Missing people, broken bones and no power.

If I told you I spent last week Friday, 14 May, worrying about missing people, helping someone with a fractured elbow, and dealing with a power outage, you would probably assume I was traveling through the American Midwest when the tornadoes hit.  It would be a good guess....but you'd be wrong.  That was my daughter's fifth birthday party.

My wife is a very brave woman.  Our daughter will turn five while we are in Singapore and my wife wanted to have a party in Jakarta before we left so we could invite her friends.  But not just any party.  Not for a fifth birthday.  My wife wanted to host a slumber party.  Like I said, my wife is a very brave woman.

My wife and my cousin spent the morning and early afternoon preparing - decorating, coloring posters, last minute shopping, preparing the goodie bags.  For a slumber party theme, we were giving all the girls a goodie bag with a flashlight, wash cloth with their names embroidered on them, toothbrush....the basic necessities a girl needs when preparing for the night.  We also decorated our living room like a night sky; purple drapes hung from the ceiling with silver stars on them.

As the 4 PM start time approached, my wife received a text from the mother of one of the girls saying she wasn't going to come to the party because the girl wanted to play with a different friend instead.  Not sure what we can do with a washcloth embroidered with "Norico" on it.  The party hasn't started and we're already down a casualty.  Our daughter was disappointed, but we worked through it.

Most of the girls, ranging in age from 3-5, arrived by 4 PM.  A few who left home late fought rain-worsened traffic all the way here and didn't arrive until 6 PM.  By then, we already had a broken bone.  All of the girls were running around the living room, chasing each other as young girls do.  One happened to step on the dress of another and when the girl wearing the dress took off, the girl standing on it slipped and fell hard onto the marble floor.  She screamed in pain and cried inconsolably for nearly twenty minutes.  She refused to do anything but sit on the couch but she also didn't want to leave.  We eventually made contact with her mother and recommended she take her to a doctor.  The brave little girl cried even louder when her mom pulled her from the party - she did not want to leave.  Good thing she did, though.  She had two fractures near her elbow.  They took her to Singapore the next day for treatment.  If that happens at a party for girls, I think I'm going to use a padded room when my son turns five.

Once the majority of the girls arrived, we started the games.  The first was to find stuffed kittens hidden around the house.  When they arrived, we gave every girl a unique barrette for her hair.  Their task was to find the kitten with the matching barrette - another gift for them to take home.  After they found the kittens, we moved to the next game.  Each of them selected a clue about a Disney princess.  For example:  "I flew on a magic carpet."  In our kiddie pool, which we fill with plastic balls, we taped a picture of the princesses to one of the balls.  Their job was to find the princess that matched their clue.  The next game was "pin the crown on the princess" (not to be confused with a game I often see at work:  Pin the Blame on the Jackass).  Only one of the girls actually got it on the paper - the rest ended up on the wall somewhere.  The final activity before the cake was to decorate their own princess crown (the only activity the girl who broke her elbow wanted to do).

After the activities we served dinner and then cake.  We were so wrapped up in preparing for the kids and the nannies we didn't have any food for ourselves.  I made a (less than) quick trip to the nearby Indian restaurant and nearly missed the cutting of the cake.  Good thing I made it back in time, though, as my daughter needed a little assistance with the candles.

The final activity of the night was to watch a movie purchases especially for the occasion.  We even sprung for an original, not one of the copies they sell for 70 cents, because the copies often pause or have faults that you're willing to accept when you've paid 70 cents, but you want to avoid when you're hoping to entertain ten five-year-olds until they fall asleep.

Fifteen minutes into the movie, as my wife, cousin and I had just settled down to eat our dinner, the power went out.  We remained without power for an hour.  It's a good thing the goodie bags came with flashlights.  The girls entertained themselves with the flashlights while I setup my laptop to play the movie "Up".  They watched "Up" until the power returned, then finished watching the original, princess movie.

Most of the girls fell asleep watching the princess movie.  The next morning, they were up at the late, late hour of 6 AM and we made everyone pancakes.  By 10 AM, all but one of the girls were gone - the straggler remained until noon.  After we finished cleaning up, my wife took a four hour nap.  No lie.

A few other items on the party:

1)  My wife, who had been battling a cold for several weeks, lost her voice before the party, leaving me and my cousin to handle the directorial duties.
2)  Our daughter, probably from all the excitement and sugar, came down with a fever during the party.  We treated it and she was fine and continued on.
3)  One of the girls woke in the middle of the night with an asthma attack.  Her nanny had left, so it was a good thing we had both of ours stay the night.  They were able to help her through the attack.
4)  I told my wife that when I was in high school and dreamed of being the only male at a party of twenty females, having the females be five-year-olds and their Muslim nannies was definitely not what I had envisioned.  My son seemed to really enjoy it, though.

Quite the adventure.  Most importantly, our daughter had a great time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Return from China

Monday I flew back to Jakarta from China.  I knew I'd have a late night Sunday, so I planned ahead and booked an afternoon flight.  This meant a late arrival into Jakarta, but Tuesday was a holiday (Buddhist New Year) so I knew I could sleep in.  The only interesting part of the trip occurred on my Singapore to Jakarta flight.  I'm sitting in my business class seat when an enormous Indonesian sits in the seat next to me.  He was so big I was tempted to ask if he held a job that was responsible for his size.  When he started sleeping the moment after he sat down, I thought it better not to wake a sleeping giant.  While waiting for baggage, several airport staff, including security, rushed up to have their picture taken with him.  He exited the airport shortly before I did so I asked my driver if he knew who it was.  He informed me it was Ade Rai, the number one body builder in Asia.

Tuesday morning I didn't sleep in as long as I had hoped.  We decided to make a return visit to Taman Safari.  We do this with all our guests...did I forget to mention my cousin arrived?  She is the solution to our Singapore nanny dilemma.  She'll be with us until 1 July when my mom takes over.  Anyway, we decided to take her to see the animals.

I was quite impressed with the strides my daughter has made with her fear of animal encounters.  In prior visits, the idea of being close to the animals was always more appealing than actually being close to them.  This time, the fear was gone and she fed everything, including the elephants.  My son even got in the act of feeding the large beasts.  He knew exactly what to do when I gave him a mango and walked him to the elephant.  He put that tiny green fruit directly in the gaping maw, only to see it fall to the ground.   I would say there is no fear in that boy, but we also finally had the opportunity to ride the elephants...and my son wasn't exactly happy about it.

 

 

 

On our return to Jakarta our son gave us the scare of my life.  It is a long drive back from the zoo and I was making the most of the opportunity by taking a nap.  Our nanny calling our son's name in a panic woke me like a bullet firing in the car.  I turn around and my son's eyes are open and rolled in the back of his head.  I touch him and he feels like food fresh from the oven.  I pull him out of his car seat and onto my lap and he is as limp as a rag doll.  I thought I was holding my dead son.

I steeled my nerves and was preparing myself to give artificial resuscitation.  I checked his breathing - it was shallow, but there.  His heart was racing.  Our nanny said she had watched him have a seizure and that his lips had turned blue, that's why she started calling his name.  Our daughter starts freaking out whining:  "I don't want my brother to die, I don't want my brother to die."

My wife retrieves the fever reducer from the diaper bag and I instruct our driver to pull over as soon as possible at a gas station.  I want ice.  Minutes later we're pulling into a rest area that happens to have a Starbucks.  Despite the efforts of the staff, I was able to procure some ice and napkins, and, in addition to the fever medicine, we were able to bring his core body temperature down.  After twenty minutes of rubbing his chest, neck, back and head with cool water, our son became responsive and started voicing his displeasure.  He then proceeded to vomit all over himself and my wife who had the bad luck of just taking him from me.

I called ahead to the emergency clinic and asked if there was anything else we could or should do while we traveled there.  They said to just keep doing what we were doing.  Ninety minutes after holding my limp son in my arms, we arrived at the ER.  Ninety minutes after giving him fever reducing medicine, which did definitely reduce his fever, the ER nurse reported his temperature as 103.6.  I can only imagine how high it was when I picked him up.

We spent a few hours in the ER and left with five different medicines to give him.  The doctor said the seizure was likely a result of the fever and is common in young children with fevers.  No long-term damage is expected other than the reduction in years of my own lifespan for having the scare of my life.

Very Annoying Things

Over the past week, we've had, in quick succession, three things occur to remind us why we will be happy when it is time to return home.  File this under stereotypes and keep in mind this is not a reflection on Indonesians or Indonesia.  They are, however, far too common experiences.

1)  One of the symptoms my wife experiences with pregnancy is "blond moments".  She gets forgetful, especially in the later stages of pregnancy.  This week, she bought a bunch of new clothes for our kids prior to joining me for lunch.  After a nice lunch, she forgets the bag of clothes she set on the chair next to her.  We don't remember it until later that night when we go looking for them.  We call the restaurant who informs us they do not have a bag and no one turned it in.  Now, we know that they cleared our table immediately because the bus boy was standing next to the table as we left.  Did he think the clothes were a tip?  A similar situation happened to me last year when I visited the spa at our old residence.  I left my watch in the locker and didn't realize it until a few hours after I returned home.  At the restaurant, it is entirely possible no one on staff at the restaurant saw our bag sitting on the chair and a later patron decided to keep it for themselves.  At the spa, however, I locked the locker when I was done and returned the key to the cashier.  The next person in that locker would have cleaned it from top to bottom to prepare it for the next guest.  Again, did he think my watch was a tip for having such a clean locker?  In Indonesia, there is no such thing as a "Lost and Found".  Here they have a "Found and Kept".

2)  When we were preparing to move to Singapore for the birth of our first son, we were advised we needed to fill out a bunch of paperwork before we would be permitted to give birth there.  They even indicated we would need copies of our birth certificates - documents we left in Arizona.  Now that we are preparing to move there again next Saturday, the same company that assisted us two years ago asked us to fill out the same paperwork.  I reminded them of our prior experience and asked them to confirm if we needed to fill it out.  They said no.  While I'm in China, they send me another email saying we do need to fill it out and then sent me the forms and once again requested birth certificates for my wife and I.  I send them a link from the Singapore immigration website and ask them to explain where it asks for birth certificates.  A few days later they forward me an email explaining we don't need to fill anything out.  Attached to their email is an email from Singapore immigration confirming what I had already told them - US citizens are exempt from the process.  Too often I've encountered people here who just blindly follow a process they do not understand or even truly know.  At this point, I've learned to do my own research and not rely on the people who are supposed to be helping me.  They tend to get in the way more often than they help.

3)  Lack of urgency is a major problem.  Traffic is so bad that tardiness is expected.  If any obstacle presents itself, that's seen as a mutually agreed upon reason to miss a deadline or not complete a task - not as something that needs to be mitigated and resolved so things can move forward.  I tend to take it in stride, unless it really is urgent.  Earlier this week we had a minor health emergency with my son.  I'm holding him limp in my arms as we walk into a Starbucks and I say:  "I need ice quickly, please".  I even said it in Indonesian with the words "Cepat, Cepat", which, loosely translated, means "Hurry the F up!".  The guy behind the counter saunters back to the ice chest like he's making an iced frappuccino for a regular who's planning to take a seat and read the paper for the next hour.  I wanted to jump the counter and strangle the guy.  I settled for glaring at him incredulously.

Overall, my experience in Indonesia has been positive - especially with the people.  I'm going to mark this week down as bad karma and a series of unfortunate events, not as emblematic of the people here....though you have to admit, they didn't do themselves any favors this week!

Wedding

Sunday in Shanghai meant time for the wedding.  My friend and his wife had actually officially married the prior September.  The wedding was the party for family and friends to attend.  As it wasn't my day, and I don't feel right about posting pictures of their day to my blog, I'll describe the day and post the few pictures of the day I'm comfortable sharing.

I slept in late and joined up with my friend's family at his apartment around 1 PM.  I was the first to arrive and killed time finishing the book I brought (Stephen King's "Insomnia").  His apartment is across the street from where I stayed, so the walk was short.  I rode with his family to the hotel where they were celebrating the big day and we continued to catch up on each other's lives.

The wedding itself was much different than any I've ever attended.  They were still rehearsing the details of the entrances when I arrived.  I don't know if this was intended or not, but the venue reminded me of a fashion show.  Tasteful and very elegant.  The setup was pretty amazing.

The Chinese have some fairly unique wedding traditions.  In the US, when you ask your friends to be part of your wedding party, their duties typically include planning the bachelor/bachelorette party, helping the wedding run smoothly, and giving a speech.  In China, they drink on your behalf.  The tradition in China is for the bride and groom to visit every table and do a toast (or two or three).  Well, after the third or fourth toast, the bride and groom are getting pretty tipsy.  This is where the bridal party steps up.  Once the bride and groom have had enough, the bridal party downs the remaining drinks on their behalf.

The ceremony, as you can imagine in an atheist country, was not officiated by a religious official.  Instead, it had an emcee.  The ceremony was brief - roughly ten minutes - and we jumped right into dinner.  As dinner wrapped, the show began.  One of the groomsmen had devised a variety of games for the couple and the audience to play.  The first game was the bride had to roll a hard boiled egg from on foot to the other foot, through the grooms pants.  The only thing that would have made it more interesting is if she wasn't allowed to use her hands....next time!  The next game was a scavenger hunt of sorts.  Several of the attendees drawn at random from the name cards they used to find their table stood on stage and had to rush into the audience to find items called out by the emcee.  The list included a tie, a woman's shoe, a pink shirt (which left several men in the audience shirtless), and a belt.  The winner received a gift bag, one of several awarded throughout the night.  In fact, everyone at my table (the only all-English table) won a gift bag except for myself, and the guy who did not put his name in the basket because he had used it to dispose of his gum.  My luck with raffles continues.

Another Chinese tradition is for a group of people closest to the bride and groom to attend an after party. Typically, this is in the hotel room and the games trend to the prurient to help the couple become introduced to each other.  Family planned to attend this one, so that was out of the question.  Instead, we went to a local nightclub and danced and enjoyed a few spirits late into the night.  I think I found my new favorite size of whiskey.

It was a great wedding and I'm glad I could be a part of it.

Trip to China

Normally, I wouldn't go this long without posting to my blog.  I have a good excuse.  Last weekend (13 May - 16 May), I flew to Shanghai, China to attend the wedding of a friend I've known since the 6th grade.  The only friend from before college with whom I am still in contact.  And China is known for two things:  The Great Wall, and the Great Firewall.  I couldn't get to my blog or Facebook while I was in Shanghai.
I flew from Jakarta to Singapore to Shanghai.  About eight hours of flying for thirteen hours of travel.  The flight itself was uneventful.  What I will always remember about the flight is the thick, brown blanket I could see covering the city as we landed.  Los Angeles, Phoenix and Jakarta are all polluted cities.  I've flown into smog at all of them.  I've never seen a brown mist as thick, as large, and as disgusting as the one that covers Shanghai.

Shanghai immigration was fast and efficient.  As I stood on line, I noticed about seven college students wearing University of Michigan shirts and sweatshirts.  I struck up a conversation with the one closest to me and learned they were engineering students studying in China for the summer.  I remarked:  "That seems backwards.  The Chinese usually come to the US."  A young lady behind him interjected, with all the authority literacy can provide:  "It's the best University in China."  She was obviously proud (and defensive) of her exchange program, so I didn't bother telling her that someone is the best player on the Detroit Lions, too.

Not wanting to attempt to hail a cab and give the name of my hotel, prior to leaving Jakarta I arranged transportation with the hotel.  They met me as I cleared customs and drove me the sixty minutes from the airport to the hotel.  I checked in and called my friend.  He said:  "We're on our way to dinner.  I'll turn around and come get you.  Be there in ten minutes."  I probably should have waited until the porter had delivered my bag before calling him.  I was still wearing my travel clothes and not properly dressed for dinner.  Thankfully, my luggage arrived a few minutes later and I was able to put on slacks and a nice shirt.  I even had time to snap a few pictures of the view from my room on the 56th floor.

 

At dinner, I reconnected with my friend's family, who sat at one end of the table and conversed in English, and met his wife, who sat with her family at the other end of the table and conversed in Chinese.  My friend has lived in Shanghai for six years now and his Chinese skills are quite impressive, so he tried to bridge the gap.  It was great catching up with everyone.  After dinner, I returned to my hotel and called it a night.

The next day, Saturday, we had a full day of planned activities.  We were starting with a visit to the Shanghai zoo, followed by a BBQ (not of the zoo animals).  After a quick breakfast at the hotel, I joined my friend and his family (mother, father, sister, sister's boyfriend) in the car they had rented for the day and we went to the zoo.

I've been to so many zoos in the last few years that they tend to all blur together unless they have something that stands out.  The Shanghai Zoo had three unique features I'll remember.  The first is the bus ride safari.  Nothing really compares to the safari zoo in Jakarta, but this comes in a close second.  We drove through an area with lions, tigers and bears running around, just like the Jakarta zoo.  Unlike the Jakarta zoo, at Shanghai, they feed them.  For about $5, you can buy a live chicken that they feed to the big cats.  They make it even more interesting by driving away as they hold the chicken, resulting in the lions and tigers chasing the bus.  The second highlight for me was feeding kangaroos.  They charge $3 to enter their enclosure and $1 to buy feed for them.  The final and best highlight was the ape.  Despite the signs that advise visitors not to feed the ape, people still throw it food, bottles of water, anything they have handy and are willing to part with.  Well, the ape doesn't appreciate all the litter.  After it had gathered a few plastic bottles it couldn't figure out how to open, it worked itself into a frenzy, charged the visitors, and launched the bottles back at us!  It was hilariously entertaining.  We spent twenty minutes watching it.

 

 

 

 

After the zoo, we went to the house of my friend's friend for a BBQ.  Most of the people who would participate in or attend the wedding also attended the BBQ.  I met the Asian CIO for Avaya, an American living in China who owns his own iPhone game business (score!), and the owner of a wine distributorship in Shanghai (the host of the BBQ).  After eating, we played Texas Hold 'Em with a $100 buy-in.  On one hand, my full house lost to four of a kind and dropped my $100 to about $10.  By the time we had to leave, I had clawed my way back to even (thankfully!).

I knew I wouldn't have time on Sunday (the day of the wedding) to buy souvenirs for my wife and kids so I asked where I should go Saturday night.  We decided on pearls, and that we would go to the shop that my friend's company has arranged a fixed-price amount with the owners so their employees and visitors don't have to haggle.  More on that in a minute.  First, we had to stop at the store, the Chinese version of WalMart, and buy twenty-two bottles of champagne for the wedding.  The purchase was easy.  Leaving turned out to be problematic.  There were long lines at every open check-out.  We finally found one that was empty and walked through it.  The only issue was there were four carts piled high with raw meat and no one around to help move them.  We took matters into our own hands.  Literally.

Once past the meat obstacle, we went to the jeweler.  I bought my wife and daughter pearl necklaces, earrings and several other necklaces and bracelets.  Turns out that the fixed, no-haggle price was 10% of retail!  Can't beat that!  Not wanting to leave my son empty-handed, I bought him a kung-fu outfit he looks pretty awesome in.

I had a late dinner at my hotel and called it a night.

An Accumulator's Regrets

Back when I had a little, I thought I wanted a lot
Now I have so much I don't want half the things I've got

I have dozens of games I never play
Enough MP3's to listen for three-hundred days

A mass of toys lay all over my floor
With many of them the children long ago became bored

Books, movies, and video games of all kinds
Enough clothes and shoes to last until end-times

And what do I gain with this material wealth?
Does it increase my happiness or mental health?

I gain bigger locks to protect from loss
Not even sure if it is worth the cost

I gain worries about maintaining my home
Displaying affluence comparable to the Jones'

When did life become such a complicated race
With so much focus on saving face?

I'd be better off eschewing all that I own
Converting my mausoleum house into a home

And remembering that laughs and smiles are always free.
That's better for all of us, wouldn't you agree?

Real or Fake?

In "Memoirs of a Geisha", one of the more popular games played in the geisha parlors involves a person telling three stories, two true, one false, and the other guests guessing which is the false story. At my 29th birthday party (did I really read that book six years ago?), I played the game with three other couples using stories from my life. To a degree, it was a competition to see which of my three friends knew me best. We had a lot of fun.

Below are three stories. Two of them are true stories I heard or read about in the news recently. One of them I've just made up. Which one is false?

1. A young man is riding the bus while using his mobile phone to chat with a woman he has met earlier in the week online. He is flirting with her and texts something humorous. A few rows up, a man in his forties, also texting on his cell phone, laughs then types something into his phone. Seconds later, the young man receives a witty reply that causes him to laugh out loud - too loud for the quiet bus. The older man looks over his shoulder giving the younger man a scornful look. The younger man sends a message that reads: "You made me laugh loud enough some guy just gave me a dirty look." As he clicks 'SEND', he receives a text back that reads: "Some guy on my bus just made a fool of himself by laughing too loud." The man in his forties quickly turns and gives the young man a startled look. They lock eyes for a very confusing few seconds before the older man abruptly exits the bus at the next stop. The young man never receives another message from the woman he met online.
2. Keeping track of multiple conversations is difficult enough using an online chat tool. Trying to do it with SMS is even more difficult. Case in point: a married woman (Sally) meets a married man at an industry convention. They discover they live in the same city and decide their companies would be a good fit for a business relationship. They exchange numbers. A few days later, while out running errands, Sally receives a voicemail from a business associate telling her she's planning to stop by in the afternoon and needs her address. Sally sends her address via text with the message: "Key is under the mat. I'll be home at 2. C u then!" Moments later, the man Sally met at the industry convention replies back with "Okay, I'll see you then! :-)" An embarrassing phone call to clarify the mix up then followed.
3. A woman and her young son, about nine, are hiking in one of the many desert mountain parks in the American Southwest. They believe they are following a trail loop but eventually find themselves lost. Unable to locate a trail or even determine a way back to their car, the woman calls 911 from her cell phone. After explaining their situation, the 911 operator tells her to wait where she is and help will be there soon. Less than a minute later, the woman receives a text message that reads: "Is this you?". Attached to the message is a satellite image of her and her son sitting on the side of the mountain.

  

Isn't technology great? Which one of the stories did I invent?

Already Finished

In Alaska, where men outnumber women by 14%, they have a saying for women looking for love: "The odds are good....but the goods are odd." In college I learned that Salt Lake City, Utah and Las Vegas, Nevada, are at the opposite ends of the spectrum (first and worst) for several key health statistics - alcoholism, longevity, cancer incidence, nicotine use. Living in SE Asia, I've learned a saying about Jakarta and Singapore I find very appropriate: "In Jakarta, you can do anything you want, but nothing works. In Singapore, everything works, but you can't do anything."

From rolling blackouts, to pest extermination that seems to attract bugs more than it repels them. From sporadic internet access to doctors who know less about medicine than the average Westerner. It seems there is always something wrong in Indonesia. A few of the more annoying/humorous:

1) We can never buy new shoes. I read a human interest story a few years back about a high school kid who was so large there were no commercially available cleats for him. He was playing defensive lineman, and performing quite well, in traditional cross-trainers because not only could he not buy cleats in a store, no one would custom make shoes for him. At the time, I sympathized with him. Now I can empathize with him. Shoe stores in Jakarta never have my size! One time, I selected a shoe, asked for size 10 1/2 and the guy brought me back a size 8. Because surely, in the time between me asking for a 10 1/2 and the time he came back with a size 8, my toes fell off and I no longer needed the extra 2 inches. Last week, I wanted to buy new shoes for soccer. I selected 7 different styles to try on. They didn't have my size in any of them. And don't get me started on what they have available in jeans.

2) Restaurants run out of food. This has happened so many times you eventually get used to it. On one of my first trips to Jakarta, before we were even considering moving here, I ordered spaghetti at a restaurant. They brought the food for my friend before telling us they were out of what I had ordered. I thought that was odd. It doesn't come close to some of our experiences after moving here. Three weeks ago, I did not have a breakfast to bring to work. I tried to tough it out until lunch, but at 9 AM I had to eat something. I went downstairs to the donut shop to buy a 'tide-me-over' donut. They were completely out! They didn't even have the day-old variety. From the looks of things, they hadn't had donuts all morning, and they open at 7 AM. This week, my wife went to a juice shop a few minutes after they opened and asked for a drink with blended celery. They replied "Cannot, already finished." They had just opened and did not have one of the main ingredients for the majority of their drinks! Were they going to turn people away all day? Why would they even bother to open? Baffling. I fully expect that some day I will walk into a grocery store only to discover all of their shelves are empty....and they'll still have four cashiers, three shopping cart attendants, and twelve stockers on duty.  (They are already routinely out of stock of basic things we buy like diapers and cilantro).

3) Credit cards. I have a good relationship with my American Express card. It never rejects me. It gives me points I use to buy presents. In return, I use it a lot. Anywhere I see the American Express card sign, I use my card. At two different stores - one for clothes, one for booze - I saw the AMEX symbol at the cashier counter and on one of the credit card machines. I hand my card to the cashier. At the clothing store, the cashier smiled and replied: "Cannot. Visa only." I point to the symbol on her cash register, and on the credit card machine. She smiles and repeats: "Visa only." The booze store was worse. Their reply: "Cash only." I point out the fact that, in addition to the AMEX card, they also advertise they accept Visa, MasterCard, DinersClub and cards from two local banks. "Cash only."

Despite the frustration, you have to love Jakarta. Where else in the world will you see a construction worker standing in the middle of the cement he's mixing while one coworker sleeps in the branches of a nearby tree and another urinates into the open trench with the live electrical wire? It would all be so comical if it weren't so true.

And, really, it's these idiosyncrasies that give Jakarta its charm. It's the ability to complain about what doesn't work that binds the expat community together. And isn't that the best way to make enduring friendships; by sharing in each other's misery?

Easter in Jakarta

Easter in Jakarta is always an interesting holiday. Unlike Christmas, which is widely celebrated on a secular level, much like the U.S., Easter is not a major holiday. In December, stores are packed with Christmas trees and decorations, and many of the malls will have choirs from around the city singing carols or putting on shows. While there are many expat haunts that offer an Easter brunch, finding baskets, chocolate bunnies, and any type of egg is a challenge.


This Easter also came at a time of heightened awareness for terrorist activity. In the weeks leading up to Good Friday, liberal Muslim organizations and one Jewish organization received book bombs in the mail, four in total. A few days later a lone terrorist took his own life exploding a bomb at a mosque where the anti-terrorist police prayed together, injuring thirty of the officers. On Good Friday, Jakarta police discovered more than 300 pounds of explosives on the gas line feeding the local Catholic church. The timer scheduled the explosion to coincide with the start of the Good Friday mass.

We decided to spend both Good Friday and Sunday at our home, avoiding locations frequented by expats.

Sunday morning, our son, as usual, was the first to rise. We kept him quiet in our room for about twenty minutes, hoping our daughter would soon wake up. When he began insisting on his morning milk, we woke our daughter and let them have their Easter Egg hunt.

Our daughter was familiar with the activity and ran around the house finding egg after egg. Our son had no idea what was going on. He was quite thrilled to find an egg that made noise when he shook it, and quite content to stand in the middle of the room shaking it, watching his sister run around and find more. When we opened it for him and he discovered there was chocolate inside, he was no longer interested in the noise it could make. He also lost interest in his sister's activity.

Unable to find an Easter basket, my wife found very colorful hats that we filled with green paper cut into thin strips and what few chocolate eggs we managed to smuggle back from our last trip to Singapore. As is our tradition, they both also received a small gift. The Easter Bunny has nothing on Santa, but he does like to drop a toy with the candy.

We will have one more Easter in Jakarta before returning home. I hope the next one does not require us, for safety reasons, to hide in our house.