted in an Indonesian clique AND be well-liked, you have to be able to do all the above while at the same time still able to show a hint of humility by, for example, complimenting our designer branded stuff. We like people who make us feel good about ourselves and we like to be admired constantly.

One Indonesian faux-pas is to be seen with a counterfit/replica designer item. If you cannot afford buying the real thing, NEVER go for fake. It is better to go down a class or two and wear stuff in the class of DKNY, Guess, Liz Claiborne and Kenneth Cole. Although we will not make a fuss about you at all, you will still be able to sit with us and listen in to our conversations while feeling considerably inferior. But what is feeling inferior when you can sit and be seen with us by your friends who can't even afford a knock-off DKNY purse, right?

While we go crazy for famous high end brands like Gucci, Prada and LV, those of us who are smart and not from the nouveau riche group or the nouveau riche wannabe but belong to old money, we make sure not to wear the ‘obvious’ branded stuff or the brands for commoners. We go old school and obviously very expensive. Some of the brands that best represents this are Hermès, Chanel, Cartier, Valentino, etc.

The more ‘cultured’ and ‘traveled’ Indonesians are especially proud to sport obscure and exclusive designer brands, one that is not too widely known or easy to come across in Indonesia. Nicole Farhi, Jil Sanders, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Badgley Mischka are to name a few.

Some Indonesians take pride in their ability to know designer names by heart, even the most obscure ones. If you want to get in their good graces, be sure to be in awe of that person’s ability to recite and perfectly pronounce difficult foreign designer names. They will immediately take a liking to you.

But better yet, show your admiration and at the same time show them you are also up to date with designer news by saying things like, “Yes, I absolutely love Ann Demeulemeester’s fall line-up, I think her designs are underrated” or, “I am happy you know Zac Posen's work, it's pathetic that not a lot of Indonesians do!” make sure you exaggerate your surprise/admiration a bit to make us feel even better about ourselves and when you make fun of other people who are obviously lesser people than you are for not knowing who Dries Van Noten is, make sure you create an air of exclusivity and hint of mischief and invite them in this atmosphere so that you will be considered as a contender to replace [..insert name of a member of their clique whose husband is starting to lose money in their investments and soon to be booted out of the gang here..].

Throwing in designer gossip/news and tidbits will get you the ultimate recognition nod. Of course, you must NEVER seem better than us, remember, showing a certain level of humility will still be the best way to get into our clique.

Examples of Indonesians 'in the know': Jakarta Socialites.

Stuff Indonesians Like #2: Domestic Helpers

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:24:00 +0000

Indonesians like having domestic helpers. We love them. Actually, this might even fall into the category of stuff Indonesians in Indonesia can’t live without.

The average middle-class Indonesian households have at least one maid. Many have two or three, and I actually know people who have more than 5 maids in their houses in addition to gardeners, drivers, security guards and baby sitters (many of whom refer to themselves as “baby sisters”).

While it is obvious what a driver, a gardener, a security guard and a baby sitter does, it is not so clear what a maid does. The average maid will basically do cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing. Some maids have a higher rank in a household when they have established a close relationship with their employers. When this happens they can become a confidante (for lonely housewives who has no friends), a personal shopper, a psychiatrist (for lonely housewives whose friends are backstabbing bitches), a shopping buddy, a mother (for children whose biological moms are too busy with their hectic daily schedule of shopping, spa, arisan etc), a masseur, a courier/messenger, a spy (for jealous wives with cheating husbands) and for the lucky few, they can go up the career ladder and end up as their employer’s mistress and in some cases, wife.

As a heritage of the Dutch colonialism and ancient Indonesian kingdoms, this culture of having domestic helpers and the amount of them in your household is also a likely indication of how rich you are. When you go to an Indonesian home, knock on the door and the owner opens the door, he is not a rich person.

When you go to an Indonesian home, knock on the door, peek from the window and see the house owner sitting there yet he calls the maid to open the door for you, ask who you are, tell the house owner and then let you in on approval of the house owner, this is the norm.

When you go to an Indonesian home and gets stopped by the security guard in front of the house, who goes in to inform the maid about you, who then goes to the house owner to tell them about your visit, who will in turn tell the maid to let the security guard open the gates for you and get them to open the door and call them once you are seated in the guest waiting room with some drinks and refreshments, this is a clear indication of a wealthy person's home.

When you go to a house with a speaker phone at the front asking you who you are; followed by a jongos (usually an old man whose sole purpose is to hang around and keep an eye on things and boss around the security guards) who looks at you and yells at 2 or more security guards to check and confirm that you are not dangerous/robbers/armed gunmen; followed by the him informing the maids about the guest, who will then inform the home owner’s personal assistant/sister/brother of your arrival, who will at last ask the home owners whether or not they will accept your visit; followed by the personal assistant telling the maids to inform the security guards who will ask the jongos to take a look at you one more time before letting you in, you will know that the home owner is not a paranoid lunatic but simply, a very rich, respectable and important person (VRRIP).

While most Indonesians with children have one maid designated to mind their children, some have one minder for each child. Their ~~torture objects~~ nannies, if you will. It is a common sight when you go to an Indonesian mall and see a young couple walking with two kids and their two nannies following them around. They normally have a driver who is waiting in the mall’s “drivers’ quarters” and comparing notes with other drivers about their salary, working conditions, etc. (This is one of the many reasons why Indonesians love SUVs and vans. Will be discussed in the future)

Indonesian domestic helpers careers do not only blossom in the country, but overseas as well, with high wages of millions of rupiahs per month. Some of them are even bi/multilingual, with the ability to speak English/Malay/Bruneian/Chinese or Arabic in addition to Indonesian (and their local dialects). These are the “successful domestic helpers” (SDH).

SDHs are not only the ones who work overseas, those who work for the VRRIPs are also SDHs. Some of the SDHs actually have maids of their own in their villages. Not only as a necessity, but also a way to show their neighbors of how successful they are as domestic helpers in big cities/other countries.

The average Indonesian's worst nightmare is Lebaran (The Muslim's Holy day of Aidl Fitri) when all their maids will go home to their families to celebrate Lebaran together. This will their employers go nuts because most likely they will be stuck doing household chores themselves. Rich Indonesians will usually enlist the help of their poor families or hire temps from temp agencies to do this for them but the rest will be forced to do this awful manual labor at least once a year.

Stuff Indonesians Like #1: RICE

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:23:00 +0000

Stuff Indonesians Like #1: RICE

Indonesians love rice. We cannot live without it. Some of us even eat rice for breakfast.

We have many kinds of breakfast varieties made from rice among which are, nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut milk), nasi goreng (fried rice), bubur ayam (rice porridge/soup with chicken), ketoprak (rice cakes topped with soya, fried tofu and peanut sauce) and the classic lontong sayur (rice cakes in vegetable curry).

The importance of rice in our lives is so highly ranked that we think it is God's one true gift to man-kind.

Some of us also think there is a rice God, which is why you will find some of us keeping a small jar of rice under the sink in our houses or some who will never let our rice containers empty at whatever cost.

We do this to ensure the rice God's happiness so that we will always have an abundance of money to buy more rice for them in the future.

You think “superstitious”, we think “common sense”.

Most of us will never leave rice on our plates in a meal because we believe rice can cry if we don’t eat them all. We are taught since a tender age that when we die and stand before God on judgment day, the thousands of rice we left on our plates and did not eat will cry and report us to God who in turn will be so angry and throw us in hell.

So people who don’t eat rice has a serious problems, also people who throw rice at weddings. Not good.

We feel rice is neutral and very versatile, just like Switzerland. You can eat rice with sweet dishes, spicy dishes, tasty dan salty dishes, watery dishes and dried dishes. It tastes good fried, steamed, microwaved and baked.

Many Indonesians feel that sandwiches, burgers, noodles, pizza, potatoes and other non-rice entities are snacks, therefore it is common to see a person eating a plate of rice just 10 short minutes after eating a bowl of noodles.

“I haven't had my lunch yet. Chicken Noodles? That wasn't lunch, that was just a snack!” or “I am still hungry, the burger and pizza just can't cut it, I need rice,” and the ever popular “I get sick if I don’t eat rice three times a day” are common answers you hear when you ask us why we eat rice after we have just eaten a Big Mac and fries.

When you visit an Indonesian home, you will find that most of us - if not all - own at least one rice cooking device. We are so used to this device that many of us do not know how to cook rice otherwise. Fortunately for us who are living in Indonesia, food vendors pass by every 5 minutes offering many dishes with rice as the main ingredient.

But those who are not living in Indonesia and who cannot cook rice without a rice cooker/cannot cook rice period, then we are royally screwed. That is until we discover that someone's Uncle called Ben invented microwaved rice, which is a genius invention and therefore this Uncle Ben must be smarter than Einstein.

With high nutrients, rice is rich in carbohydrates, the main sources of energy, low in fat, contains some protein and plenty of B vitamins. Another is that rice is a good source of insoluble fiber, which is also found in whole wheat, brand and nuts. Insoluble fiber reduces the risk of bowel disorders and fights constipation and crime.

Besides fighting crime, eating rice enables us to fight corruption, stupidity, laziness and it even helps in eradicating poverty! Oh wait, that's brown rice, Indonesians eat normal white rice. that explains why all the above is still apparent in Indonesia.

Stuff Indonesians Should Like

noreply@blogger.com (rimafauzi) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 08:00:00 +0000

Please suggest more stuff we would and should like in the comment section. You can e-mail me at loveyrima@gmail.com for reader submissions.
Thanks!