The Premiere Ball Event in Jakarta....with Insaaf Dobberstein

Friday night (last night) my wife and I attended our first black tie event in Jakarta:  the Latin Ball.  The Spanish Speaking Women Association of Jakarta organized the event.  Some friends of ours heard about the event because they are friends with a woman from Spain who participates in the organization.  They invited us to join them.  We thought it sounded like fun and agreed to go.  I later discovered this is the premiere formal event for expats in Jakarta.

Most of the international clubs have balls throughout the year.  New Zealand, India, Japan all have formal balls, but the Latin Ball is the one everyone considers a "must attend".  Having attended, I understand why.  There were 52 tables of ten people.  The place was absolutely packed. 

According to the program for the evening, the event started at 7 PM with a cocktail hour, dinner and opening ceremonies started at 9 PM, at 10 PM dances and music native to the countries represented in the Spanish Speaking Women Association would start, followed by open bar and dancing with a live Latin band until 4 AM.

It was a great event and we had a really good time.

A few key points of interest:

1. To advertise the ball, they announced it to the local media.  If you view the link, you'll notice one detail is conspicuously missing:  The location.  The announcement refers to it as a "local five star hotel".  This is a security measure followed by organizers of large expat events to minimize risk of terrorist attack.  The venue is only listed on the tickets, which you can only pick up the day before the event; sometimes you must wait for the day of the event.  The tickets listed the Shangri-La Hotel as the venue. 
2. We registered last minute for the event, so the organizers did not have proper name cards for our table.  This also meant that the seating chart did not have our names.  We knew we were at the same table as our friends, so we took the seats that were unoccupied.  Both seats had the same name which became our alias for the evening:  "Insaaf Dobberstein".
3. Apparently, auctions don't work well at these events.  One of the sponsors donated jewelry worth $2,500 USD as a fundraising auction for a charity the organizers supported.  They started the bidding at $1,000.  No one bid.  They moved on to other portions of the program, and would request bids at various points.  Finally, someone at my table opened the bidding at $1,000.  No one else took the bait, and they moved on.  The gentleman who bid then asked me to make a higher bid and said he would then out bid me.  The idea was to try and create momentum.  I tracked down the master of ceremonies and bid $1,050.  Shortly thereafter (and much to my relief), the gentleman at my table bid $1,100.  Unfortunately, our gambit proved unsuccessful.  No one else bid, and he walked away with $2,500 worth of jewelry for $1,100.
4. I ran into one of the guys I play rugby with and several people who live in our neighborhood.  None of us knew the other would be in attendance.  This is just more proof of how truly small the expat community is in such a large city.  The Six Degrees of Separation for Jakarta expats is probably more like three.  This is really just more proof of what we all see (and too many resent) about American immigrant communities.  Humans like to associate with others who are like them.  We are drawn to locations and events where we feel like we fit in, even if we are among strangers.  Instead of chastising it, or demanding that immigrants adjust to "our way", we will all be better off if we just recognize this fundamental aspect of humanity and celebrate the diversity.

Also, I'd love to provide pictures of this event.  The problem is that someone (my wife) who will remain nameless (my wife) didn't charge the camera battery (my wife used it last) and it had no juice for the evening (because my wife didn't charge it).  We did bring our new iPod Touch, but the qualit of picture is pretty bad and we haven't attempted the download from the device yet.