betty loves blogging

Lucky I saw the strippers last weekend...

I feel ever so fortunate to be in Indonesia at the same time as the infamous anti-pornography bill was finally passed, 10 years after it was first drafted. 

I'm also here while the Bali bombers will (presumably) be topped and homegrown Jakarta lad and very nearly Indonesian Barack Obama will dig John McCain's electoral grave.  It's exciting times in JKT. (no mother, I'm sure there won't be any hardline Islamic backlash, ok?  What, you thought you saw violent protests on the TV today in Jakarta?  Maybe it was India.  Just calm down and watch some more Home and Away, yeah?  Please send some plot updates as well, I'm dieing to know what happened to Martha with the cancer battle and all that.  Are Kirsty and whatshisname still together?)

But the porn bill is particularly exciting because it plans to eliminate all sexual desire across all levels of society.  So, it's exciting because it's going to eliminate excitement.  Whoopeeeeeeee (in a completely non-sexual way).

I am, of course, being a smart arse.

You'd think after maturing on the shelf for so long, the porn bill would have become extrememly palatable, like a good drop of red.  No such luck unfortunately.  Two political parties even stormed out of the proceedings.

Here's the dish.  The final version of the bill states that porno is "pictures, sketches, photos, writing, voice, sound, moving picture, animation, cartoons, conversation, gestures, or other communications shown in public with salacious content or sexual exploitation that violate the moral values of society."

It's toned down a bit from previous versions, but it is still pretty vague.  Moral values of society is a pretty loose concept.  But I think the clause about stoning people (or something... that might have been exaggeration) who don't cover their shoulders when in public got scrapped.

Thankfully, Aussie bogans can still apparently wear bikinis in Bali.  Lucky, SBY, otherwise you would have had Kevin Rudd's polite rationalism busting on your arse to plead the case because "Australian families are doing it tough" right now and they want their Bali beach holidays to be as fun as ever, ok?

For the sexy mammas of Jakarta, stepping out the door is going to become an illegal act in itself.  Strutting along the bumpy footpaths, skimming around potholes and sewers... your hips tend to wriggle a bit.  My comrade in proving ones point by being a smartarse, the lovable sex goddess Bel, has posted all about these perils (and the double standards of it all) right here and here.  There's also another post here by another Jakarta foxy shiela, who writes by the name of Ananda Ayu.

Yeah, sure, we are used to our liberal Western tarty ways.  But there are a lot of Indonesians of all sorts of backgrounds who think this bill should have had a bit more work done on it before anyone even thought about giving it the thumbs up.

The way it was rushed through makes me all the more suspicious that there are people who want to use it to serve their own ends, as quickly as possible.  Namely, to score political points before Indonesia's general elections next year.

A big concern of mine — besides concerns about how this law could be implemented in a way to serve certain interest groups, how it could be used to attack women for crimes committed by men who can only think with the thing in their pants and how it could kill the cultural industries — is how I'm going to get my laundry done now.

I mentioned below that my laundry lady was checking out my knickers and boulder-holders the other day and thought they were sexy.  Well, sexy equals porn.

Am I doomed to handwashing?

Also, this blog is pretty crass.  And I'm fairly loose with dropping words of a sexual nature into conversations.  So are a lot of people I know.

Are dirty jokes, bad puns and talking like a sailor going to get me and my pals locked up?  Conversation can be porn now apparently too.  If so, all of Indonesia's foreign journalists are in peril.  Is my blog porn?  I don't think so, it doesn't get enough hits from Google.  Maybe this post will help. Porn porn porn porn porn.  I've just increased the traffic at least threefold.  Hello dirty old men!  Now go away, thanks.

And my Britney Spears-inpired dance moves probably fall under that gestures and body movement category.

It's all a bit of a worry.  Hopefully it will backfire on the parties that supported the bill, and in next year's elections we will see more moderates and less fundies sitting in the seats of Indonesia's legislature. Hopefully...

PS.  I just noticed, this is my 200th post on this blog!  Yay!

Is Oz blogging on its death bed?

(Obvs not here, as I mentioned before, this blog is seeing more action than Dean St on a Thursday night, but that's just cos I have moved somewhere new and excitingly dysfunctional).

I might be being somewhat overdramatic with that headline, but whatever.

So I was checking out some of the blogs on my link list, and you know, lots of them have shut shop in the last few months.  So, I really should remove them from my links, which is kind of sad...

It all started with the tragic departure of Marieke Hardy's Reasons You Will Hate Me from the blogging realm, which was a sad day for the Australian blogging community (using that phrase has just made me a colossal geek, rather than a moderate geek...  Oh dear).  But I guess it would have been harder to find material now that John Howard is out.

Then Much Ado About Sumthin' closed its crass window into the life of one of Australia's most blase  bloggers.  Then Bent my Wookie, one of Australia's most promising up-and-coming smartarses, shut shop.  Culture Strain went in to retirement.  Invader Stu stopped sharing his tales of falling off bicycles in Holland. Scott to be Certain also seems to have vanished from the realm.

While it wasn't technically a blog, the sad passing away of Alan Waddel, who wrote the charming Walk Sydney Streets website, was also a blow to the output of quality Australian internet content.

It looked like Tokyo Girl had pursued non-blogging interests as well, but happily she has returned with her beautiful prose.  And Cablog is still churning out delightful and disturbing tales from a Sydney Taxi.

Unfortunately, Sam in the City or whatever the hell it's called now (Ask Sam or something I think... that vacuous piece of crap on the SMH website that I refuse to link to) is still churning out questions like "should I pretend to be an absolute idiot so that I can get a man?".  It's horrible.

So, I need some new funny/good blogs for my link list, particularly Australian ones so I can keep tabs on the tomfoolery of D-grade Australian "television personalities".  Especially since I have just signed up for NaNoWriMo and will need some procrastination/inspiration when I am sitting in front of this computer trying to write. (Why do I torture myself so?)  Any suggestions?

I'm also thinking of redesigning this blog... I'll stick it on the list of things to do...

Bits and bobs

Random bits and pieces.  So much to blog about these days, I don't know where to start.

1.  Pauline Hanson, everybody's favourite Australian-racist-apparently-made-good-by-jail-time-for-electoral-fraud-and-an-appearance-on-Dancing With the Stars, has finally weighed in on the US Presidential Election, talking to the highly credible New Idea magazine.  And guess what? She doesn't like Obama.  That's right... "I don't like it" Hanson strikes again. From the SMH's gossip mag run down column:

McCain, an avid New Idea reader, was reportedly buoyed by Hanson's appraisal of his Democrat opponent, Barack Obama, who "concerns me greatly because of his Muslim background and time in Indonesia".

Damn straight Pauline "keep the Asians out" Hanson.  You can't trust anyone that has been to Indonesia. They are either a tree-hugging Chinese-food eating hippy or a terrorist, clearly.  But you do know that Bali, favourite holiday spot of your former constituents in Queensland, is actually in Indonesia Pauline, right?  It's not just part of Queensland that lots of Asians got to before we built the detention centres and nobody minded too much because it meant they could get their hair braided for cheaps, ok?  Just clearing that up for ya, love.

But it's nice to see you pop back every now and then from political obscurity just to let us know you are still there...  Thanks Pauline.  How's the Fish and Chip shop going?

2.  Stocked up the fridge on the weekend.  Went to an amazing supermarket called "Grand Lucky", which stocks most things I could want in my life for an affordable price.  Yay!  My place feels more homey now that the fridge and larder are well stocked, and I did lots of cooking on the weekend of things like stir fry and black beans with rice, all made with fresh produce.  Yummo.

Also stocked up on yummy tropical fruit.

I also ended up at another supermarket in my travels on the weekend, called KemChicks.  It's what my friend who has been in Indonesia longer than me calls a "bule-mart", where foreigners go to stock up on expensive imported food (and bread without heaps of sugar in it).  It's where you can go to buy all the ingredients for something like lasagna or korma, as long as you are willing to spend a substantial sum (with the way money is going at the moment, it's probably only going to get more exxy as well).

One of the advantages of the bule-mart is that you can get bule food from other countries that we don't have in that lovable backwater of Australia.  Lots of Japanese lollies (which we do have, in Chinatown in Sydney) and American sweets and junk food (which we really don't have in Oz unless you go to an expensive foreign snack store, like that one on Glebe Point Road).

It's a big temptation.

But when I saw this, I had to give in.  Like all good Australian children, I grew up on a solid diet of American popular culture, which meant millions of references to "peanut butter cups," "peanut butter and jelly" and "Ben and Jerry's" in everything from the Babysitters Club books to Friends and Sesame Street.  Yet, we didn't really ever do the sweet 'n salty peanut butter thing in Australia and New Zealand Natural was our icecream pinnacle for quite some time.  It was all about the Vegemite and the Boysenberry Swirl.

Behold Exhibit A:

The idea of peanut butter ice cream almost stimulates my Australian gag reflex.  It just sounds so wrong.  But believe me, dear readers, it is oh so right!  This was very delicious.  Lucky it was only a small tub because otherwise my fresh produce piety from earlier would have been completely undone.  It kind of tasted like peanut butter/choc chip cookies that I have had before.  It had quite a caramel flavour to it as well.  It was good.

Now... if only the bule-marts stocked some European fare that I am missing, like those polka dot sweet cottage cheese bars from Hungary.  Yummmmm... haven't seen those since I left Budapest...

3.  Went to pick up my laundry the other day.  (Great story!  Do continue! Sounds exciting! Great lead!)  Every time I go down to reclaim my clothes after they have been washed, pressed (including the underwear, usually with a seam down the middle) and folded, it takes an eternity for the women down in the laundry to find them.  So I wait, wait, wait.  They scurry around and make phone calls looking for "Miss Arrsleez" clothes.  Then eventually they emerge bearing my washing in clear plastic bags, usually after about 20 minutes.

"Ah, Miss," the serious-but-friendly laundry lady said once my clothes were found, while looking at some of my brasierres on the top of the laundry bag.  "This very seksi."  She nods earnestly, without the slightest hint of sarcasm or judgement on her face.  "You must be seksi lady."

"Ah, thanks," I reply, with a bemused smile.  What do you say to that?  I quickly paid and said my thankyous and scurried out.

But at least somebody's getting to admire my knickers...

4.  I'm thinking about signing up for National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  It sounds like I'm signing up for a goal which I will fail, but it also sounds like a good challenge.  Especially since I'm mostly rewriting, rather than writing, at work now.  I still have about three or so days to decide whether I'm going to torture myself during November though...

Jakarta's night delights

You know you've had a big night out in Jakarta when you are stumbling along the corridor to your apartment, searching your handbag for your keys and hoping like hell they are in there, at the same time as the local musholla is belting out the sunrise prayers on the loudspeaker at 4.30am.  Well played, trashbag.

On Saturday night I had my first taste of a few different types of Jakartan nightlife.  It was quite the evening.

First on the party train was dangdut, at a seedy little bar on Jalan Blora.  By seedy and little, I mean it had mirrored walls on both sides to try and make it look bigger, and the mirrored walls were dirty, marked with hand prints and greasy circles that might just have been from hair product of some lady of the night.  It was all class.

Taxi driver conversation on the way:

    "Ah miss.  Jalan Blora. Discotech, ya?  Dancey time ya? Party huh?"'
    "Ya.  Dangdut."
    "Ah miss.  Suka dangdut? You like?"
    "Yeah I like dangdut.  It's fun. You like dangdut?" (note, I've never seen live dangdut before, only             karaoke)
    "Sometimes I like dangdut miss, sometimes I like Bob Marley, sometimes I like Meatloaf.  I like Beetle         too. *singing* If it be, if it be, if it be ohhhhh if it be."
    "Ah yes, If It Be is a good song."

Didn't have the heart to tell him it's called "Let it Be".

On to the dangdut.  For the unacquainted (probably about 99 percent of the world outside of Indonesia), dangdut is the music of Indonesia's people.  It's a mix of Hindi-sounding jams, giddy pop beats and often some electric keyboard, flute or 80s-style alto sax and electric guitar interludes (fall back career... writing for a wanky music magazine).  You also seem to get a lot of John-Travolta-Staying-Alive high waisted flared pants.  It's very fun and catchy.

The doyenne of dangdut, as far as I know, is Inul Daratista.  Inul's gyrating hip movements (which she calls "drilling") almost got her banned here, and this porn bill kerfuffle that's going on right now is partly to protect the kids from Inul's womanly curves of doom.

Here's a sample of dangdut for y'all.  Don't say I never gift you with anything wonderful.

Now unfortunately, at our seedy dangdut bar, they weren't quite rocking it as hard at good 'ol Inul.  The band looked like they were on sedatives or were in some kind of dangdut internment camp, us crazy bule and a few ayam (means chicken, but also prostitute apparently) were the only ones setting the slippery dance floor ablaze and to make matters worse, when the live performers had finished their set, they put on a DJ who was playing techno dangdut and it burned my ears.  It sounded like chipmunks on crack had gone crazy in Indonesia and decided to try and make music using the squeaky wheels of unlicensed taxis as an inspiration.  We had to get out of there.

On to venue number two.  It was called Crown, and the part of the club that we ended up in gave us about the same view of a bunch of squirming ladies' nether regions as you would see if you were in an obstetrics ward and someone in a white coat was screaming "oh my god, the baby is crowning!".  There were poles, there was an ornate water fountain in the middle, there were podiums and there were dancing girls in bikinis delivering shots to coked-up Chinese businessmen, but not before unbuttoning their shirts and simulating the sex act with them on stage.

We just stood back, drank our warm cans of beer (we got a free "choice" of drink with our cover charge... warm beer or water) and talked about the media landscape in Asia and Australia, among other things.  There was also a massive clubbing space in Crown, big enough for thousands, with all manner of flashing lights.

But we wanted more.  The night was still so young.  So onward we went to Stadium, the "holy grail" of Jakarta clubs.  It opens on Thursday night and doesn't close until Monday morning. According to the hyperbole, it's one of the biggest and best clubs in Asia.  It certainly had some of the finest faux marble columns I've ever seen, that's for sure.  And it's pretty damn big.  Apparently the top floor doof-doof dance area holds about 3000 people... and there are three other bar/dance areas as well.

We drank some shots, danced around a bit among the sweat, drug pushers and flashing lights... one of our party gave us a "tour" of Stadium, for those of us who were newer to Jakarta.  He barged through a door marked "staff only", up some stairs and past a confused looking madam ("if they ask what we are doing, we'll just say we are here for group sex," our tour guide said), to show us the hidden "rent per hour" rooms.  We also saw the VIP couches on the balconies.

We went downstairs, to the live music bar, where a band of people with more pep than I have in my little finger were belting out hits in English and Indonesian.  They reminded me of S Club 7 back in their heyday. It was quite funny, they had their very own Indonesian version of Justin Timberlake in the band.  He had on a Justin hat and had clearly studied well the moves of Sir Timberlake.  We danced around and sang along to crap by Shakira with Indo JT getting on down with us.  There was also an Indonesian Fergie in the band as well, singing about her London Bridge.  But then... an older looking man in a suit took centre stage and the employees in the bar started to wave their arms up and down as if a religious deity had arrived.

Our conversation:
"Oh crap, I bet it's the owner.  The owners always get on the microphones, think they can sing and the staff feel obliged not to tell them how shit they are."
"Yeah, I bet it's the owner.  Look at his pinstripe dress pants.  You can tell he's deluded and has tickets on himself and is about to put us all through agony with a soppy love ballad sang three keys out of tune."
"GOD why."
"Seriously this is such an Indonesian thing, they do it at so many bars."
"OK, he's starting. God, he's even doing the amateur testing the microphone thing.  Someone was just using it, of course it works."

He belts out his first ear shattering note and then launches into rock classics, and we all sit there with our jaws dropped open.

"Holy shit.  He's pretty good."

Move over Indo JT and Fergie... Indonesian Rock God is in the building.  I thought the power of his voice would make the marble pillars crumble... but I guess plywood holds up to strong vocals.

After he had finished his set, we decided it was time to head home.

But not before witnessing a brawl on the faux-fancy stairwell.  It was a pretty tame fight... over a pickpocket apparently.

That's why my money was shoved down my bra, stripper style.

One we passed the push-shove, it was out on to the street to battle the gauntlet of beggars, cigarette sellers, drug sellers, dubious fried food sellers and illegal taxis.

Once we were safely ensconced in a Bluebird cab, it was a quiet journey home, watching the traffic whiz past and the prostitutes on the street corners with their pimps sitting behind them on motorcycles.

Hello, Jakarta's seedy underbelly.  How lovely to make your acquaintance.

Gettin' around

I've been whoring myself out to other blogs... pop over to Om'bak to read my latest piece of self-indulgent femmo drivel, if you feel like it.

Good lord, lately this blog has been getting even more action than Fabio in his heyday.  Guess since I'm not writing all day at work anymore, I actually have the energy to tap out some junk on the keyboard.

Things that shouldn't typically be green.

Yet another interesting find at the supermarket.

I was always told not to eat bread that had gone green.  But here, they sell it at the supermarket pre-greened.

It says on the label "Kojak Bread", but Google didn't yield any information as to what that might be.  But by going through the ingredients list, I think it might be bread containing pandan.

It took me a little while to work up the courage to try it, and it was one of those strange foods that I felt really ambivalent about.  I didn't hate it, but didn't like it.  It doesn't have any sort of strong flavour at all, but the colour freaks me out big time.  And it smells a bit funny.  It has a slight sweetness, but all bread in Indonesia seems to have a slight sweetness.  Yet you can't buy my favourite sweet Asian bread of all, BBQ Pork Buns, because the majority Muslim population here aren't keen enough on pork for the bakeries to churn out those goodies.

I was umming about whether I should try it with vegemite, but I don't know if I can go there... it just seems so unnatural.

Remembering things that are green that shouldn't be, does anyone remember that tomato sauce/ketchup they were selling in the late 90s that was bright green?  It looked like you were squirting baby diarrhea on to your food.

I didn't like that either.

Green food is good, but only when it's supposed to be green.  I don't like confusing green of an unknown origin.

Black Cat

We went to the Black Cat Jazz Club at Senayan Arcadia on Saturday night. It was fun. I took these pics after I had swilled quite a few delightful Lychee Martinis.

The singer was fantastic! Definitely want to come here again.

Wedding!

I went to the wedding reception of the Deputy Editor at our paper, Joe, to his lovely former-fiancee Ana on the weekend.  It was very cool to see — everyone dressed up in their elaborate batik outfits, with the bride looking particularly beautiful (of course).  The reception had a great atmosphere with everyone chatting and eating.

It was a very hot day though, I felt for the bridal party in their elaborate beaded clothes.  They must have been sweltering!  They had to stand so long for photos and everything, and to be individually congratulated by all the guests.

It was very nice to attend though.

Congratulations to Joe and Ana!

At Sunda Kelapa Mosque, Menteng

A woman puts on the white full-length body covering that many Muslim women wear to pray at Sunda Kelapa Mosque, Menteng, Jakarta.

Padang thangs

Tonight I finally went to a Padang restaurant.

For the Indonesia-illiterate, Padang is one of the main towns on the island of Sumatra.  So Padang food is food from that area.

There are loads of Padang restaurants in Jakarta.  You can tell not only by the word “Padang” painted on the window, but also by the bowls stacked up in the window… blue, red and yellow window paint also seems to be a common trait.

Padang restaurants are pretty unique because there is no menu.  You simply waltz on in, plonk yourself down at a table and then the food comes to you.  The waiters bring out lots of little bowls of food, along with some rice, and then you simply tuck in.  You only pay for the dishes you eat, so all the ones that look really weird or consist solely of little dried fish that look like the ones in cat food, or just bowls of chilis, you can leave alone and they stay on the table for decoration, but you don’t pay for them.

It’s like a buffet, but instead of having to get up and shuffle along behind people to get your serve of wilted salad, the buffet comes right to you, with no croutons in sight!

Food safety is a bit of a worry though, cos the bits you don't eat can then be served to someone else.  The food is cooked up once a day, and served at room temperature.

I didn’t take any photos, because I am lame!  I was already feeling the eyes of the waiters and other diners trying to not stare too much at me, being a bule woman on her own in a Padang restaurant trying to read a book while gracefully stuffing her face, so I chickened out on pulling out my camera. I will take pics next time.

But since there was no menu, I really have no idea what I ate.  There was a yummy dish of green stuff (I think it was something from the Pak Choy family) in curry that I loved, plus some spicy chicken.  And some spicy other thing.  It wasn’t duck, chicken or red meat… I actually think it might have been some sort of insides of some animal.  It was squishy… hmm.  But it just tasted like curry.

I also ate something that I first thought was a tiny potato, but when I bit into it I realised it was a tiny hard boiled egg from some creature.  Not sure what sort of creature.  Something smaller than a chicken but bigger than a sparrow.  Spatchcock?  Snake? Magpie?  No idea.

There was also some sort of fried tofu with chilli and shallots type thing.

It all tasted pretty good.

I also had the world’s sweetest orange juice.  I need to remember to say “bukan gula” (no sugar!) when I order fresh juice.  There’s always surprise additional sugar/

I didn’t go to a super hardcore streetside Padang eatery though.  This one, near my apartment, had chairs and airconditioning and no milkcrate furnishings in sight.  Next time I might go warung style.  Hardcore.