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.