Stuff Indonesians Like #15: Name Dropping

If there is one thing we like more than sambal (tr. chili sauce) it's name dropping.

Indonesians, well, Jakartans to be exact, love to name drop. It's one of the things in life that's free and will impress the person we are speaking to.

This article is a piece to teach you how to name drop like a pro.

Now imagine you are in a party, or a wedding reception, or in a crowd where there are a lot of people you think look and sound more impressive than you do. What to do? Don't despair! One trick that can help you with your confidence and change what people think of you is to name drop someone famous you know.

Of course, this only works effectively if you happen to know this person you are about to name drop.

If you are a Jakartan, this is not too hard. If you are a South Jakartan it's not hard at all. If you are a social South Jakartan who went to one or more cool schools and at one point of your life was a party animal/lived overseas (choose one, better if you have experienced both) and you speak one (or more) foreign languages, this just became a lot easier.

However, if you are part of the Jakartan 'Tatler tartelettes', have more clothes than Rebecca Bloomwood and shop at all the shops frequented by Serena Vanderwoodsen and Blair Waldorf, you need not do any name droppings because it's usually YOUR name that people drop in conversations (and you have no business reading this blog).

Now, back to the imagination.

You see a group of well clothed Jakartans, your friend, the girl who invited you takes your hand and introduces you to those people. You clam up, you feel shy and unconfident in your new Zara dress and pumps (one that you bought after saving for it for three months, due to the unbelievably expensive price tags once it entered the Indonesian market) and you try oh so very hard to clinch your Mangga Dua bag hoping nobody will notice it.

You observe and listen in to their conversation, and then someone mentions a well known celebrity who just happens to be: your childhood neighbor/a friend of your brother's/a schoolmate of yours/an ex girlfriend of a friend/someone you met at a rave/a friend from AA/your rich uncle's mistress/someone you had threesome with.

JACKPOT! Now you too can join in the conversation. What's good is if you have dirt on the celebrity, or if you can make up a believable dirt on the said celebrity.

But it doesn't just stop there. You have to master the art of 'story telling'. You need to be able to sell what you are saying as to make people believe what you say.

How to do it? Well, you need to be indifferent when telling the story. No gushing at the sound of the celebrity's name even if he is a hunk of meat that you would jump at the first chance. You need to be cool as a cucumber and act as if the names you drop don't matter to you, like you're not impressed by them. This will make you appear as if you are 'in' and 'in the know' at the same time.

Even better is if you can name drop real people with real achievements as opposed to beautiful celebrities that are nothing but glorified blow up dolls. Name dropping a person with real achievements will make you appear as if you have achieved something too to be able to know and or mingle with that person.

The best is to be able to name drop various names from various groups. Celebs, real people with achievements, socialites, rich Jakartans, 'Tatler tartellettes' etc. Remember, name drop with ease but be believable and indifferent. Like popularity or how people view you is unimportant to you.

What also does wonders is to drop a few foreign words along with your conversation, just make sure they are grammatically correct and you need to practice your pronunciation as to not make you seem like a fool. French impresses the middle to upper class much more than English, but when speaking to middle to lower class people, English is enough, as they are convinced that the correnct way to pronounce Carrefour (a french hypermarket chain) is 'care-four' and not 'karfur' like the way it should be. Your French googling will be lost to these imbeciles.

But remember, you must avoid at all costs name dropping people you don't know at all. You must have a legitimate connection, however slight it may be. It's your credibility you are betting on, and once people find out you lie, your whole cred will go down the drains and it will be next to impossible to penetrate the world of the fascinatingly stupid, ignorant and superficial.

When you have mastered the art of name dropping, you will see doors being opened to you and new opportunities will rise. So good luck and do not forget to comment here when you have practiced what you have learned!

Stuff Indonesians Like #14: Cheating

This is an entry from Toshi, whose blog you can find HERE. It's a bit different from the other articles that are usually silly and sarcastic. Toshi is a more accomplished writer whose writing is generally very informative. Enjoy reading!

Indonesians are basically natural-born cheaters. Even our own language says a lot about it.

For the word “cheating”, the Indonesian language has five variations that each has a different connotation. There is “menjiplak” (to plagiarise), “menyontek” (cheating on an exam), “selingkuh” (cheating on your spouse), “menipu” (to cheat someone) and “curang” (deceitful).

For the purpose of a standardisation in this blog entry, I would like to use the term “cheating” as to mean the entire five of them.

First, we Indonesians cheat on exams (menyontek). Whenever you come across any Indonesian you know, ask him/her if they have done any cheating at school. If he/she answers “No”, then there is a 99% possibility that he/she is lying. It is not really a matter of honesty really, nor is it meant as a measure to show that our standard of intelligence is low.

Rather, it is more of a habit that one picks from the surrounding environment. This habit begets a strong kind of “solidarity” between the smartest pupils and their not-so-bright peers; they make a solid teamwork during examinations.

As far as I know, even the top achievers in the Indonesian classrooms could also succumb to the temptation of cheating once in a while; because there must be one or two subjects that they do not excel in. The smart geek may not excel in his Arts subject and as a result, he looks for an artistic student to 'help' him in his Art grades for exchange for Math answers.

Does this in anyway reflect how 'adept' Indonesian students are in deceiving their teachers?

No!

As a matter of fact, I've seen myself how lax it is for teachers in Indonesia in invigilating examinations.

In China (where entering college has the utmost reputation for a student), there are known stories of how CCTVs are installed in the exam hall venues just for the sake of enforcing honesty. There is also the penalty of prison terms for those PRC Chinese who get caught cheating, and in Singapore, a student caught cheating in a national examination could be banned for eight years from getting educated in a Singaporean institution.

What about Indonesia?

Most of the time, it's simply a matter of how you could 'please' the teacher concerned.

While it is forbidden for Singaporean students to exchange “erasers” during exams, Indonesian students could easily exchange “erasers” with their peers even with the full view of the invigilators, from which one could see that the answer to question number 15 is C, the answer to question number 20 is A and etc.

The cheating called “menyontek” which we had 'studied' at school in turn gives us an adequate skill we could use in real life.

A prominent example could be seen in our sinetron (soap operas). We are very used to copy a large number of soap opera and other titles from foreign sources in Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and USA, which you could see for yourself here. Some of the entertainments industries may claim that the copyrights have been 'bought', but does that mean that 'adapting' is a better term than 'copying'?

Whether those titles were copied or adapted, they still show how uncreative we Indonesians are in creating entertainment, as a direct result of the cheating culture we nurtured at school.

Another example could be seen when you accidentally leave a handbag containing a wallet and mobile phone in a taxi.

Now experience tells me that whenever a taxi driver returns a wallet containing a large sum of money and an expensive mobile phone, the person to whom the handbag belongs always make sure that he/she thanks the driver and showers him with praise in the “Readers' Letter” section in the morning papers.

Why is it so?

Because such cases of honesty are very rare to be found in Indonesia!

Let me tell you a real story of mine, and this happened twelve years ago when I was 6.

My father once told me how I had accidentally left an SLR camera (which belongs to my uncle) in a Downtown Richmond bus in Virginia, USA. We waited patiently in the bus stop we halted because we were sure that there is a 90% possibility that the SLR camera could return to us.

How did the story end?

Yes, the bus driver himself did return it to us.

I just thank God that my Dad remembered the bus and the driver that he was able to approach him and ask for the camera back.

Now ask yourself if a similar case happened in any Indonesian bus (Metro Mini or Transjakarta)… Could the SLR camera be returned to you?

The answer will be “Sayonara” to the camera, I say.

Let me get to the last point of today's topic, which is being deceitful (curang).

A very useful 'skill' that stems from the cheating habit we learned at school is also the fact that our politicians are very used to accepting briberies. While in China politicians are executed and in Japan they commit hara-kiri for their acts of disgrace; Indonesian politicians are very used to create scandals by 'redirecting' the investment money they receive from outside sources and use it for their own illicit means, such as by purchasing condominium units in Singapore, opening a Swiss bank account and having frequent nights with prostitutes.

Then in turn, those same politicians make sure they cover their own acts of disgrace by passing anti-corruption and anti-pornography bills, in order to create a holier-than-thou kind of image to their constituents while at the same time, continue their illegal activities behind closed curtains with their brawny bodyguards keeping sentry on a 24/7 basis.

Stuff Indonesians Like #13: Posing

Indonesians all secretly want to become models, even ones that has no chance or looks or talents whatsoever. The current digital camera phone technology has opened the doors wider for the even the most average of the average Jokos™ and Inems to realise their dreams of becoming models, even to just publish it in their friendster profiles.

The Indonesians' dreams of becoming models is the reason why we love to strike a pose, whether just to stand around and talk to one another, or for pictures.

When you look at a friendster/multiply/facebook or any other social networking site photos of an Indonesian, what you will notice first is their pose. In some (mostly girls, although there are some guy exceptions), what will first slap you in the face is their strange contorted lips they think is sexy but actually makes them look ridiculously similar to a trout enchant you is their sexy pouts.

Posing with pouty lips is a favorite among Indonesian girls (and some guys) from all social status. Socialites to the slutty celebs, even normal average teenagers do the same, with some daring ones who try to imitate the queen of posing (and lazy eye), paris hilton or the queens of trout lips, the olsen twins.

Here are just some of the examples of pouty lip posing for the camera done by socialites,

here is one by a slutty sultry celeb (how and why she became a celebrity, nobody knows),

here is a group of pretty indonesian girls, again pouting,

and, an Indonesian guy who pouts,




The dream of becoming a successful model is so deeply embedded in Indonesians that some of us may become delusional as a result, and think that we are the next batch of Mr. Universe (or pretty boy band). These handsome future models below is the solid proof of how Indonesians love to pose.





*pictures taken from various sources in the web, if anyone reading is the rightful owner of the pictures, and objects the use of their pictures here, please contact blog owner to have it removed.

Stuff Indonesians Like #12: Pirated DVDs

*This entry is a contribution from guest writer Toshi, whose blog you can find here!!

We Indonesians love Pirated DVDs.

As a country with the largest rate of copyright infringement (behind China and Vietnam), we love the fact that all those blockbuster movies coming out in the theatres could easily be purchased as cheap as Rp6000 (0.63 US cents).

An Indonesian (pirated) movie buff attitude when one sees an interesting movie trailer is to take note of the title and look for them later when they visit the DVD stalls. We have money, but we'd prefer to spend it on other imports such as Starbucks and McDonalds. "Why pay more if you can do so for less?" is our motto!

Pirated DVD stalls are easily available in various areas; from traditional markets to the low-end Malls (which we typically call ITC or International Trade Centre). With the DVDs being pirated, outsiders may question that their quality must be poor.

Fortunately, the always innovative and ingenious DVD sellers have come up with a brilliant solution! A typical DVD stall would always have two sets of TV+DVD Player and sound system where the buyers could always decide for themselves whether the DVD's audio and visual imagery worths their pocket. Us Indonesians are famous for our innovative ways.

A DVD stall would typically have the hundreds of titles categorised in various groups: West (English-language movies), New Release (movies that has just come out in the theatres), Asian (consists of Korean, Japanese, and Taiwanese dramas), TV Series (Western TV series such as Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy), and MP3 (CDs containing hundreds of MP3 songs).

The last category mentioned above (MP3) is not recommended for buying. A buyer would typically test only five songs that he/she likes most, without realising that the remaining hundred of songs he/she has not tried are not as good in quality.

But wait a minute.

There isn't any category of Indonesian movies, why is that?

You may think that the quality of Indonesian film quality is freaking poor that it doesn't deserve to be pirated in the first place (correct), but the public prefers to argue otherwise.

A friend of mine once told me that the Indonesian movie pirates prefer to respect Indonesian filmmakers as not to create an unnecessary imbalance in the societal entertainment needs. But this kind of "respect" has got reversed over the last several months with the release of the highly popular religious-themed Ayat-Ayat Cinta last March, which has led to the many, many Indonesian movie piracy, and many more religious-themed movies.

Some may question if there is any law in Indonesia that threatens penalty for copyright violators. Well there sure is, we had one bill passed a couple years back, but I'm sure people and the lawmakers have forgotten about it. It must be in a dark dusty shelf, all lonely and forgotten somewhere because, believe it or not, there is actually a pirated DVD stall erected right in front of a police station in East Jakarta (the police district's initial is PG, you can check it for yourself if you happen to recognise the initial).

Indonesian law enforcers are so lax when it comes to applying their own rules, so it should not come as a surprise if you see any of those policemen buying the pirated DVDs for themselves. "Just Because we can!" is another motto we Indonesians have.

The movies available in the stalls need not be the ones that have come out in Indonesian theatres: I noticed one example of the Academy Award-winning Juno, which came out in the Jakarta theatres in June 2008 and has been available in pirated forms since as early January the same year. Yes, we are wonderful magicians too!

All of this DVD-pirating business lowers the revenue for Indonesian cinematic enterprises but who cares? We Indonesians thrive on the fact that we could purchase such an overtly cheap entertainment and being able to watch them at our comfort (within the Play and Pause buttons) at home, with our cassava chips, rujaks, gado-gado and our maid that is on stand-by waiting for our next order.

Stuff Indonesians Like #11: Eurasians

Anonymous had suggested that Indonesians like Eurasians and I concur.

Eurasians or what Indonesians call 'Indo' are a product of an Asian/Indonesian and Caucasian marriage/relationship. Most of these racially mixed products are aesthetically pleasing, or in layman's term, easy on the eyes.

Indonesians do not only like these Indos but we absolutely looooooove them.

Having mixed heritage in Indonesia is like winning the genetic pool lottery. Good looking female Indos may not have to work hard in their whole life. All they have to do is to sit there and be pretty and wait for a rich pejabat (Indonesian government official) or businessman to sweep them off their feet and make them their mistress/second wife/first wife.

As a cause of Indonesians' love for anything and anyone racially mixed (not just dogs and cats), many Indonesians aspire to marry those from the Caucasian race just to have good looking kids they call "The Next Indonesian Top Model" and by the next Indonesian top model I mean, "mommy's meal ticket when things go sour between mommy and daddy and we are sent back to bloody jakarta/tegal/pekalongan/[..insert kampung name here..] with nothing but the clothes on our backs".

Indonesians' love for Indos are so deep that many of us do everything in our power to look like one. This includes nose jobs, other plastic surgery procedures that will give us Eurasian features, dying our hair blond, constantly wearing colored contact lenses and usage of dangerous whitening creams to make our skin fair just like them Indos.

Indonesians love Indo so much that they can have an IQ of 70, a brain the size of a peanut, zero talent but if they are goodlooking they will be rich and famous by way of becoming movie stars or models or singers or tv stars and produce shows or songs which will be loved and bought by native Indonesians.

All this is just because we like to see beautiful things, and we like to sweep ugly things under the rug.

Stuff Indonesians Like #10: Malls

Indonesians love Malls. We think it's God's second greatest gift to mankind after rice.

Americans might think their malls are awesome, but they are sadly mistaken, because what we have is simply awsomer.

We have adjacent hotels and apartments in some of our malls, one has a water park, a giant climbing wall, another has an ice skating rink and a gigantic Marrygold Clock (every hour on the hour the Seiko clock opens up and visitors are serenaded by a 6-figure orchestra), some have bowling alleys, offices, internet cafes while most have gaming centers, mosques, churches and fitness centers/gyms. But all of them have movie theaters, supermarkets, beauty salons, restaurants, cafes, bars/clubs, foodcourts and banks. When your feet aches from all the walking and shopping, there is even a mall with a foot reflexology treatment center!

What is also important for those who could not bother with finding a parking space, there is almost always valet parking service in our malls. Our malls also provide call service for our drivers to pick us up wherever it is we are waiting in, and to call someone we are meeting or kids we have lost along our shopping frenzy.

Not only do we have high fashion and family malls, we have malls that cater to those wanting to buy replica watches, fake designer label items, pirated DVDs, handicrafts, computers, pirated softwares, traditional Indonesian medicines and potions, prescription medicines without the prescription, cell phones and a myriad of other items. We have absolutely everything in our malls that we could literally spend our entire day and night in malls.

It is clear that malls have become a center of or human interaction for Indonesians in general, but not only that, malls have even become a place where you can find a date! Most of us dress to kill when they go to malls, even the attached ones, for the sole purpose to be seen and to be drooled over.

Indonesian girls are blessed with good genes, but imagine good genes in skimpy outfts and flawless make-up! Gorgeous Indonesians girls like these are abundant in our malls, and they come in every size, shape and age. There is one (or four) for every man.

Office workers choose malls as the place to relax an unwind after a long day of work. Most office workers wait in malls for the traffic to subside before heading home. Business people also conduct business meetings and sometimes business deals in malls. It is always impressive to bring a prospective client to one of the many plush cafes or restaurants in our malls.

White people might think that a mall is where to go when they need to buy stuff, whether groceries, shoes, clothes, perfumes or leopard printed faux-suede handcuffs; but it is the Indonesians that have turned the art of malls for shopping into something else. We have invented 'malls as a way of life' and we have given a new meaning to 'one-stop shopping'.

Some of us have turned to Malls for answers, turning it into a religion with devout followers. Mall is a fun religion where you get to worship in a cool air conditioned atmosphere, amongst beautiful people and breathe delightful brand-new smelling air except when there are smelly 'orang kampungs' nearby.

We have turned malls to recreational centers where we cheerfully spend our weekends and every single one of our public holidays because, yes, our malls are open 24/7, from 9 in the morning until 10 in the evening. Why go to a boring beach or mountain or national park or go sightseeing when we can go to malls and have more fun?

China might have the Great wall of China, America might have the Grand Canyon, Paris might have the Eiffel Tower and Rome might have the leaning tower of Pisa, but we have something better; Jakarta has Senayan City, Plaza Grande, Mall Taman Anggrek, Pondok Indah Mall, Plaza Indonesia/Plaza EX, Citos and or course, Jalan Casablanca that will soon be turned as a shopping street, our way of saying 'Eat your heart out Orchard Road!' (Singapore's famous shopping street)

That is why Indonesians love malls with a vengeance.