Sidewalk Coffee Ladies and Michelle Obama in Jakarta

[Jakarta, 12/20/23]

Any more excitement and I’d be dead, and you would too. Going to Filiosofi Kopi [Coffee Philosophy] this morning to write, I found it still closed, so forged further into the unknown. Seeing a lovely lady with a soothing face, I mustered enough courage to utter, “kopi hitam,” then sat down on a bus stop seat. To my left was a Grab driver just getting up. On my right was a small gas tank in a sturdy green bag, with a black hose leading to a portable stove. On top of it squatted a pot of boiling water. Overwhelmed by all this normalcy, I had to check my emotion further when the lady brought my 26 cent cup of black java.

Across the street was a man selling nasi uduk [rice cooked in coconut milk] from a glass case perched on his motorbike. Without customers at 7:34AM, he busied himself by sweeping his area. The Grab driver was now lying on his back to stare at his cellphone.

Nearly touching my back, the lady was now preparing a soup, so she offered lunch, too, I thought, but all I saw a bit later was water spinach, then something that looked awfully sweet, like an Indian fudge bar or even white chocolate. Must be breakfast. Forgetting the word for eat, I pointed at it, then my mouth. Knowing she was dealing with a world-class idiot, the lady merely said with a most forgiving smile, “tempeh,” then continued with her cooking.

If you’re a Hollywood producer or agent, you must start a bidding war for this screenplay right now! This thrilling plot is just getting started!

With the arrival of a second customer, one who actually knew more than five or six words, the lady started chattering away and laughing, but all day long in Jakarta, I hear laughter, just as I would in Vung Tau, Phnom Penh, Pakse or even Bangkok.

Shop girls and boys, businessmen, diabetic creeps, toothless hags, bottom finishers at beauty contests, they all titter, giggle and guffaw over next to nothing, because face to face conversations most naturally generate mirth. If you didn’t lose a limb or an eye at last month’s explosion downtown, you can talk about it with at least a grin. Mere survival isn’t just funny as shit, but joyous.

It is, already, the next day. Returning to the same spot, I don’t see my coffee lady, so she’s already cheating on me! Knew it was coming. Quickly recovering, I decide to visit one of Jakarta’s most significant historical sites, the Burger King at M.H. Thamrin and Kyai Haji Wahid Hasyim, just a block away. At the door, the security guard neglects to check my overburdened bag. What if I explode at the counter? Since it’s not even 7AM, there are only a father and his son as customers. At best, I’d only take out myself and three others.

In 2016, the four Jemaah Islamiyah terrorists who set off six explosions outside this Burger King were barely more efficient. The last was a suicide vest which blew up two of them, both just 26-years-old. Bystanders recorded these murderous clowns waving handguns, looking lost. The remaining two were shot by cops, so what did these disaffected fools prove by killing four civilians and injuring 24? The very next day, thousands gathered to pay respect to the victims. “Kami tidak takut” [“we are not afraid”] was their rallying cry.

Of course, there’s very little to fear here. Unlike in Philadelphia, Saint Louis, Chicago or New Orleans, you can walk for miles in any direction and experience only normalcy! Even at 3AM with no witness around, no asshole will harm you, unless you’re extremely unlucky, of course. Typing this outside Filosofi Kofi, a meteorite can land on my head.

In 2016, an ex convict on a motorbike wanted to toss his Molotov cocktail at people leaving church service in Samarinda, but he fell down, so it exploded prematurely. Two toddlers playing nearby were severely injured and a two-year-old was killed. In 2017 in Jakarta, two suicide bombers murdered three innocents and injured 11. In East Kalimantan in 2020, 20 were hurt in another church attack. In Ambon, its Christian majority have burnt down Muslim houses. Indonesia’s murder rate, though, is only 0.6 per 100,000, compared to 6.4 for the USA, so it’s +10 times safer! On 12/9/23, 90,000 Christians packed into Gelora Bung Karno Stadium to celebrate Christmas. To prevent tragedy, 1,140 cops were deployed.

Listen, man, I was born into a war, so heightened security isn’t new to me, and I’ve visited Beirut recently. In wartime Saigon and throttled Beirut, people still go to movies, restaurants, bars and cafes. As a child, I had piano, judo, English and Chinese lessons. Cursing in Mandarin, I can throw you across the room! Just kidding! With my father, I went to soccer and boxing matches. I swam at the ocean and in swimming pools. Brainwashed by Hollywood, some Americans are still surprised that Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians or Lebanese enjoy a full buffet of life’s pleasures, whatever they can afford, and there’s nothing wrong with being middle class or even rich, if you haven’t stolen or butchered, like Uncle Sam. The American lifestyle is enabled by this serial criminality.

In Gaza, too, they did their best to live normally, but their plight is only the most extreme of a universal predicament. Even those not murdered or injured by Jewjabs are finding it much harder to just live, laugh and be left alone. Paradoxically, this is most acute in nominally richer Western countries. Their societies are being hollowed out and disfigured.

Daily, more than 10,000 illegal immigrants of all nationalities cross into the US from Mexico. A house with its backdoor wide open to all comers is no longer a home. As with Jewjabs, it’s all done by design. For nearly three years, Steve Kirsch keeps wondering why anyone with authority or influence would ignore his mountain of evidence against deadly Covid “vaccines.” It’s no oversight, Steve, but a deliberate genocide! Laughing off stage, they’re rolling out more boosters. Morons are paying to get killed or murder their kids.

It’s already 9:06AM. Another day is draining away. When I couldn’t get a coffee at Burger King, I found a sidewalk vendor nearby, a diminutive old lady with dark, leathery hands and face peeking from her peach colored robe with white and red flowers. It’s not quite a hijab. When she started talking, I fluttered my fingers near my ears, grinned most idiotically then chirped, “Saya dari Vietnam.”

Not giving up, she kept chattering. Like us all, she has so many yarns to spin and harrowing tales to relate. Maybe this lady is insane. By chance, I had stumbled onto an Indonesian Homer! It wasn’t difficult. When a man stopped by, she gave him a green snack cake without taking any money, so I blurted as he crossed the street, “Gratis?!”

“Gratis,” she confirmed.

I finish this piece in Casa Deyarra Coffee. Just past noon, there are eight other men at two tables. When talking, they often erupt into laughter. Yesterday here, the staff, two girls and a boy, laughed nearly nonstop for ten minutes. Taking my orders, there is a gleam in their eyes, betraying serenity. Just now, I heard a swooning laugh from one of the girls. Life is delightful.

Following me to Jakarta today, all you’ve experienced were sidewalk coffee ladies, a cafe and a Burger King, but I’m just a banality freak, I’m sorry. The worst tour guide, I haven’t even ushered you inside Grand Indonesia Mall. It’s yet another sparkling emporium in East Asia. Eating a Patti Smith Burger or Chicago pizza, locals may think they’re experiencing something like the USA, but luckily for them, most won’t get any closer.

To probe the American mind, they can buy Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry or Lucy Mangan’s The Feminism Book at Kinokuniya Books.

Just a three minute walk from Grand Indonesia, there’s a mural outside the Institut français Indonésie. Behind a black woman holding a bullhorn is this banner, “ÉGALITÉ ENTRE GENRES!” Equality among genders! Interesting it’s genders rather than sexes. Simone de Beauvoir's feminist classic is Le Deuxième Sexe, of course. Feeling superior, the hypocritical West can’t help but preach.

To say “second sex” is to imply there are only two, so Beauvoir, too, has turned out to be a reactionary and Fascist, but such is progress! Yesterday’s radicals will be shot tomorrow.

In Muslim majority nations, even Christian women dress more modestly. This, I’ve observed in Lebanon, Egypt, Malaysia and even Turkey. A key Islamic concept is haya, which can be translated as bashfulness or shame. The less haya one has, the less human and more bestial, so one must not distinguish oneself with tattoos, nose rings or labia piercings, though the last, being reasonably discreet, is not so obviously offensive, arguably, as a man strutting down a city street with his shirt open. It didn’t matter that he was white.

To be cool, though, has become essential to the Western identity, and nothing is cooler than to look casually tough, however you feel inside. It stinks of the worst desperation. Image is all they have left.