The Mandrake [Published Private Life]

Some time ago, I received an email. It contains a poem written in Bahasa Indonesia. The title is ‘Aku Bangga Jadi Orang Indonesia‘ (I am proud to be Indonesian). Well, when I read today’s news, I can’t be happier than I was before.

There were two headlines on the paper that made me proud to be Indonesian. The first is an elementary student hung himself to death, and the second is an Indonesian fisherman was burnt (to death) while he was on his ship by Australians.

Don’t you find it cool? We made progress here. Tens of years ago, we wouldn’t read that kind of news. When I analize myself what’s going on, I came up with this. It started from the place we live. We call it: home. If you create nice environment at home, all the people living in it should be happy, too. You can create the happy air by being happy yourself.

And then when the night comes, all of you are in the living room watching TV. Now here comes the disaster. Starting from the sun set until it’s time to go to sleep, all we see is people scolding people, people hitting people in the face, people hunting ghost, all that what I called junk TV show.

Can we really blame the kid who must chew all of this stuff with no one around him to tell him that it’s just a show, kid? Now that he’s gone, can we all learn something? Turn off your TV, people. Otherwise, if you are so well fortunate, subscribe to cable TV. I am not talking about good alternative TV show here. It’s just that you can do better than watching freak show (yeah, that’s what I call Indonesian TV show).

On the Indonesian fisherman case, I just would like to say, I’m proud to be Indonesian. Wherever you go people just hit you in the face, kick you in the ass, burn you while you are alive, and our government only asks for explanation. No need to scold the country whose people done the damage. No need to do some action. Just ask for explanation and then life goes on.

So, if you live outside Indonesia and meet one of our people. Smash him/ her with your biggest fist you could ever make, we don’t mind. We’re so inferior. Don’t you just love this small country, huh?

The scene: a black SUV Honda CRV, latest model. Driving smoothly on asphalt. The window on the front passanger open slightly. Then.. she threw a piece of tissue, which I don’t want to know what it’s been used for.

That makes she has a clean car? Probably. But, she’s no cleaner than s**t itself. This is not the first scene I see. I’ve seen many, probably millions, of people do that. Delibarately littering on the streets are typical sloven in Jakarta. Everybody does it. Nope. Not me. I have my own trash bin in my own car.

They think by littering -throwing garbage out of the window- they’ll have a cleaner car. Yet, little do they know that it’s no different than living in a large garbage dump. That’s right. Jakarta is the largest garbage dump in the world.

I come to the point where I wonder: what will happen if we switch country with, say, America. That is, all of citizens of Indonesia move to America, and all citizens of America move to Indonesia. What would happen? I wonder.

Probably like this. First, we will see a clean, pure Ciliwung river. Downgraded pollution index in Jakarta. And who knows, probably, we won’t see demented traffic jam?

As in America, -should Indonesians live there- there will be upgraded pollution index in any state. Traffic jam all over the state. And, dirty river loaded with tons of garbage in any state. Yuck! I just can’t imagine no more.

Sad but true. This is Indonesia. Where people are so dirty. Don’t care about the environment.

Before making any judgement, you should know that we have law here. It says that you’ll be fined if you litter. But, who will enforce the law? Be surprised. We have policemen. But, it seems that they have better things to do than apprehending the suspect of littering.

So, if you work in a garbage dump, and miss that smelly environment. Feel free to come to Jakarta. You’ll love it.

Everyday, I ride to my office. I live in Jakarta for many years. It’s been, like, two or three years since I started riding my motorbike. And all of those times I have been breathing anything but fresh air.

The choices are rather complicated, to tell you the truth. I mean, I have a car at home, but I refuse to use it as my daily transportation. If you live in Jakarta long enough, you’ll be fed up with the traffic jam. To me, Jakarta is like the largest parking lot in the whole wide world. What’s the use of having a car if you can only move it an inch at a time?

Again, like I said, the choices are rather complicated. It’s either you go by your own car -and spending hundreds, (probably million to others) of rupiahs- and having the luxury of not breathing toxic air in the demented Jakarta traffic jam, or you go by your bike -and spending sooo little rupiahs- and having the luxury of getting to your destination relatively fast and maintain your sanity.

In short, do you want to stay sane but unhealthy or insane but healthy? I choose to be sane.

Some days ago, I finally succeeded aggregating my postings on Friendster to my own website: www.majolelo.com. Not a huge success, but I’m quite satisfied, man.

To view my post, just visit www.majolelo.com. Anything that is here, is also there. It’s kinda like mirror website. Only with my own domain name.