Most Indonesians don’t read even if they can spare the time and afford to buy reading material such as books, magazines and the like. Middle class Jakartans, as well as the ones from other big cities, spend most of their free time frequenting malls; I call them the “mallers”.
The mallers sometimes go “malling” to kill their boredom, or just to see and be seen. Sometimes they buy things they don’t need, especially when there are sales on; as sales can be on all year round, they spend time all year round hunting for branded stuff as well as nonbranded items. The housewives are really housewives, not homemakers as most married women in developed countries call themselves.
Reading is still the exception rather than the norm. It’s very difficult to ask friends to meet at people’s homes to discuss social, economic or even political issues.
I once asked my friends to join me reading books on selected subjects to be discussed later at our respective homes, but none of my friends were interested.
Meanwhile, they expect their children to read because schools nowadays demand their students do research on certain topics. People who are exposed to reading material early, as in their childhood years, or even earlier, in their mothers’ wombs, usually are more stable emotionally, more knowledgeable, better informed about important issues such as health care including drug abuse, global warming and much, much more.
We don’t need to advise our children verbally, what we need to do is to give them books on relevant issues.
When we still lived in Europe, we took the children to the public library close to home. There, you can see people, as young as toddlers or as old as grandparents, queuing to return books or to borrow books.
They don’t need to pay anything; what they have to do is become members of their library in their neighborhood and, of course, they have to observe the rules such as bringing the reading material back on time and in good condition.
They can also read newspapers in the major languages. Talking and eating is prohibited in libraries.
Students, during exam time, spend time doing their research there and stay there reading for entire days and even through the night.
Children coming home from school feel more secure and happy if their parents, or at least their mother, are there to have one meal a day with them. Nowadays, we hear of parents sending their children, on school recommendations, to see their therapists because they suffer separation anxiety or attention deficit disorder because both parents are not there for them. Wealthy people in Jakarta need more cars, because every member in the household needs one.
How is it ever possible for Jakarta not to be full of traffic jams if its people all go out at the same time to the malls, to furniture or car exhibitions or just to meet in churches to sing or to pray together/Some organized religions believe that God will listen and answer your prayers if prayers are said by more than one person, what is the logic behind this?
People who don’t believe in these kinds of things are still the silent minority, if you speak your minds on these, the (louder) majority will judge you and avoid you altogether and think that you are too westernized and have forgotten your roots.
That’s why articles touching sensitive issues are mostly published in English language newspapers or on the Internet, because people who read English periodicals and Internet users are more intellectual and are able to give you their points of views in return in online articles so as to avoid the physical confrontation that happens in street demonstrations.
Last but not least, I would like to suggest to the municipalities in Jakarta to use taxpayers’ money to build libraries in their neighborhoods to keep their residents indoors, to educate them, and to avoid traffic jams.
Sjeline
Jakarta
