Masulah, 38, camped out on a rented mat under a tree in the National Monument (Monas) Park in Central Jakarta on Friday while watching her daughter running around with her cousins.
On the ground right next to her was a smattering of garbage, from snack wrappers to plastic bottles - legacy to yet another packed New Year's Eve celebration hours earlier.
And she was not alone. Hundreds of other visitors were also enjoying the breeze under the trees, indifferent to the various styrofoam packaging - most of it still holding noodles or other leftovers - plastic bags and papers still littering the ground.
"What I'm after is a good spot under a shady tree," Masulah told The Jakarta Post.
Having come all the way from Pondok Bambu in East Jakarta to show her daughter the monument, she said the park's squalor had not discouraged her.
Fatima, 33, also said she did not mind the trash all over the grass.
"As long as my kids can run around, it's OK," she said, adding she had come to the park on a Transjakarta bus from Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta.
Urban psychologist Ratih Ibrahim said this supreme indifference did not mean these visitors tolerated the trash, but rather that they had to deal with it after coming a long way.
"Another possibility is that they're not sensitive enough to the filth," she said.
"Hygiene education is still poor, so their standards of cleanliness are also low."
Monas management director Rini Hariyani said the seas of garbage were no deterrent for park visitors.
"Monas is a low-budget recreational area, with free entry and cheap tickets to enter the monument," she said.
"Maybe that's why they don't mind the mess."
She brushed off responsibility for the cleanliness of the park, saying her authority was restricted to the gated inner area of the monument.
Keeping the park clean, Rini said, was the job of the city's sanitation agency.
She said there were 10,000 on Jan. 1 last year, and 15,000 on Dec. 27, with the peak this year expected on Sunday, the last day of the school vacations.
