[Jakarta, 12/15/23] I arrived in Jakarta three days ago. Coming from the airport, I spotted highrises in the distance, then shopping malls with some familiar brands, such as Ikea, Foot Locker and H&M. One mall was called Central Park, just as in Saigon, there are buildings named Times Square and Union Square, etc. The illusion of being outside Southeast Asia was further reinforced by the absence of motorbikes.
Linh, these American "Christians" are no more Christian than I am a Muslim or a Buddhist. Probably members of one of those tele-evangelist cults that have been co-opted by Jews long ago. But perhaps it's also the long tradition of American hypocrisy. They will foment all kinds of cultural degeneration, from porn to satanist pop songs to gay sex stuff for school kids, but they will freak out if someone shows a nipple on television. If you barely pet a child's head, or simply take pictures of children playing, you're considered a pedophile pervert and risk being arrested (really!), but create a Pizza Comet where actual pedophile politicians go, and you'll be celebrated, and if anyone accuses you of abusing children, it's just a "conspiracy theory" (being gay and "adopting children" also works). Americans will obsess and cry over all kinds of "micro-aggressions" and imagined offenses, but they completely ignore the atrocities in Gaza, or even support it.
McChristians I've seen such people called. You can find them in their thousands "praying for Israel" on Christian news channels reporting from safe neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv. Even the fluffiest of them are hard to reach, because their beliefs appear to be bound up with vanity. "To be saved," says Trappist monk Thomas Merton, "is to fall into the ludicrous and satanic flippancy of false piety, kitsch." A bit harsh? I suppose, but their moral blindness in their support of the wholesale murder of Palestinians is incomprehensible.
I coined the McChristian term. Thank you for promoting it. After Trump stole my "you're fired" bit, I'm very touchy about this sorta stuff. The catchphrase mocking the jewjab "got m1Ψ?" is also mine.
I recall being lambasted one time as a creepy fossil for being 35 and chatting with a crowd of college students. Now all those students are in their mid-forties. How does it taste, ya arrogant fuckers? "Someday you will ache like I ache..."
As the joke goes, "'old' is always 10 years older than I am". #CreepyFossilForeva
Has it ever happened that a mother has drawn her children close to her upon seeing you passing by? I'm almost sure I saw a woman hide her children under her skirt on one occasion. At my advanced age being still unable to control my temper or guard my mouth, and hurt as always by this display of distrust and indifference to my feelings, I once yelled back "stranger danger!" After a moment I heard the kid ask, "What did that man say, mummy?"
Nice one as usual. You spoil us with these wonderful vignettes. I'm an avid walker and having lived in KL since 1992 I've never heard that phrase Saya makan agin. Thanks dude.
I caught your video yesterday of the kids playing in the alley--very cute. It must be nice to live in a society where kids don’t need a prearranged “play date” and can just spontaneously enjoy each other’s company. It used to be that way here in the US when I was growing up, too…
An interesting Indonesian political story. I think the US is heading in that direction. I wonder why anyone would want to enter politics. It can’t be for the power—for a long time now, that has not been the real seat of power; the people who call the shots are mostly invisible. It was only half-jokingly said not that long ago that politics is “Hollywood for ugly people”. That line is getting blurrier by the day; we now have presidents in the world who are given their own TV shows so they can practice for a few years before they graduate to the real job.
Somewhere (maybe from reading VS Naipaul’s “Among the Believers”) I got the impression that Indonesian Muslims are more mild-mannered and less doctrinaire than their brethren closer to the Holy Land. But perhaps my belief is just an artifact of Indonesia’s less frequent appearance in the news pages compared to those countries closer to Islam’s original home. But hey, that’s a decades-old book, and I myself am old enough to remember “Pancasila” from grade school! Is that even still a thing in Indonesia?
At least you should be able to get an interesting cup of coffee. Indonesian coffees are my favorites, especially those from the island of Sulawesi. They are full-bodied and thick rather than acidic, and have what is described as a unique “rustic” character.
I’ve seen that practice of drinking from the saucer that you described. Apparently it is common in some parts of the world, for reasons I’ve never understood. It seems to me that it is a much more difficult way to consume a beverage. Perhaps it has the benefit of quickly cooling a hot drink?
As you observed, the sad news from Gaza continues to pour in. Yesterday I read that the Israeli Defense Force has actually admitted to accidentally shooting and killing 3 hostages who were trying to escape, apparently mistaking them for militants. They are “deeply grieved,” of course. I guess it would have been OK by “anonymous” if they had been Gazan civilians?
"Anonymous" hates Jews and Muslims both. The demonization of Muslims in the West has been relentless, with all sorts of false flags blamed on them, and we know who control the news. "Anonymous" is a product of this toxic culture.
As the Indonesians would "run amuk" the Scandinavians would "go berserk." I'm not religious and I don't have any particular affinity for Christianity but apparently the coming of that religion to Scandinavia quelled much of the wrath of the Viking raids on Western Europe.
Decades ago the German philosopher Karl Jaspers proposed that there had existed an "axial" age around much of the old world c. 800 to 200 B.C. when thinkers such as Lou Tsu in China, Socrates in Greece and Buddha in India taught the old world to think about thinking. Perhaps without this "axial age" we would be even more barbaric. It could be worse than drinking instant coffee from a saucer. In some places it still is.
As for the English language many of my fellow American denizens have not gone beyond a few Anglo-Saxon monosyllabic words for bodily functions. Hey! It "floats my boat" not to mention flushes my toilet.
As a young man,I fantasized about what if these 3 sages had met and talked.And not forget Sophokles:The worst thing upon us,is ignorance.That scientific assumption has held remarkably well for over 25 centuries.
Of the three classic Greek authors of the then new mode of "plays", the eldest Aeschylus (forgive my poor spelling) was unfathombable to me; Sophocles was the most penetrating with his "Eudupis Rex" and Euripidis the most humane.
Interesting how they and their insights lapsed into obscurity for almost 2000 years until some chap in England by the name of Shakespeare showed up in London.
It was said Euripidis spent the last years of his life in a cave overlooking the Aegian sea where he never had to confront another meddling, interfering human again.
As always, thanks to Mr. Dinh for allowing these comments.
Back in the US for the last 1.5 months, I am still struck by how much of life happens in private not in public.
I miss the sense of vitality that public life brings to a city. There are still some public markets and food trucks but they tend to be infrequent or away from the general area and sanitized. It seems illegal to have kids playing outside and laughing.
On the other hand, I don't miss the thousands of loud motor scooters or pollution belching trucks
Indonesian has done its fair share of making ‘amok’. What I call the Indonesian paradox is that on an individual level they are among the most charming and gentle people one could meet, particularly the Javanese - collectively however they have shown a particular aptitude for mass murder. Aftermath of the failed coup of September 1965: six hundred thousand to one million people; occupation of East Timor: up to one quarter of the population; occupation of Papua: from one hundred to three hundred thousand of the native population of about two million. In addition they have been among the worst colonizers. Wikipedia specifies: routine torture, sexual slavery, extra judicial executions, land theft etc. They seem to be under the delusion however that, being Asian, they couldn’t possibly be guilty of colonialism. So they have the effrontery to call their occupation of Papua ‘pembebasan’(liberation) - a chutzpah they have underlined with that statue in Jakarta of a Papuan breaking his chains.
Thanks, but books sent to Vietnam risk being confiscated. It has happened to me. Also, I'm immersed in Indonesia now, but in a week, my body and mind will return to Vietnam.
I know you lived in Certaldo years ago, and I'm in the neighbourhood right now. Well I didn't visit Certaldo yet, as without a car my travel options are reduced, but I've been to Siena and a few other places and might try to reach Certaldo before I leave. Merry Christmas!!!
You can take a train to Certaldo. San Gimignano is much more interesting but a bit harder to reach. You'll have to take a train and a bus. Do check out Lucca. Siena and Firenze alone can keep you interested for weeks, if not forever. If you want to see many Chinese, go to Prato.
Thanks. Oh, I've just been to Lucca, Siena and also San Gimignano, and it's not the first time. But Certaldo also for time reasons I could not ever go. I was curious because it is Bocaccio's birthplace. But perhaps another time... I haven't been to Prato, and I haven't seen many Chinese in the other towns, mostly African migrants loitering around and a few Japanese tourists. Buon Natale, Linh!
Empoli is a bit of a dump, and Livorno isn't much to look at. From there, you can take the ferry to Corsica, however.
The allies bombed Boccaccio's house, so what you'll see in Certaldo is a reconstruction. In the old church on the hill, his bones have also been tossed from his grave. At the bottom of the hill, La Speranza Hotel is probably haunted. My two best years were spent in Certaldo, and I knew this at the time. Life could only go downhill from there!
Linh, these American "Christians" are no more Christian than I am a Muslim or a Buddhist. Probably members of one of those tele-evangelist cults that have been co-opted by Jews long ago. But perhaps it's also the long tradition of American hypocrisy. They will foment all kinds of cultural degeneration, from porn to satanist pop songs to gay sex stuff for school kids, but they will freak out if someone shows a nipple on television. If you barely pet a child's head, or simply take pictures of children playing, you're considered a pedophile pervert and risk being arrested (really!), but create a Pizza Comet where actual pedophile politicians go, and you'll be celebrated, and if anyone accuses you of abusing children, it's just a "conspiracy theory" (being gay and "adopting children" also works). Americans will obsess and cry over all kinds of "micro-aggressions" and imagined offenses, but they completely ignore the atrocities in Gaza, or even support it.
McChristians I've seen such people called. You can find them in their thousands "praying for Israel" on Christian news channels reporting from safe neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv. Even the fluffiest of them are hard to reach, because their beliefs appear to be bound up with vanity. "To be saved," says Trappist monk Thomas Merton, "is to fall into the ludicrous and satanic flippancy of false piety, kitsch." A bit harsh? I suppose, but their moral blindness in their support of the wholesale murder of Palestinians is incomprehensible.
I coined the McChristian term. Thank you for promoting it. After Trump stole my "you're fired" bit, I'm very touchy about this sorta stuff. The catchphrase mocking the jewjab "got m1Ψ?" is also mine.
Looking forward to some semblance of humanity returning to the land after the corrupt West collapses.
The open hypocrisy of American McChristians is overwhelming.
I too liked to see children play in a garden, but these days I walk passed slowly
there is a hatred against men, espesically elder men
I recall being lambasted one time as a creepy fossil for being 35 and chatting with a crowd of college students. Now all those students are in their mid-forties. How does it taste, ya arrogant fuckers? "Someday you will ache like I ache..."
As the joke goes, "'old' is always 10 years older than I am". #CreepyFossilForeva
Has it ever happened that a mother has drawn her children close to her upon seeing you passing by? I'm almost sure I saw a woman hide her children under her skirt on one occasion. At my advanced age being still unable to control my temper or guard my mouth, and hurt as always by this display of distrust and indifference to my feelings, I once yelled back "stranger danger!" After a moment I heard the kid ask, "What did that man say, mummy?"
Nice one as usual. You spoil us with these wonderful vignettes. I'm an avid walker and having lived in KL since 1992 I've never heard that phrase Saya makan agin. Thanks dude.
I caught your video yesterday of the kids playing in the alley--very cute. It must be nice to live in a society where kids don’t need a prearranged “play date” and can just spontaneously enjoy each other’s company. It used to be that way here in the US when I was growing up, too…
An interesting Indonesian political story. I think the US is heading in that direction. I wonder why anyone would want to enter politics. It can’t be for the power—for a long time now, that has not been the real seat of power; the people who call the shots are mostly invisible. It was only half-jokingly said not that long ago that politics is “Hollywood for ugly people”. That line is getting blurrier by the day; we now have presidents in the world who are given their own TV shows so they can practice for a few years before they graduate to the real job.
Somewhere (maybe from reading VS Naipaul’s “Among the Believers”) I got the impression that Indonesian Muslims are more mild-mannered and less doctrinaire than their brethren closer to the Holy Land. But perhaps my belief is just an artifact of Indonesia’s less frequent appearance in the news pages compared to those countries closer to Islam’s original home. But hey, that’s a decades-old book, and I myself am old enough to remember “Pancasila” from grade school! Is that even still a thing in Indonesia?
At least you should be able to get an interesting cup of coffee. Indonesian coffees are my favorites, especially those from the island of Sulawesi. They are full-bodied and thick rather than acidic, and have what is described as a unique “rustic” character.
I’ve seen that practice of drinking from the saucer that you described. Apparently it is common in some parts of the world, for reasons I’ve never understood. It seems to me that it is a much more difficult way to consume a beverage. Perhaps it has the benefit of quickly cooling a hot drink?
As you observed, the sad news from Gaza continues to pour in. Yesterday I read that the Israeli Defense Force has actually admitted to accidentally shooting and killing 3 hostages who were trying to escape, apparently mistaking them for militants. They are “deeply grieved,” of course. I guess it would have been OK by “anonymous” if they had been Gazan civilians?
Hi JustPlainBill,
"Anonymous" hates Jews and Muslims both. The demonization of Muslims in the West has been relentless, with all sorts of false flags blamed on them, and we know who control the news. "Anonymous" is a product of this toxic culture.
Linh
As the Indonesians would "run amuk" the Scandinavians would "go berserk." I'm not religious and I don't have any particular affinity for Christianity but apparently the coming of that religion to Scandinavia quelled much of the wrath of the Viking raids on Western Europe.
Decades ago the German philosopher Karl Jaspers proposed that there had existed an "axial" age around much of the old world c. 800 to 200 B.C. when thinkers such as Lou Tsu in China, Socrates in Greece and Buddha in India taught the old world to think about thinking. Perhaps without this "axial age" we would be even more barbaric. It could be worse than drinking instant coffee from a saucer. In some places it still is.
As for the English language many of my fellow American denizens have not gone beyond a few Anglo-Saxon monosyllabic words for bodily functions. Hey! It "floats my boat" not to mention flushes my toilet.
As a young man,I fantasized about what if these 3 sages had met and talked.And not forget Sophokles:The worst thing upon us,is ignorance.That scientific assumption has held remarkably well for over 25 centuries.
Of the three classic Greek authors of the then new mode of "plays", the eldest Aeschylus (forgive my poor spelling) was unfathombable to me; Sophocles was the most penetrating with his "Eudupis Rex" and Euripidis the most humane.
Interesting how they and their insights lapsed into obscurity for almost 2000 years until some chap in England by the name of Shakespeare showed up in London.
It was said Euripidis spent the last years of his life in a cave overlooking the Aegian sea where he never had to confront another meddling, interfering human again.
As always, thanks to Mr. Dinh for allowing these comments.
Enjoy each day in Jakarta, Linh! 👍🏾🤩
Back in the US for the last 1.5 months, I am still struck by how much of life happens in private not in public.
I miss the sense of vitality that public life brings to a city. There are still some public markets and food trucks but they tend to be infrequent or away from the general area and sanitized. It seems illegal to have kids playing outside and laughing.
On the other hand, I don't miss the thousands of loud motor scooters or pollution belching trucks
another intelligent observation from the master himself
Arie Brand
Indonesian has done its fair share of making ‘amok’. What I call the Indonesian paradox is that on an individual level they are among the most charming and gentle people one could meet, particularly the Javanese - collectively however they have shown a particular aptitude for mass murder. Aftermath of the failed coup of September 1965: six hundred thousand to one million people; occupation of East Timor: up to one quarter of the population; occupation of Papua: from one hundred to three hundred thousand of the native population of about two million. In addition they have been among the worst colonizers. Wikipedia specifies: routine torture, sexual slavery, extra judicial executions, land theft etc. They seem to be under the delusion however that, being Asian, they couldn’t possibly be guilty of colonialism. So they have the effrontery to call their occupation of Papua ‘pembebasan’(liberation) - a chutzpah they have underlined with that statue in Jakarta of a Papuan breaking his chains.
They are quite a brutal nation. A caliphate of sorts.
Coming to think of it that monument in Jakarta does not just portray a Papuan male breaking his chains but a Papuan couple doing so.
Wonderful essay, wonderful photos, as usual. Loved the pictures of the children, especially the toddler with the huge beautiful brown eyes.
You might enjoy this one. If there is a way to send you one, let me know. Jim spent the Year Before Living Dangerously in a working-class barrio of these people. They use the book. https://www.amazon.com/Purifying-Faith-Muhammadijah-Movement-Indonesian/dp/1469635151/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1ZR8M5Z8DFH6J&keywords=peacock+purifying+the+faith&qid=1703418169&sprefix=peacock+purifying+the+faith%2Caps%2C96&sr=8-1
Yo Dan,
Thanks, but books sent to Vietnam risk being confiscated. It has happened to me. Also, I'm immersed in Indonesia now, but in a week, my body and mind will return to Vietnam.
Linh
Yeah. Thought you might have a drop somewhere. Oh well. Travel safe.
Linh,
I know you lived in Certaldo years ago, and I'm in the neighbourhood right now. Well I didn't visit Certaldo yet, as without a car my travel options are reduced, but I've been to Siena and a few other places and might try to reach Certaldo before I leave. Merry Christmas!!!
https://www.contrarium.org/2023/12/18/from-the-lives-of-tuscan-saints/
https://contrarium.substack.com/p/from-the-lives-of-tuscan-saints
Hi Tom,
You can take a train to Certaldo. San Gimignano is much more interesting but a bit harder to reach. You'll have to take a train and a bus. Do check out Lucca. Siena and Firenze alone can keep you interested for weeks, if not forever. If you want to see many Chinese, go to Prato.
Linh
Thanks. Oh, I've just been to Lucca, Siena and also San Gimignano, and it's not the first time. But Certaldo also for time reasons I could not ever go. I was curious because it is Bocaccio's birthplace. But perhaps another time... I haven't been to Prato, and I haven't seen many Chinese in the other towns, mostly African migrants loitering around and a few Japanese tourists. Buon Natale, Linh!
Hi Tom,
Empoli is a bit of a dump, and Livorno isn't much to look at. From there, you can take the ferry to Corsica, however.
The allies bombed Boccaccio's house, so what you'll see in Certaldo is a reconstruction. In the old church on the hill, his bones have also been tossed from his grave. At the bottom of the hill, La Speranza Hotel is probably haunted. My two best years were spent in Certaldo, and I knew this at the time. Life could only go downhill from there!
Linh
I'm sure your reference to "amok" is felicitous, but if not here's some fun reading on the history of the word/phrase.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC181064/#:~:text=Amok%2C%20or%20running%20amok%2C%20is,around%2Dthe%2Dworld%20voyage.
66!? I could swear you've put yourself younger in an earlier essay. But having met you that one time I had a feeling you're a Fire Rooster.
[takes one to know one 🧨]
Hi Irritable Farmer,
jimmydee1130 is 66. I'm 99. Just kidding. I was born on 11/12/1963, so have just turned 60.
Linh
My apologies Linh. Happy belated birthday 🙏