Feeding Watermelon to Elephants

I like feeding large melons to the elephants.  When I first thought of it, I had Gallagher aspirations.  Turns out, it isn't that cool.  It is still a crowd pleaser, and the elephants like it, too.  See what happens when I try to walk over to a different elephant when the one closest to me is interested in the food I have in my hand.

 

The picture quality isn't great - the original version is better.  Sizing videos for upload to the blog results in a lower resolution and a choppy picture.

 

Entertaining the Kids

For several months, we've been discussing treating the children of our driver's to a fun outing. Originally, we planned to take them with us on our next trip to Taman Safari. Logistically, this poses challenges. We'd probably have to take two cars. Instead, we decided to bring everyone to Kidzania.

Kidzania is a remarkable concept in children's edutainment that I wish I had thought of. Children get to play "dress up" and perform adult jobs ranging from cleaning windows, to bagging groceries, to news reporter and airline pilot. When they perform a job, they earn money - Kidzania Bucks. They can then use this money for fun activities like racing cars (to do this, they must first use the Kidzania Bucks to receive a physical and pay to obtain a driver's license), getting fake tattoos, or even rock climbing.

Our driver's kids are older - 7, 10 and 12. They enjoyed attending the university, using the flight simulator to be a pilot, and racing cars. The two youngsters (who we tell Kidzania are 4 so they can do everything), enjoyed making popsicles, hot dogs and chocolate bars (which they get to eat), fighting fires and being a dentist.

Learning what it takes to fight fires.

Preparing to clean teeth.

Last week was Kidzania. This week was Taman Safari. This is always a favorite for the first timers and kids. This time we did the safari, the petting zoo, the animal rides, and then the mechanized rides. We still have not made it up the hill for all the other activities like the water park, some of the animal shows, and the many other activities Taman Safari has to offer. The kids tire after five hours of running around (so do the parents). Below are pictures of the girls enjoying one of the swings and myself holding the lion cub who is growing fast!

Please, no mas...NO MAS

We have lived in Jakarta for nearly eleven months.  While decidedly insufficient to claim experiential knowledge of all things Jakartan, much less all things Indonesian, eleven months is a sufficient duration to recognize those common events which we will always find strange, shocking, or just plain bizarre.  I associate no value judgement to these differences.  I merely recognize the difference in what is and is not culturally acceptable.

I submit to you the things in Jakarta we will never get used to:

1)  Men who use urinal water to wash their hands.  Anyone who's seen men in the lavatory knows that we typically walk to the urinal, stand still, and then leave (hopefully after washing our hands in the sink).  So when I see a lot of motion out of the corner of my eye, it's distracting.  This is how I happened to observe that flushing the urinal, and then placing one's hand in the flow of water along the back, is fairly common here.  I see it several times a week and it seems odd to me every time.

2)  No tampons.  As the doctor explained it to my wife, because so many people have no formal education and have a lack of knowledge of what is and is not sanitary, there is a large concern that, once inserted, they would not be removed for several days...or even weeks.

3)  Severely deformed beggars.  In the US, in some of the larger cities, or in Sun Belt cities, you will occassionally see a beggar with a missing appendage.  Here, the beggars at intersections will have severely burned faces, quasimoto-esque deformities, hunched backs, and feet or hands that hang limply because of missing wrist or ankle bones.  Very hard to witness.

4)  The "I have no idea what you just said" smile and nod.  Like most nations not part of the former English empire, most Indonesians have learned a second language.  As expats, we tend to frequent establishments known for catering to expats.  This means our experience is that everyone speaks English.  So, we speak English to everyone we meet and assume they understand.  Most of the time, they understand.  When they don't, one of two things happens.  If we're lucky, they will give that universally known look of lost confusion.  Unfortunately, what we usually experience is a smile and nod indicating comprehension, and then they walk away as if they never spoke to you while you think their doing what you asked.  I'm not sure why someone thinks that pretending to understand is better than admiting you don't and it frustrates me every time I encounter it.  Ultimately, we should probably try to speak in the local language instead of assuming everyone speaks English.

5)  The cloyingly pertinacious sales people.  Indonesia overstaffs.  When labor is $1 an hour, you can fire at will and don't offer benefits, the tendency is to overstaff.  This means that every aisle of every store has at least one sales person.  As soon as you walk in their "space", they accost you.  God help you if you pick something up.  "You want to buy those pants?  How about these underwear?"  "Good price on that flat screen TV.  Try these nose hair trimmers, too!"  If you buy something from multiple sections - like bath towels, a toaster, and a decorative vase - you'll have three sales people follow you to the cash register so they all get their commission.

Valentine's Day Surprise

My wife and I have never been big celebrators of Valentine's Day (what I like to call "Singles Awareness Day"; alternatively, I just tell people "Happy VD!").  First, we don't believe in the idea of defining some arbitrary day as the day to celebrate a relationship.  We use our anniversary for that purpose.  Second, the idea of defining a holiday simply to drive consumerism diminishes the intended message.  I was done with Valentine's Day my freshman year in college when a radio station asked listeners (all women) to call in with the most romantic things their signficant other did.  The callers proceeded to define "romantic" as:  a mink coat, a diamond bracelet, two dozen roses, a new car, and a trip to Vegas.  Where were the free gestures like poetry, candle lit dinner at home, etc?  That ended the "romance" of VD for me.  Third, Valentine's Day has become a day for men to spend on their women, and not the other way around.  So, our tradition has always been my wife treats me to a quiet dinner out.

Knowing that background, you can understand why my wife would be surprised, and a little nervous, when I informed her I had a big Valentine's Day surprise for her.  Her curiousity - and nervousness - increased when I began to hype the "gift" by saying "the most expensive thing I've ever bought you", and "will qualify me for the 'Husband of the Year' award".  The catch was that it had to wait until the 17th.  My explanation was that Valentine's Day fell on the same day as the Chinese New Year and the streets would be busy and restaurants packed.  Furthermore, since we were not celebrating on the ACTUAL day, we could postpone it to our normal weekly date night - Wednesday.

 

All of this made sense and there were no objections.  My plan was working perfectly.  Then United Airlines stepped in and caused problems.  My "gift".  The "big surprise", was that I had conspired with my wife's sister to fly her and her two daughters - aged 3 years and 5 months - to Jakarta to stay with us for a month.  We'd been planning it since Christmas, but wanted to keep it a secret.  I waited until February to start dropping hints.  On the day they were to leave Phoenix, United, in their infinite stupidity, said they could not find the infant ticket from Phoenix to LAX.  They saw the ticket was fine once they arrived in LA, but was asking her to pay $350 to get to LAX.  Three hours, and a missed flight, later, they "found" the ticket.  In reality, lap babies DO NOT REQUIRE a ticket.  Good job United!!  Yet another reason not to fly such an old airline.

They were able to board the following day, but I now needed an excuse to delay our Valentine's Day dinner another day.  I told my wife that there was a delay in the arrival of the gift I had special ordered, so we would have to wait another day.  By this point, my wife was asking around if anyone knew.  Luckily, I live by the motto "two men can keep a secret if one of them is dead", so I had told no one.  I didn't know that my sister-in-law had told several people, so we were further lucky that my wife didn't start pestering them.  I knew I couldn't keep her in suspense too much longer.  If there was another delay, I was going to have to tell her.

The pressure became enormous.  My wife kept asking.  She kept reminding me she didn't like surprises.  She started listing the things it "better not be".  I started making up my own, outrageous ideas.  "You like the show 'Big Love', so I ordered you a 'Sister wife' from Russia!"  "You said you like babies, so I bought you a baby!"  She stopped asking after that.

On the day the surprise arrived, I left work at lunch to pick them up.  My phone battery was, unexpectedly, dying, so I was able to turn off my phone so I wouldn't give away my position to my wife.  We arrived at the house mid-afternoon and I took my baby niece inside with me.  I showed her to my wife and said "See, I told you I got you a baby!"  She was just staring at her thinking "where do I know that baby?"  That's when her sister came up the stairs and the hugs and tears began.

Everything worked wonderfully except one thing - I failed to realize this would mean I would have four kids under four in my house.  When they are all awake, there is never a quiet or dull moment.  I'm paying both our maid and nanny to work overtime the whole month to help out.

As for me, I'm wondering how much it would cost to stay at the Ritz for the next two weeks...

Why we should fear China

China is in the news a lot lately, and the reasons are unsettling. China has passed Germany as the world's top exporter. They are closing in on Japan as the world's second largest economy, behind only the United States. Via their stimulus package, they are largely credited with preventing the Great Recession from becoming a global depression. They hosted the most recent summer Olympics. They played a large, contrarian role at the recent environmental summit in Copenhagen. Their battle with Google is front page news. They have economic might and political clout and are afraid to flex neither.

Those are the headlines. We've grown accustomed to annoying behavior from China - abstaining from key UN Security Council votes, refusing to sanction Iran's nuclear programs. Never quite an ally, and never quite a foe, China has always walked a fine line in their relationship with America. Refusing to bend on human rights violations, yet still retaining Most Favored Nation status. Low cost manufacturing lowers retail prices for American consumers while a suppressed Chinese currency creates an unfair advantage in global trade, which in turn hurts US corporations. If you read beyond the headlines, you should be scared. If you are not, read the six reasons why I am.

1) China Inc. China's major corporations are government owned and operated. In most communist countries, this doesn't work so well. The economy eventually collapses under the weight of inefficient bureaucracy and corruption. It works in China because China operates its businesses based on market forces, not government quotas, mixing Capitalism with Communism. It also gambles based on market forecasts - not something communism is known for. This philosophical soup gives Chinese businesses a tremendous advantage, in an Orwellian sense. The businesses are the government, and vice versa. Currency valuation affecting the ability to export? No problem, the Chinese central bank will devalue the currency making it easier for foreign nations to buy Chinese goods. Having labor difficulties? No problem, the businesses are nationalized, and you can't strike against the government, so we'll start throwing dissenters in jail. Your business creates pollution? We'll change the emissions laws. This unparalleled cooperation is achievable because there is little separation of public and private sectors. One need only look at how quickly US big banks recovered to profitability to understand how formidable companies can be when backed by government coffers.

2) Raw Material Acquisitions. While the US government is spending all its money fighting wars in third-world nations, the Chinese are busy spending its money - given to them by Americans buying cheap product in high volume - building infrastructure in these same countries so they can control their natural resources. Case in point, the Anyak ore deposit in Afghanistan. The Chinese government's mining company was able to offer something that no private company in the world could possibly have matched - military protection. Afghanistan is not in a position to secure what will be a very large tax revenue for the struggling nation. No private company would be, either. China was happy to. Expect more of this as they buy the mineral rights in places like Somalia, Algeria, Congo, and more in Afghanistan. The Chinese are colonizing in an ingenious, devious manner. Chinese owned businesses, aka - the Chinese Government, arrive in these countries with "security" and take control of their means of manufacture. This is more dangerous than people realize. When China tries and fails to acquire a company, they throw the negotiators in jail for bribery and stealing corporate secrets.

3) Taiwan. The US recently agreed to complete a military arms sale to Taiwan. Taiwan split from China following World War 2, but China never fully recognized their independence and has threatened to invade if Taiwan tries to make the split permanent. China has indicated that if the US follows through with the sale of military weaponry to Taiwan, there will be repercussions. These repercussions include sanctioning the companies who manufactured the arms, which would prevent companies like Boeing from selling to one of their largest customers. China has already suspended military talks with the US. This fight has been brewing for decades. Up until now, China did not feel it was in the superior position, despite having the world's largest army. Just ten years ago, a Chinese refusal to buy American technology - like Boeing airplanes - would have hurt their growth more than it would have hurt American companies. This is no longer the case. As President Obama alluded to in his recent State of the Union address, the Chinese are more than capable with their own technology. In fact, when it comes to clean energy, China already leads the world in the creation of wind turbines and solar panels. If you thought energy dependence on Muslim nations who despise us was dangerous, imagine a wold where our energy dependence is on an aggressive, expansionist regime with a population four times our size and technology that rivals our own.

4) Government sponsored industrial espionage/terrorism. I'm sure everyone has heard about the battle with Google. It goes well beyond the censorship. Google believes that Chinese hackers, with government backing, attempted to breach their network. They were moderately successful at doing so. We also know that Google was not the only target. These hackers also attacked companies with which China has a strategic interest. With China's insatiable hunger for copper, and our strategic play with this metal, we revisited our own security controls as a precaution. It doesn't stop at stealing company secrets. China is on a resource acquisition frenzy. They were the winning bid on a mine in Nevada that, really, no one else had much interest in. The deal had received all regulatory approvals...until the US Military learned that the Chinese were buying a mine that bordered one of their strategic air bases. The Chinese quickly and quietly withdrew their offer at that point.

5) Rare Earth minerals. Almost everyone knows about the common metals - iron ore, copper, gold, silver. Many even know about some of the less common minerals - cobalt, molybdenum, titanium. You probably have never heard of Rare Earth minerals like scandium, dysprosium, yttrium and lanthanides. Why should we care about these minerals? A few reasons: First, they are necessary components of the most advanced electronics - lasers, hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, commercial aircraft and night vision goggles, to name a few. Second, though they exist everywhere, they are only profitable to mine when they are in high concentrations. There are only a handful of places in the world where they exist in high enough concentrations to mine - most are in China. Third, China knows this and is tightening its control on these minerals. So not only are they gaining the technical capabilities to build the most advanced technology in the world (see #3), but they are also capable of controlling the raw materials so that other countries would be at an economic disadvantage if they attempted to manufacture a competing product.

6) The Dalai Lama. Last, but not least, China is growing increasingly incensed with the Dalai Lama. This carries over to countries that agree to meet with him, including the US. Taking a lesson from the US world governance textbook, China is using its economic might to achieve its desired political results. When the leaders of major world players like Germany and Great Britain are willing to relax their stance on human rights for fear of reprisals from China, you know that China is a force. Given their history when they do have muscle to flex, we should all be a little on edge.

There is no denying the importance of China on the world stage. The real question is, what, if anything, should the US government do about it? What should US citizens do? Government can start by ending our dependency on foreign nations for energy, of any kind. We have all the resources and ingenuity we need in our own nation. Second, we can stop being the world police. We must honor commitments to our allies. We must not interfere with how other nations govern their people. Finally, instead of being the world's biggest spender on military - more than the rest of the world COMBINED, actually - we should be the world's largest investor in energy, medical advances, and communications. As citizens, our only job is to write our elected representatives and push for this agenda. And, if they don't do as we ask, we vote in someone who will.

Another visitor

We moved to Jakarta at the end of March in 2009. My mother-in-law joined us on the trip out to help us get settled in. She left in April after spending a few weeks with us. We spent the summer by ourselves before moving to Singapore. Since then we have had non-stop visitors.

• My mom joined us for two weeks in Singapore.
• My mother-in-law made a return trip with my brother-in-law a few weeks later and stayed for 2 months.
• My dad and sister visited a few weeks later.
• My wife's father visited for a weeks later.
• My wife's aunt is with us now.

We have established a basic visitor routine. First, everyone must visit Hacienda. If your visit lasts a week or happens on a weekend, you will be going to Hacienda with us. A trip to one of the malls is also on the agenda. If you are here two weeks, or are willing to go by yourself during the week, you'll also see Taman Safari.

This time, our visitor's arrival coincided with the 1 year anniversary party for Hacienda. The party was an invitation only affair for their best customers. Of course, we are some of their best customers. I think we've probably spent more money there in the last year than anyone else has.

The party was awesome. Free food, free margaritas, festive atmosphere. We sat at a table with the sister of the waiter we usually have when we visit. She is a nice lady married to an Australian expat. We also drank far too much. Before going, I didn't think I would drink at all. I'd had a head cold all week and the one glass of wine I'd had earlier in the week made things worse. By the time we arrived, however, I felt the best I'd felt in weeks. I should have stuck to my original plan. I had a rough night. I still got up for work in the morning, but I was only able to work a half day and I prolonged my sinus agony for another two days.

Two weeks ago we hired a nanny. We really like her and she's great with the kids. We now have two drivers, a full time maid and a full time nanny. The nanny comes Monday through Saturday from 11:30 AM to 6 PM. Twice a week she stays late so my wife and I can go out - typically Thursdays and Saturdays. Thursday for us was Hacienda. Saturday was a trip back to the Indian restaurant at the Manhattan Hotel.

The elevator of the hotel has little placards inside indicating what is on each floor. Floor 3 is the New York Steakhouse. Floor 5 is the Indian restaurant. Floor 7 is the Ladies Only Executive Floor. We've always wondered what that was all about. This time, I asked our waiter. He explained that most of the visitors to the hotel are Arab. In the Arab (Muslim) culture, women do not mingle with men who are not their relation. If there is not a women's only floor, the only option available for the wives and daughters is to remain in their rooms. The women's only floor is for them.

The big event of this week was the Superbowl. I tried the last several weeks to find a way to get the appropriate channel for my house. Didn't happen. I then tried to convince my clubhouse that they should air it because of all the Americans in our complex. That didn't happen. So, we paid $18 per person to have breakfast at the American Club to watch it there on the Armed Forces Network. Did I mention that in Jakarta the Superbowl started at 6 AM, so we had to leave the house at 5:30 AM? I'd say that shows dedication if I wasn't always leaving the house at that time to go to work.

Amazingly, my wife and her aunt both woke early enough to go and watch it with me. They were looking forward to the commercials. Of course, the Armed Forces Network doesn't air any of the commercials, so they had to be happy with the game. Good thing the game lived up to the hype! I must admit that I was shocked by the outcome, though I am happy for the Saints and their fans.

I cannot begin to tell you the fervor experienced at my company, and the expats here from New Orleans. Our CFO actually flew to Miami just to attend the game. He had just returned from the US a few weeks ago, only to turn around and fly back to spend the weekend there for the game and come back. He told me he would bring a sign that said: "I flew all the way from Indonesia: Go Saints!" I did not see him on TV, though.

I did not get to watch much football this year - and my prognostication abilities greatly suffered as a result - but I was able to watch my favorite sport when it mattered most, and that is all that really matters.