Fitting in here

When I made the decision to work in Jakarta I knew that it would be a very different experience from Jambi, but the change in lifestyle is nevertheless striking to me since it is within the same country.  Granted, Jakarta itself does have extreme disparities between the haves and the have-nots.  Walking around Jakarta’s fancy shopping malls though, I feel ironically as one of the have-nots among the Louis Vuitton-laden Asian shoppers but when I step outside and get on my Kopaja 640 going home, I am immediately transformed into the only white person crazy enough to ride the public buses and offered the only seat in its crammed interior.

In the meantime while I adjust to this new reality, I have begun testing out the waters of Jakarta’s social scene and am ever surprised to see how tightly connected the expat community is here.  Even with the few American friends I have so far, they all seem to have friends in common with me or another one of my friends.  I have also learned that this connecting is generally done at happy hours around the city, and that the Foreign Correspondents Club, among some bars, provide regular FREE happy hours.  Now that is something that can let me connect to the professional expat scene on my volunteer budget.   

Belonging to a different realm of Jakarta, my friends from the office are fairly professional and straight-edged kind of Indonesians in spite of the available alternatives that come from Western influences mentioned above.  When they choose to socialize it falls in the normal shopping or movie going trips to Jakarta's abundant shopping malls.  While this can be fun in small doses, I doubt how fulfilling it will be in repetition.  Plus, an American friend already got pick pocketed in his first week at one!

Well here’s to a very different year to come.