The Way Things Are

When we refer to trends in the New Year, we tend to talk about style, fashion and the latest gimmicks – short-term crazes that dominate the market. But then there is that other definition of a trend, prevailing tendencies or collective habits that, after a while, we start to think of as “just the way things are”.

There’s no better way to get a good dose of how trends – under both definitions – work in Indonesia than by spending a week in Bali. Whatever sells most to tourists, whether Bintang beer T-shirts or a fire-twirling show, will surely be represented in numbers. Taxi drivers, hairdressers, waitresses are constantly asking survey-like questions to forecast future trends: Where are you staying? How long are you here for? Where are you going? What are you looking for?

As I stand in line at the departure gate of the Denpasar airport, it strikes me how many people around me look like they have just come from some festival, still adorned in the event’s sunburns, souvenir shirts and matching hats. And that is a bit what being in Bali is like for so many tourists – an intoxicating blend of hedonism, freedom and decadence, so temptingly far from reality that they do all they can to take it home with them.

Whether you are a tourist or an expatriate anywhere in this country, you are automatically entitled to a dose of this suspended sense of reality: luxury, comfort and exceptions that you may not get at home. This is of course all part and parcel of the uglier side of the equation: poverty, corruption and pollution that you also may not get at home. Unfortunately, the scales are often tipped in one person’s favor at the expense of another’s. But every one of us has the choice to either perpetuate or prevent this from continuing.

Looking back at all the lists I have compiled this year, collections of various people’s thoughts, beliefs and recommendations on a range of topics – from a woman’s perspective on what it would be like to be a man in Indonesia, to how to be a critical consumer in Indonesia – it seems fitting to sum up with some albeit interrogating, but hopefully inspiring, thoughts about some of the positive and negative “trends” of life in Indonesia, whether you are from here, are just visiting, or have made it your home.

It is my hope for the New Year that we support each other in challenging the trends that make us apathetic members of a community, that amid all our end-of-year celebrations we take the time to consider the far-reaching consequences of some of our most seemingly trivial lifestyle decisions, remember how lucky we are and how special Indonesia is, and that we start some radical new “trends” so that in the future some of these inequalities or indifferences that we might have often overlooked may only be referred to as “the way things used to be”.

• It’s hard not to get caught up in the games of “keeping up appearances” and hedonistic consumerism, but just because things are affordable and everyone else is going crazy for the next hottest thing on the market, don’t forget to think before you buy in the “season of giving”.

• Giving a person a job is one thing. Paying them a fair wage is another. Those of us whose incomes allow us to pay more for the extreme luxury of having a driver or a maid, for instance, have the opportunity to raise the expected wages for all other locals. If you wouldn’t consider doing that much work for that little pay, then don’t expect anyone else to.

• Just because we’ve become so accustomed to living with servants, coffee boys, security guards and all the rest, it doesn’t mean that any day should go by without showing them our utmost appreciation.

• Indonesia is a country well known for its high level of services. Sometimes this can be taken to mean that you can get those who work for you to do just about anything, as long as you are paying. Just don’t forget that we are all only human and they also have lives and families of their own.

• A friend from Norway once referred to the air-conditioning craze in Jakarta as “kind of immature”. It’s true, this is the tropics, why do we need to wear sweaters just so we don’t catch a cold at the mall? Why can’t we just live like we are in the tropics and open some windows and turn on the fan?

• Don’t let people who carelessly throw their trash out the window or onto the sidewalk go ignored. No matter how often you’ve seen it, it is always both sad and disgusting to see the piles, sometimes mountains of plastic that accumulate on the streets.

• Don’t underestimate the “trend” of saying “no thank you” to plastic bags, which will otherwise come automatically with every single little thing you buy. Those who either don’t know or don’t believe that with every plastic bag you have on your hands, you also carry a heavy burden, need to catch on.

• People are starting to catch on to designated smoking and non-smoking areas. Just because these rules are sometimes weakly enforced, it doesn’t mean they should be taken advantage of, especially not when you actually know better.

• The heat and pollution are really no excuse for creating even more traffic and even more pollution by sitting in an air-conditioned SUV. If people just sacrificed a little bit of comfort by taking a bus, as so many people do, or even walk when you can, then everyone might end up gaining a little bit of comfort.

• Regardless of what you can or cannot afford to do, own, or lose, there’s no denying that everyone is just doing what they can; but just remember that nobody will get anywhere on their own.

+ Hana Miller

Dalton Tanonaka’s regular column will return in February.

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