Surga Dunia? Jakarta, Pasti!

Surga dunia! Heaven on Earth!

That’s oft been my reply when Indonesians ask me how come I’ve stayed in Jakarta for so many years.

If your previous location was somewhere in one of those chilly countries that border the shores of the North Atlantic, you’d be off yer rocker not to be happy here in this mostly hot and sunny city..

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Even in the current rainy season, few days pass without an hour or two of sunshine when one can sit out front and bask with a book.

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A warteg – hard to spend more than two bucks, unless your appetite is gargantuan! 

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Eating is cheap if you’re not a stuck-up.

Most people are friendly, and many of them are a delight to behold!

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Miss Indonesia candidates a year or two ago, but there are millions more just as cute!

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What’s not to like?

At once a dozen hands will go up, a chorus of ‘The Traffic,’ and yes, that is a major minus, but if you’re retired from serious toil, it is not an insurmoutable burden, especially if you have the sense not to take taxis. Public transport is just as fast as cabs, and a tenth of the price! 

But now I read that Governor Ahok has hi-jacked my term of praise to pin-point just one small corner of the capital city he runs – NB, I mean he runs the city, not the specific place he mentioned! –  the Hotel Alexis’ 7th Floor, where there’s an institution hitherto unknown to yours truly, the Bath House Spa.

• I used Google Translate to interpret the article in Okezone.com, with hilarious results, and offer you some choice extracts.

..In the Hotel Alexis there’s the 7th floor… In the Alexis it is not Heaven at Mother’s feet, but Heaven on the 7th Floor,” Ahok said, at City Hall, Jakarta, Tuesday (16/02/2016)    http://news.okezone.com/read/2016/02/16/338/1313623/ahok-lantai-7-alexis-surga-dunia.

I am sure Ahok was talking tongue in cheek, for his outlook on certain matters has in the past indicated a very prudish mindset, as when he had a hissy fit about a teen bikini party in another hotel 

“No, they can’t hold a bikini party. They could get arrested. There’s a regulation governing that. You can wear bikini at Ancol [beach], as you swim….”

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• 

• ” But if you go to a party dressed in a bikini, it’s outrageous.”
  

  ”Outrageous” Activity in Jakarta Pools? OMG – BIKINIS! 

I’ve generally had nothing but praise for the Guv, but he does have a Victorian streak!

However, let’s look at the report.

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Sex workers in the Hotel Alexis, said Ahok, originate from various countries. However, such imported strumpets are smart about covering their identity.

Strumpets!

What a splendidly old-fashioned word! But the man’s no doubt correct.

What amazes me though is why – when Indonesian women must rank as among the loveliest on Earth (don’t know about Heaven!) there’s any perceived need to import foreign chicks.

Yet the grass is always greener, so I guess local customers regard Slavonic gals as agreeably exotic! 

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I met a Russian lady in the late lamented Tanamur disco once.Let’s Re-Open TANAMUR, She was very charming, and appreciated my attempts to converse in her language.

‘Morozhenye,’ I said. ‘Ice Cream!’  

She laughed out loud, perhaps imagining I wanted her to engage in some outlandish use of that substance.

Alas, apart from ‘hello’ and ‘thanks,’ that’s about the limit of my Russian vocab. So we got no further than that!

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The Okezone writer has a much more appealing range of vocabulary, or at least that’s how Google renders his words.

Bath House Spa. Here are provided various facilities to ease tensions on the sidelines…

That’s in the Alexis, it seems –  but all over Jakarta…

…undeniably, during this time, many businesses satisfying lust are cloaked in various enterprises, such as massage parlors, karaoke parlors and nightclubs….with a varied fare, from hundreds of thousands to millions of rupiah.

As UK bus conductors used to shout, ‘FARES PLEASE!’

Warem2 Indonesia – Will Prohibition Herald a Land of ‘Dimly-Lit Stalls?’

 

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Here we are folks, one of those ‘dimly-lit stalls’ we keep hearing about. Just insert the phrase in our RRA search box and you’ll find plenty of references to this  phenomenon, which is the bete noire of kill-joy sectarian gangs across this beautiful archipelago.

I’ve gotta hand it to Harian Terbit for that alluring picture.  http://www.harianterbit.com/megapol/read/2015/03/24/23147/29/18/Masyarakat-dan-FPI-Desak-Pemkot-Bekasi-Tertibkan-Warem-di-Jatisampurna 

It was taken in Bekasi, a place not much fun when I lived there ten or more years ago, and increasingly so today, regrettably, given the bigoted regime of the Regent, No-Shame Neneng, whose loathing of religious liberty we have oftimes covered. 

• Bekasi’s Hitlerian Ultimatum to Ahmadis – Update on Golkar Party’s Intolerance 

However today’s post will be confined to more mundane matters, with these dimly lit stalls (warem) paradoxically in the spotlight.

 

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All Our Tomorrows – Jakarta Pedestrians Breathalysed? 

I’d noticed it when first published last month, but with the Government’s declaration that ALL consumption of alcohol, not just in Bekasi but across the archipelago (except Bali) is to be outlawed, it offers a glimpse of Indonesia’s potential Prohibitionist future.

It appears that ‘people’ in the Bekasi district of Kranggan Jatisampurna are ‘complaining,’ because ‘although often urged by the public, the city government is reluctant to take any action.’

The Regent is responsible for a wider area, but the actual city is the fief of yet another Golkar Party bigwig, Mayor Rahmat Effendi, also well-known to regular RRA readers.

• Bekasi’s Hitlerian Ultimatum to Ahmadis – Update on Golkar Party’s Intolerance 

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• i. No-Shame Neneng and Rachmat Effendi

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So what’s Rahmat done, or not done, to upset these ‘people?’

One resident of Kranggan, Edi (40) complained that until now the city government has not dared to bring order to the warem area at Jatisampurna, though its existence has an impact on the social life of the surrounding community.

And Edi’s ire is echoed by the War-Lord – a free translation but fair, I think – the head of the Laskars (Warriors) of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Greater Bekasi, Ustadz Cecep M Hudzaifah.  Oddly, Google Translate gives his name as Cecelia ( reminds me of the old pop song – ‘you’re breaking’ my heart!’) but I know he’s a fellow, not a female.

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 Cecep – not a happy man

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I am fairly certain the IslamoNazis don’t have women warriors – it would be inappropriate, given the definitive statement by their Jakarta boss (recently sentenced for ring-leading a riot)

• IslamoNazi Gauleiter – “Women Already Have Limitations, Let Alone Non-Muslims!” 

According to his Bekasi comrade, Cecep, the Jatisampurna warem are still in operation, Bekasi city government unfortunately just sealed off the place without any concrete action.

This, he rails, has given rise to immorality – and that comprises adulterated alcohol and alcoholic beverages, as well as the proliferation of naughty rented houses, as well as massage parlors!

http://www.beritaekspres.com/2015/03/21/laskar-pembela-islam-kompleksitas-masalah-sosial-marak-pemkot-bekasi-tutup-mata/

Well, adulterated booze can be damaging to one’s health.

And the risk has surely been exacerbated by the ludicrous anti-alcohol lobby here, which recently enacted an intolerant edict that won’t even let you buy an honest beer to take home from any of the many mini-marts which previously sold it.

Nor can you buy one and sit inside or outside the store to ease the strain of a hot arvo/evening, of which there are also many here. 

Now we face an escalating narrow-minded prohibitionism.

If the patrons of the dimly-lit stalls could get a decent drink for a decent price, would they not do so? Like the working-man in Cambridge’s Clarendon Arms in the UK, or Stratford’s Dominion House, in Ontario, non-affluent Bekasi blokes feel a need to relax over a drink after a long, hard day. 

But the tax on booze makes it expensive even for a mildly prosperous middle-class Indonesian, never mind your average working stiff. 

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The queue at my local dentist? No, if so I’d be eating candy and drinking Pepsi all day long! Actually, it’s a picture illustrating warem nightlife, allegedly. No address supplied by the media links – sorry!

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Oh, and I just LOVE this photo, prohibitionist charmers in yesteryear USA. As Grandpa used to say  ‘Twould drive ye tae drink!’ 

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Ironically, Cecep continued, it’s not far, only 100 meters, from the police station…where are the security forces and the city authorities..inert, silent, just letting this go on…?

Fair enough, his questions might well deserve an answer, if an illicit retail outlet is in operation as Cecep claims.

But as for the dimly-lit stalls’ other attractions, why whine about the girls?

If you want to crack down on poor slappers trying to get by in a very hard world, why urge the cops to pick on the gals in warem2?   One law for the rich, one for the poor?

Take a walk into any five-star hotel in Jakarta – especially after 10 pm on ladies’ nights, when the Falatehan over-spill arrives! The only difference between their bars and the warem2 is the amount customers pay for a beer – and everything else that’s on offer.

So when did the FPI – or the Police – last raid a glitzy international hotel?

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Speak-Easy slappers, aka flappers,  in Prohibitionist America

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Once prohibition is in place, they’ll have their hands full as ‘dimly-lit stalls’ AKA speak-easies, proliferate across the land.