Pisherman’s Wharf

I’ve succumbed to the blog plague. It seems like the only manageable way to regularly update on my whereabouts, for those interested in these things. I’ll try and keep it shortish, but I’m not promising much.

This inaugural post is blagged from my new "kost" (a dorm room of sorts with a hotel feel to it) in prime Jakarta location beside some auto-body shops and a crowd of parked motorbikes. The kost is called "De 2nd Home", which might be overstating things a little, although it's quite comfortable. At first sight, I had the uplifting feeling that I'd landed in a microcosm of everything I’m here to study: outside my window a green flag of Islam battles afternoon torrential rains, a small Christian charity hosts a bunch of kids running around, a group of very amiable, not terribly busy people hang out at all hours of the day by a kiosk still adorning campaign material from the Jakarta gubernatorial elections, and the owners of the well guarded De 2nd Home are (I think) Tionghua, the occasionally pogromed ethnic Chinese. In especially inspired moments I can go up to the rooftop terrace for a windy view of the modern towers of Jakarta set to a very loud stereophonic competition of muazzin calls to prayer.

A few days later I can report that the green flag is a commercial for something, the Christian charity is just a government health post with a Red Cross sign (don’t know why they don’t use the crescent), the people are still very amiable and still not busy, the auto-body shop next door turns out to be a Gado-Gado restaurant, and the De 2nd Home owners are still Tionghua (and renovating!) but several of my neighbors are just Bules (Gringos). Indonesian reality seems to be trying to invade my theory, but I will prevail.

But before prevailing over reality… there's just a little bit of bureaucracy to deal with. I spent my first week running between government offices, filling out forms I don't quite understand and trying to keep my story straight on all of them. I now have my SIP and KITAS (!), which along with my SKJ will enable me to get my SPP, and in a couple of weeks my registration card should be ready (this all means as much to me as it does to you). A minor occasion for celebration was my first monetary "token of appreciation" to an official. I didn't actually realize what it was until I didn't get a receipt. But seeing as the man was wearing the stunningly bland uniform of the Department of Home Affairs - dealing with, shall we say, the security aspects of "Home Affairs", I have no regrets. I walked out with letters to the “Home Affairs” offices in 28 provinces (just keeping my options open…).

And now I’ve entered the “calling in all contacts” phase to set up the actual research. I’ll be focusing on elite interviews with politicians for a bit while setting up the many technicalities for later research phases in Islamic and general universities. I’ll be heading out of Jakarta for trips before too long, but in the meantime and in between bureaucrats, I've been enjoying what Jakarta has to offer (more than I had remembered). Luckily, my attempts at coming to terms with being on this side of the earth for quite a while have been aided by several great reminders of "home": a cousin, a friend from my department, delightfully helpful former hosts, a former Stanford Bahasa Indonesia teacher, a wonderful glimpse of the Celtics going 7-0 and counting, and a taxi driver who seemed to know a little too much about San Francisco and was very enthusiastic about showing it:
"Where you from?" - "Amerika, San Francisco"
"Ya, where you live?" - "Di San Francisco. Di California"
"Where?? Daly City?! Ma-ket?! Lombad?! Va-ness? Castro-ha ha ha?!!! Pisherman’s Wharf?!

Oh, and the heat… did I mention the heat? I’m not sure it’s “collective action amidst diversity” I should be researching. Who has any interest in acting collectively or otherwise amidst this humidity, anyway?