New Jak City – The Capital’s Great Changes

WEEKENDER   |  Thu, 07/02/2009 4:42 PM  |  Reflection

When I first set foot in Jakarta as a curious backpacker in 1991, the city was mostly an overgrown kampung. A smattering of tall office buildings already lined Jalan Sudirman, and Plaza Indonesia had recently opened – an early sign of Jakarta’s mall fetish to come. But urban lifestyle was largely limited to the ubiquitous branches of KFC and Dunkin’ Donuts. For something a tad more upmarket, there was the Green Pub next to Sarinah department store, the odd Sizzler steakhouse, a few luxury hotels and a handful of clubs that catered mainly to the city’s New Order crony class.

Fast forward nearly two decades, and Jakarta feels like a very different place. Although the basic infrastructure hasn’t changed much, the variety and quality of goods, services and venues have produced a very different urban landscape, one in which anyone with money to burn can indulge practically any lifestyle whim.

To be sure, Jakarta has always possessed a decadent sort of personality, with a decidedly unsubtle nod toward life’s carnal pleasures. With hoards of ridiculously beautiful women, an abundance of illegal substances and some of the best original pop bands in Asia, Jakarta is, without exaggeration, a city of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.

The 1997 financial crisis and the dark political violence that followed represented a low point in Jakarta’s quest to modernize, and for a short while the place seemed all but doomed. But political reform was followed by a decade of Asian economic growth at breakneck speed. Jakarta not only stabilized, but also globalized and expanded. In the process, middle- and upper-class Jakartans developed an ever-growing appetite for everything the outside world had to offer. Thus began Jakarta’s Starbuckization, with brand name outlets racing to fill the city’s seemingly endless new slew of glitzy mega-malls. This time around, the only things resembling a “bubble” were those sleek pearl balls inside vacuum-sealed cups of taro-flavored milk tea at shops with names like “Quickly”.

Whatever the long-term social or financial consequences of this Great Leap Forward, Jakarta today is undeniably a hell of a lot more fun than it used to be, its guilty pleasures lifted nearly to an art form. For a taste of the kind of sophistication and variety the city offers these days, look no further than Laksmi Pamuntjak’s Good Food Guide to Jakarta, a beautifully written and strikingly photographed guide to the city’s staggering choice of culinary offerings – from luxury fine dining spots and chic dens of fusion fare, to traditional warung street stalls serving classic Indonesian delicacies. More than just a collection of random restaurant reviews, the guide serves as testimony to Jakarta’s lifestyle complexity and its growing insistence on variety as well as flair.

If the Jakarta Good Food Guide is an ode the city’s culinary diversity, Moammar Emka’s book, Jakarta Undercover, is a far less savory dedication to its seedy underbelly. Emka, a former tabloid reporter and an Islamic studies graduate from a small village in East Java, offers a remarkably dispassionate, no-detail-spared account of the city’s luxury massage parlors, VIP brothels, sex clubs and orgy circuit, leaving very little to the imagination. His Jakarta is hardly the conservative place that embassy travel advisories warn us about, and, perhaps not surprisingly, he’s sold more books than any living Indonesian writer.

Through fine dining, high-end shopping, luxury day spas, gourmet supermarkets and nocturnal meat markets, Jakarta is perfecting the art of conspicuous consumption. Little wonder then that the city’s official tourism promotion slogan is, quite simply, “Enjoy Jakarta”, for enjoyment seems not just a perk here, but a guiding, almost sacred principle.

The durian fruit has long been employed as a metaphor for Jakarta: Prickly on the outside, the logic goes, soft and sweet on the inside. The allegory is mostly apt given the city’s rough exterior and exceedingly warm, hospitable people. But there’s a case to be made, too, for that metaphor’s inversion: A Jakarta that’s been growing increasingly enjoyable and globalized on the surface, while its core continues rotting away due to corruption, injustice and widening socioeconomic gaps.

There are of course two Jakartas (or three, or four or even five). That’s where the Great Leap Forward hits an unfortunate snag. The city’s haves and have-nots live side by side but are separated by tinted windows through which the former is dutifully served and the latter is gawked at with a mixture of contempt and pity.

It’s convenient to ignore these things when the party is still going strong: Jakarta’s beautiful class derives pleasure and pride from the idea that their city’s multimillion-dollar nightclubs – such as Dragonfly and Blowfish and Buddha Bar and Indochine – are on par with some of Hong Kong’s or London’s most opulent venues. Meanwhile, sparkling new shopping Meccas like Senayan City and Grand Indonesia put most commercial spaces in Tokyo or Los Angeles to shame. But these fashionable haunts don’t reflect social development or human advancement in any real sense, nor does any of the fun trickle down to the vast majority of Jakartans, who remain decidedly working class with nearly zero chance for upward mobility or access to any kind of social safety net.

And for all the supposed sophistication among those with access to money, the most basic foundations of quality of life are still hopelessly absent: clean air, green spaces, traffic-free and pedestrian-friendly streets, good healthcare, decent education and strong cultural institutions.

For much of the past months, Jakarta mall rats could be seen queuing for an hour at branches of the uber-trendy new Sour Sally yoghurt bar for the privilege of paying $5 for a cup of white yoghurt and Japanese moshi candies. (To pass the time, they tapped furiously into their Blackberry Curves, updating friends via instant messaging and mobile photos). Signs of a new sort of affluence for sure, perhaps even consumer sophistication, but none of it represents social maturity or lifestyle improvement in any substantive, meaningful way.

Upon stepping out of the air-conditioned retail bubble, people face the same impossible traffic and the same polluted air – and all they can do is to move from bubbled mall to bubbled office to bubbled serviced apartment or housing complex. (A few of them might slow down for just long enough to recall, with irony or otherwise, that Jakarta sits squarely on the tip of a lush tropical island.)

There is so much to be enjoyed in Jakarta these days. Few Asian cities offer such an irresistible combination of great people, personal freedom, modern conveniences and unlimited fun. But Jakarta will truly come of age when its residents – rich and poor alike – start insisting on a new quality of life that runs deeper than merely seeing the next big foreign brand arrive on their doorstep.

+ Daniel Ziv


KNOW YOUR CITY: SOME RECOMMENDED BOOKS
(and one website!) ABOUT JAKARTA

The Jakarta Explorer: Cultural Tours In & Around the City by The Indonesian Heritage Society

A must for local culture enthusiasts, and probably the best guide in print to Jakarta’s many sites, from the obvious to the obscure. Practical information, historical background, and cultural insights on some of the city’s most interesting spots. Available through the Heritage Society, (www.heritagejkt.com), Tel. 021-572-5870.

Nineteen: The Lives of Jakarta Street Vendors by Josh Estey (photos) and Irfan Kortschak (text)

To date one of the most colorful and insightful books on contemporary Jakarta, Nineteen offers an intimate, detailed glimpse into the lives and struggles of the marginalized characters who make up Indonesia’s massive ‘informal economy’. Beautifully photographed and sensitively researched, Nineteen is that rare product that doubles as coffee table art and potent social wake-up call.

The Family Guide to Jakarta by Yayasan Balita Sehat

A handy little volume packed with family-oriented advice on travel, shopping, baby and childcare, health, sports, classes and activities for kids, and even practical advice on planning parties.

Jakarta Inside Out by Daniel Ziv

I would refrain from plugging my own book, but I’d be an idiot not to include it in this list. If you believe the back cover blurb, Jakarta Inside Out “leads readers on an illuminating pop culture exploration of Indonesia’s frenzied capital, exposing the city’s idiosyncrasies with irreverent prose and striking photography, with topics ranging from love hotels and ladyboys to sweatshops, soap opera celebrities, pigeon racing and piracy.” Buy it if you dare.

Jakarta, Jayakarta, Batavia by Leonard Lueras / Bali Purnati

An illustrated volume on the city filled with some great photographs and interesting essays on an array of topics, including Dutch Jakarta, the Betawi natives and modern-day urban culture.

Lagak Jakarta Cartoon books by Benny & Mice (and other titles)

You’ll get more out of these hilarious volumes if you understand some Indonesian slang, but Benny and Mice’s wacky caricatures and biting urban satire transcend language barriers and are sure to amuse even the most begrudged foreign oil engineer.

Batavia in 19th-Century Photographs by Scott Merrillees / Archipelago Press

An impressive collection of rare photos from Jakarta’s former life as Dutch-colonial ‘Batavia’. Well researched and beautifully presented.

Culture Shock! Jakarta: A Survival Guide to Customs and Etiquette By Terry Collins and Derek Bacon

Insightful, cleverly written local edition of the popular Culture Shock! series, with engaging chapters on settling in, culture and travel, communicating, doing business, Indonesian history and government, and more.

Living in Indonesia: A Site for Expatriates

(www.expat.or.id) One of the best online sources for general information on living in Jakarta and Indonesia. Includes a wealth of practical information on the city, articles on local culture, a directory of community organizations and excellent web links.

Daniel Ziv is author of Jakarta Inside Out (available at bookshops throughout Indonesia) and co-author of Bangkok Inside Out. He is currently completing Jalanan, a feature-length documentary about the lives of three marginalized Jakarta street musicians.

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