As I mentioned in my previous post, we went to Singapore last week. And, as I alluded to, Singapore welcomed us with cleanliness, efficiency, impeccably functioning infrastructure, competent service, and an attention to aesthetic minutiae (see: beautiful climbing ivy planted on temporary metal fencing around a construction zone) that makes the unpleasant or mundane enriching and joyful. But, you know, I don’t live in Singapore. Both a wide sea and several income brackets separate me from doing so, and so pining for its pleasantness is a purely masochistic exercise. Thus, I now bend to the task of appreciating—which is different than tolerating—Jakarta.
So, what has Jakarta done for me lately? What, in this city, brings my life joy or laughter or insight or education?
Well, for one thing, there are kittens everywhere. I’m allergic to cats and fully understand the health and animal control repercussions of stray kittens on every street corner, but, come on, how can seeing this when you leave the house in the morning not get your day off to a good start:
I can haz kitty?
Arguably even better, there are lizards everywhere. And these lizards are damn cute. The smallest are about the size of a piece of Orbitz gum, and the biggest iPhone-length. They’re all over our porch and our floors, and sometimes at dinner we’ll look up and see one clinging to the dining room ceiling, and, my personal favorite, there’s a big guy who seems to live in our silverware drawer, with whom I have a panicked, almost-daily communion when I go to get a spoon for my yogurt. I doubt lizards are even allowed in Singapore.
The people here are so happy. I know, that’s a generalization and comes from the perspective of an outsider who’s only lived here for a bit over a month, but it’s been corroborated both by other foreigners who have been here some time, and by my daily wanderings down the noisy streets. Bajaj drivers, 7-11 clerks, sweat-glistening stick-thin men hauling enormous wooden carts of trash up traffic-crammed hills during a 90°F noon—if you catch their eyes, chances are they’ll wave back happily and beam at you, as if to say, “Isn’t this all just grand?!”
I’m never cold here. Not that I was cold in Singapore, but this doesn’t need to be a strictly comparative list. All that matters is that where I currently live, I never have to be cold for longer than it takes me to roll down the window of an overly air-conditioned taxi. For anyone who knows me (and for those of you who don’t, let me just fill you in: I’m always cold), this is a big deal.
There are no tourists here. Singapore, a rich, bustling, and Westerner-friendly hub, teems with tourists. With fannypacks and Teva’s, with picture-snapping tour groups, with map-wielding dads who walk into people just trying to make it down the street and mind their own business, thank you very much. This is not a pleasant cohort with which to coexist. On the other hand, nobody really “tours” Jakarta, per se. I may be foreign and out of my element, but I don’t gawk and point and pose with the wandering chickens and overflowing durian stands and rancid open sewers, and, because nobody else really wants to do that either, I don’t have to tolerate the gawking and pointing and posing of others.
But above all, trumping all of the above and constituting the one area in which Jakarta really gives Singapore or San Francisco or Paris a run for their money, awesomeness-wise, is the cost of street food. Nasi goreng, nasi uduk, mie goreng, bubur ayam, sate, siomay—endless joys await you in these little streetside stands. Full dinners—made on the spot with local ingredients and by natives who probably learned these dishes in their family kitchens, served with prawn chips and maybe an avocado or dragonfruit or sirsak smoothie, on a warm night at a cool table—these meals will set you back, depending on what you order, about $1 USD, maybe 2, possibly 3 if you get crazy and add a drink. Seriously. Seriously. Cup o’ Noodles seems like a yuppie splurge by comparison. Last night, for instance, I got two orders of nasi goreng especial (spicy seasoned fried rice with vegetables, a hot fried egg, and crispy prawn crackers), enough to fill both me and M, for 22,000 rupiah. For those of you not fluent in rupiah-dollar conversions, that’s about $2.34. Dinner for two for under $3. And believe me, I appreciated the shit out of that meal.
Nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut milk) with two kinds of eggs, potatoes, tofu, fried tempeh, fresh vegetables, and spicy mortar-ground chile sauce.
Journals + Jackfruit 