Mother's Day, Beauty Queens , Malls, Crowded Zoos, and Swine Flu

The audience interested in my actual work activity is small, if I'm being generous. Suffice it to say I've exceeded my own expectations in a few areas, and am finding a few surprises in others. As I developed myself as a manager, I focused on developing an ability to put the right people in the right roles, point them in the right direction, and then get out of their way. This is continuing to work like a charm here.

Enough about that.

Most of my Indonesian life is spent at work or asleep, so most of my experiences happen while at work or on the commute there - both of which provide something new every week. I believe it was on Wednesday this week when we had what was described in the company memo as Indonesia's "Mother's Day". On this day, mothers - though I don't know if it was ALL mothers or mothers of a certain religion - dress up in a festive outfit. My floor houses the employee lounge and they called all the mothers to the lounge to celebrate the day. Out of curiosity I wandered in to see a few moments of the event. There were several women dressed in Kebaya and a professional photographer taking pictures. The women were laughing and making jokes. I quietly left after just a few moments so I did not become a target of the laughing and jokes.

On Friday, I walked through the employee lounge on my way to a meeting in the late afternoon. I was surprised to see three beautiful women sitting at a dressing room mirror applying makeup. I walked into my meeting and asked "What's with the movie stars?" No one knew. After the meeting, I received another company memo via email announcing "Inner Beauty Day" presented by the Health and Safety department. The memo invited everyone to come to the employee lounge at 3 PM to hear our Chief Administrative Officer (a woman) speak about how women can advance their careers. Then, the reigning Miss Indonesia would give lessons on applying makeup. A local television station was present to record the entire event. I've never heard of a similar event at any company I've ever worked for in the US. The event was well attended; no one on my staff went.

Saturday we went to yet another mall. - 2, actually: 1 locals mall, 1 bule mall. This city is full of them with a vast variety of prices and merchandise. The one thing they all have in common is enormity. Mall of America has nothing on these malls. They are all at least 6 stories - many of them 10 - and probably have at least 1,000 shops each. Even the ones that cater to the affluent.

The bule mall we went to is the first place I have found - in the US or Indonesia - that carries the gift I've been seeking for my daughters 3rd birthday in June. Not only did it have them, they were all 50% off! Wooden-track train sets are very difficult to find. This set is manufactured by a company called "Brio", which I believe is German, and is of great craftsmanship. I like the wooden train sets because they last generations without much care. I ended up buying 4 of them and allowing her to play with her favorite one - the Zoo themed set - when we got home. Like most malls, this one had a food court, only it was a whole floor dedicated to food and had a seaside theme. In addition to traditional seating, we had the option to eat in a boat or inside a lighthouse. The boats were over water (even though this was the 7th floor). Pretty neat!

On Sunday we decided to go to the Jakarta Zoo: Rangunan. This is a zoo in central Jakarta. I think the original premise was to be like Central Park in New York City. In many ways, they achieved this - large, expansive grassy areas for sitting and lounging, activities other than animal watching like paddle boats. In other ways, they did not - vendors EVERYWHERE. They just setup shop wherever they happen to find no one else setting up shop. The animal cages themselves left a lot to be desired - run down, dirty, very close to the patrons. Many people were feeding the monkeys whatever snacks they had: chocolate cookies, peanuts, empty wrappers. I saw a pelican eat what appeared to be a diaper. I will admit to feeding a granola bar to one of the bears - all of which have learned to stand on their hind legs and beg, and are also capable of catching, in midair with their mouth, any food thrown to them.

The zoo was Disneyland busy. Most of the people, however, did not look at any of the animals. Rangunan may be one of the few - if not the only - places in the city with wide, open areas for people to have picnics. We saw a lot of families just sitting on the grass napping, chatting, and eating. For our part, we stood out like Gulliver in Lilliput. We were at the zoo about 3 hours and never saw another white face. We were on display as much as or more than the animals. We would walk by crowds of people and they would turn and watch us leave. I'm not sure if they thought we were movie stars or if they were wondering why the heck a family of bule would be at that zoo. We felt like movie stars.

How much did a day at the zoo cost for all three of us? 13,000 Rupiah - or, just over $1.

We finished the day by visiting yet another mall - Senyan City - in search of a Mexican restaurant. We were told it was at this mall. It wasn't. We settled for an American restaurant and got a burger (daughter), tuna sandwich (wife) and spaghetti carbonara (myself). Their sangria (daughter) - kidding! - was also good.

Last but not least, I'm carefully monitoring the WHO's information on the Swine Flu outbreak in Mexico. When it was confining itself to Mexico and the southwestern US, I was watching out of a anthropological curiosity to see how modern medicine can respond to a medical pandemic like Bubonic Plague. Now that it has jumped to SE Asia I have a heightened interest as this part of the world is particular vulnerable to pandemics - SARS and Bird Flu being two recent examples - as a result of dense populations, poor sanitation, and worse medical care. If necessary, my company provides a medevac to Singapore - who has some of the greatest medical facilities in the world - so that helps me sleep at night. For now, I'm just monitoring the situation and hoping it stays out of Indonesia.