Category: My Good Life

This is the fourth installment of the chronicle, a journal of my year end trip to Bandung at 500 words per piece.

… the humming got louder and louder.  All of a sudden, there was cracking sound from different directions, like the humming of the bees – cracking sound that sounded very human, incoherently human.  I woke up sitting straight, grasping for breathe.  The galloping sound was on my face and soon I realized: it was praying time for the Muslims.  The sound came from many speakers nearby.

Next morning, over breakfast, mom (my mother-in-law) told me that her house is surrounded by at least five mosques.  Each mosque has someone or a group of people singing with devotion and conviction, starting at 4 in the morning, five times a day, all on different tunes, different prayers.  Such conviction so very early in the morning.  A fierce competition due to the proximity of the mosques and the ever growing power of the electronic speakers?

One special evening, I slept through the 4 am morning prayer.  Next morning, I blurted out in excitement, “Did they oversleep this morning?” Mom broke down in a paroxysm of hilarity and said, “They never oversleep!”

Edit: After I returned to Singapore, I shared my experience with my Indian colleague.  He told me that in Egypt, there was used to be mosques broadcasting prayers just like what Bandung does today.  Soon, the Egyptian government felt that it was not appropriate to have different mosques broadcasting different prayers jamming the ‘air wave’ in that manner.  Since it is even more inappropriate to ask her people to stop praying, they have an Imam – one who has a very divine voice as I can imagine – to lead the prayer on a local radio.  And the mosques simply tune in during their praying session.  Personally, I think this is a jolly good idea.  I shall write to SBY again.

8. Children, They Orbit

“Cynthia had a fun time trying to catch Felicia for a family photo.  Their mother, Julie, also had a fun time trying to get Nathaniel to stand still.”

When children are young, before they can walk, we the adults orbit around them.  As soon as they learn how to walk, then run, they orbit around us.  Round and round and round non-stop.  They laugh, giggle, fall down, get back up, and continue the orbiting ritual.  That was exactly what I saw when Cynthia and I met our niece and nephew – Felicia and Nathaniel.

It is quite impossible to catch Felicia.  She keeps on running and running.  I think she will make many boys go crazy when she grows up.  Nathaniel on the other hand is relatively calm and steady.  He is like a boss, commanding this and commanding that.  Tidak boleh (means cannot), he would say.  His elder sister would follow.  Soon, the entire time spent with them is full of tidak boleh.  He does not move as much as his elder sister.  One time, he took up an exercise book and asked, ini apa (what is this)?  I would say, seven wheels.  Ini apa? Ten oranges.  Ini apa? Three houses.  It went on and on until mom and Cynthia turned and asked, …

• Continue to Part 5

And the chronicle continues, onto its third installment, with 500 words per piece.

… and form a city beautification initiative.  I am not sure what natural resources Bandung has, but I would put tourism and perhaps a regional business hub as a top priority.  In my Bandung, trash would be cleared out before the dawn breaks, water would be gushing into the households of my beloved citizens, streets would be nicely paved, a new monorail transport system would be built, the entire road grid would be revamped, the sky would be blue, and the air would smell clean.  New conventional centers would be built near to the new International airport, and there would be a new stadium for International stars such as Taylor Swift and Ayumi Hamasaki, sport events such as ice hockey.  On top of the Bandung hill (in which a new cable car network would be built), I shall have my new residency as a visionary celebrity mayor.  On the ground floor, a Olympic size swimming pool, and on the second floor supported by marble pillars over the pool, a living hall large enough to hold a little rock concert of my own.

Dust, so much dust stirs up on the streets.  I wonder if others would share the same dream as I do.

“This is the garden of my mother-in-law’s house. Quite definitely the best maintained garden in the neighborhood.”

6. Melinjo

To eat a melinjo, often cooked in a soup, you first peel away the softer exterior that is mostly red in color.  At times orange, and at times green.  The second layer is a hard shell that is slightly trickier to remove.  The reward is a white flesh no larger than a typical antibiotic pill that is slightly chewy and upon consumed, leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.  In Sundanese, it is called tangkil.  Melinjo or tangkil is a key ingredient in making a special type of cracker called emping, which is one of Indonesian’s favorite snacks.  It should come as no surprise that emping, like the melinjo, too leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste.  Mom likes to cook soup with melinjo.  It always takes me a long time to consume them.  Because I prefer using my teeth to my hands.  Cynthia and mom would look at me, amused.  Like I look at my Indian friends eating noodle not using chopsticks, amused.

When asked if she is a Chinese, a Sundanese, or a Javanese, Cynthia would pick Sundanese.  I can understand the dilemma.  Most Indonesian Chinese after generations of (forcefully) abandoning their Chinese names and leaving behind their Chinese tradition find it hard to associate themselves as Chinese.  Whoever born in Java is, I suppose, a Javanese.  But in Bandung, people speak Sundanese.  It is like the people in Barcelona prefer to speak Catalan to Spanish.   No doubt, Cynthia may feel closer to Sundanese than to Javanese, closer to Javanese than to, say, Chinese.

7. Humming of the Bees

One night, I was sleeping.  It was pitch dark when I started hearing the humming of the bees.  I thought I was dreaming as …

• Continue to Part 4

And the chronicle continues, with 500 words per piece.

… felt when he regained his sight.

In Bandung, we seldom go out.  You will see why.  We – or at least I – sleep, eat, shower twice a day, nap, and read books.  I have brought along seven books, six of which I borrowed from the library, one I could not resist buying when we were inside the Singapore airport.  I was unsure if I could finish them during my one week long visit.  But it was cake.  Because minus the time to sleep, eat, and etc., there is a lot of time left for reading.  And a lot of time to tender, love, and care for others as well.

The one thing I miss the most from this voluntary Internet blackout is my online gaming.  During the first few days in Bandung, I dreamed about the game so vividly that I thought I was a werewolf.  In the middle of the week, I dreamed of a brand new World of Warcraft expansion.  In this new workplace, everyone lives inside a hotel.  And inside the hotel, we have terminals to play Warcraft . At work, we also have extra terminals to play Warcraft.  In this new expansion, not only did we have free flying mounts, but also more than ten character slots per realm.  I would vote that as the best dream of year 2010, in the category of PG.

4. Public Transport

To commute in Bandung, we take the minibus. Mom – who is in fact Cynthia’s mother but in Chinese, we neither call our seniors or peers by names nor causally use the term ”˜in-laws’ and hence, in my narration, I shall call Cynthia’s mother the same way as I would address her in real life, ”˜mom’ – prefers to take public transport.  Taxi costs little in Bandung, from a Singapore living standard point of view.  But I respect her normalcy in life, happy to experience what a local experiences.

Minibuses are tiny, and old.  The doors are perpetually open, and passengers hopping in and out of the minibuses anywhere they prefer.  Minibuses are color coded, and the locals know where they go.  The locals are kind hearted people.  One time I was so eager to lead the pack and leave the minibus when some gasped and warned me of the constant stream of incoming motorcyclists zooming past our vehicle’s exit with nanometer proximity.  In Bandung, to cross the road, people use human bodies to stop the traffic.  I suppose there is an art to it, not just anyhow feed the body to the incoming vehicles.

5. Dust

Dust, so much dust stirs up on the streets.  Even with millions of human lungs (and lungs of cats and birds) filtering the air day in day out, there is still so much dust on the streets.  If I was the mayor of Bandung, the first thing I would do is to gather up the entire unproductive workforce, throw in a team of passionate citizens, …

• Continue to Part 3

This is a journal of my year end trip to Bandung, Indonesia.  Observations more or less arranged in a chronological order, chopped into 500 words per piece.

1. Chicken in Bandung

Some see only dirt in Bandung, some see charm in every corner.  Some see the chicken meat in Bandung too tiny to be served as a dish on a dinning table.  I happen to love the chewiness, the leanness that reminds me of how vigorous the chickens had once exercised.  My vision of a bunch of chickens in joy, running around under a hot Bandung sun chasing each other and playing games, that essence of happiness permeates into the meat grilled to perfection, now served with sweet chili source, slices of cucumbers, and a few pieces of green lettuce.  I feel happier eating that than those caged chickens force fed with feed of questionable origins, supersized by means of hormones and chemicals.  There is little happiness eating chickens of that sort, even if they are meatier.

2. Airport Security

Round about the same period when – finally – a highway is built linking Jakarta, the capital, and Bandung, the second biggest city in Indonesia, AirAsia flies direct between Singapore and Bandung.  I suppose Bandung airport seldom sees International flights.  After the plane touched down – the only plane I saw in the entire airport – we have the opportunity to walk from the airstrip to the terminal.  There is no baggage convey belts either.   Instead, bags are transported and piled up at a common area ready for collection.

At the immigration counter, one of the two officers signaled me to place my four right fingers onto a metal box fitted with a glass top.  A flash of light followed by my four left fingers, another flash of light followed by my two big thumbs.  I was excited by the new experience.  After recording my fingerprints, the officer said to me, “Open you glasses”, which I suppose meant, “Take off your glasses”.  He pointed to a small camera in front of me that looked like a webcam.  Many movies flashed in front of my mind – “Mission Impossible”, “James Bond”, just to name a few.  With one hand holding my glasses, I moved really close to the tiny camera ready for a retinal scan.  That appeared to have caused a little commotion.  The queue behind me gasped – including Cynthia – and the officers frantically signaled me to stand back.  Then I realized.  They simply wanted to take my mugshot.  I stood back, forced a little smile, and after seeing the officer’s nod of approval, I left the counter thinking: how cool if it was a retinal scan instead.

3. Warcraft Withdrawal Syndrome

I often look forward to my trip to Bandung, treating it as a detox program staying away from the Internet for a change.  Once I worked in Paris.  One client of mine blindfolded himself for the entire weekend.  For what, I asked.  Many things, he answered.  The absence of advertisements and how blessed he …

• Continue to Part 2