America: Head and Shoulders Above the Rest

Secret Asian Man returned to North America for a brief time recently for work and pleasure.

It was so refreshing to walk in cities with only limited amounts of trash in the streets.  Clearish streams and rivers instead of chalky-silver fluids running in blackened streambeds. Driving within the lanes at speed without fear of hitting stray cattle or pedestrians or motorbikes.

Now, Indonesia is not a poor country from a resource vantage point.  Plants sprouts instantly out of the soil even with the pollution.  Food grows year-round.  There are vast natural resources.  

But, their resources do not compare to the abundance found in America.

Mrs. S.A.M did not accompany me, and so, sent a list of things she wanted from the Land of the Free including Head and Shoulders shampoo.  I marked one day as a shopping day and headed to Target, the home of all things abundant even when one is not coming from a place of scarcity.  

In the shampoo aisle, I found myself wishing for an abundance of time for there was a 6x6 wall of all manner of Head and Shoulders. I was absolutely paralyzed.  

I reached for the “Classic” version, but paused as my eyes roamed my other choices.

I knew that that I didn’t want to smell like “Green Apple.”  I don’t think that anyone should.

I pondered what “Ocean Lift” smelled like.  Did I want that?  I was about to crack open a package for a sniff when I caught sight of the Head and Shoulders/Old Spice version.

Now, I liked the boisterous attitude of that muscled Old Spice Guy and I’d been trying to work on my abs.  Perhaps this shampoo was my key to a washboard gut.  But, perhaps that was too much to ask for.

There was also H and S, Dry Scalp edition.  This seemed unfair.  For what is dandruff, if not, at least partly, a dry scalp.  What did normal Head and Shoulders do if it didn’t help with this anyway.  

There was 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner and also a version that conditioned while it cleans.

What?

And then there was size.  Do I get a jumbo size that might last me a year or a smaller size that lasts a few months?  The miser in me kicked in.  What was the price per ounce?

I tell you it was simply baffling.  It was a 15 minute process.

Going home, though was like slipping into a pair of your favourite jeans.  How comforting to know one could have anything and more?  I mean really, green apple scented shampoo?

It was nice to have a front porch to sit on.  In Indonesia, I sit behind 10 foot walls.  Everyone does.  Only the guards know the neighbors. Or, at least they know the neighbor’s guards.  On my porch, I get to chat with neighbors and watch the world go by.  

One evening, an obviously psychotic gentleman marched up and down my street all night. His mutters punctuated by persecutory rants about Vietnam.  He shook and rattled all the recycling bins, but never took anything from them.  I wondered what was going on in his altered reality.

That same night, another man, possibly just as psychotic and clearly quite inebriated wandered, zombie-like,  into the orange glow of the light overhanging  the intersection.  He paused and gave a far off stare before turning around and stumbling back down the middle of the street into the darkness.  A friend and I followed him and watched him pass out in some bushes just before the police rolled up to assist him.

As noted here before,  here in Indonesia, the mentally ill are often locked up out back of a family’s home and kept out of sight and out of harm’s way.  In America, it seems, our mentally ill are cage-free, free-range and clearly unmedicated.  In a country of abundance, there has to be some happy medium somewhere.

Ah, but ain’t that America.

This Week in Virginity... and Other Moral Legislation

There has been a lot of legal news in Indonesia in the last few months. Much morality has been legislated and enforced. Some of it you’ve probably read.

The government here carried out a series of execution of convicted drug dealers.  These folks were caught 10 years ago and sentenced to die.  The appeals and the general bureaucracy was quite slow, so a decade on, they finally got around to killing them.  

The death penalty for drug dealing is prominently noted on entry to the country and in various places.  Many people say that these folks were all fairly warned that it was a risk.  There are lots on the other side who say that a number of the convicted were rehabilitated and that they should have their sentences commuted.  

The government saw it differently, though, and carried out the executions by firing squad.  All the convicts were shot together.  None wore blindfolds. And all were singing together when they were killed, which must have been a rather grim scene.

The government states that 50 drug users die every day here and that there are thousands of addicts, so this justifies the executions.  One wonders, though, how many lives might be saved if there were any sort of drug rehab or treatment programs around.  There are none.  There are a number of other slated to be executed soon.

There has been a similar move toward alcohol.  There is a feeling among those in the government that alcohol is too readily available to teenagers. As has been printed here, alcohol is readily available to anyone who wants it. Teenagers here, have found that mini-marts are great places to hang out.  They give away free wifi and they also sell alcohol.  It is a toss up to as to  the real reason.  

At any rate, the government proposed rather suddenly, that all alcohol sales be banned from mini-marts and with very little discussion or room for public comment, this was passed into law. it was proposed by those who support a move toward sharia law, but then picked up and championed by more secular forces.   

I asked several people what they thought about and no one agreed with the law, but they said that it must be a good law, because no one was protesting it.  And, so just like that there was no alcohol available at Mini marts.  

The day after the mini mart legislation passed, a group of men who were not the police went to a local alcohol outlet owned by an ethnic chinese and told them they were breaking the law by selling alcohol.  The store owner said the law didn’t apply to her because she wasn't a mini mart, but the group of men said it didn’t matter and relieved her of 50 cases of beer which they promptly took down the street and drank.

There is new legislation now that would ban the sales of ALL alcohol anywhere except for tourist areas like Bali and at 5 star hotels.  There is a separate proposal that would ban public intoxication.  It is a toss up as to whether this will pass. As far as I know the penalty will not be death.  I’ve seen no laws proposing the opening of any treatment or education programs for adults or teens.

In an odd twist on the whole morals thing, while there is a strong move to control substance use, there is a movement to legalize prostitution in some areas of Jakarta. City officials admit that they’ve no way of fully stopping these transactions and feel that if they legalize it in certain areas, health and government workers can contain the practice and better monitor for STD’s and provide religious guidance to workers.  HIV rates among sex workers approaches 65% by some estimates.

And then there's this. Perhaps you’ve seen in the news, the calls to ban the practice of the “two-fingered virginity test” for female military recruits. It seems this is a long standing practice that serves as screen to prevent “naughty” women from entering the armed forces on the grounds that such women are mentally unfit.  Despite the calls to ban the practice, the military says it will continue the practice apparently building a well-behaved, compliant and sexually humiliated fighting force.

And in Aceh, which is province in Indonesia that was fighting for independence.  This fight ended, though when the government agreed to let the province impose sharia law there.  

Recently they have instituted a law where all education will be same sex and that women will no longer be allowed to ride on motorbikes with men as this is unseemly.  Also, because straddling a motorbike may threaten a woman’s virginity, and because they value purity and chastity more than safety, they will soon begin enforcing a long-standing law requiring women to only ride side saddle on a motor bike.  I have not seen how this will work if a woman is driving the motor bike.

Kathmandu

“Buddha was Born in Nepal” was emblazoned on the front window of a bus.  One of the first things I saw when I woke in Kathmandu, Nepal.  And thus begins this tale of suffering, death and rebirth.   

Twenty some years ago, some friends and I landed in Nepal.  Jet-lagged, we woke at dawn and took a walk to SwayambhunathTemple perched on a hill overlooking the city.  We climbed the 360 steps to the top in a morning mist.  There was group there with drums and other instruments singing.  We wandered around the various ancient temples, spun the prayer wheels and watched the city wake up below.  It was a magical experience.

Back in present day, after the quake, damage is significant, but sporadic and inconsistent. There are neighborhoods where damage is extensive and others that seem unscathed. Cracks still materialize with each aftershock and aftershocks also bring the odd falling brick.  I missed the big shocks, so I’m much less sensitive.  Those who lived through it are acutely tuned into any movement of the earth whether caused by seismic activity or a semi truck.

Dominoes.  Building on left is still vertical. 

Quake damage

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In the capital, looking at some buildings, it is surprising that more didn’t fall as they look rickety

to begin with. In older areas of town and a number of heritage sites are woefully damaged.  It will take years of work to get them back.  Thankfully, these places are under guard now, so hopefully no treasures will be lost.

Many are sleeping with extended families in a single ground floor room.  Some can’t bring themselves to sleep inside even though their homes have been rated as safe for habitation.

Life is worse in rural areas.  It is amazing to me, with the world shrunken so with digital communication, that places can be so cut off so easily.  Villages a mere 40 kilometers from the capital city are now a 6 hour bus ride plus a 3 hour hike to reach.  I don’t know if this has reached BBC or CNN, but one village has been entirely wiped out by a landslide triggered by an earthquake and later rains.  It seems a glacier was loosened by the shaking and lubricated by the rain and just rushed into the valley below burying a popular tourist area under 100 meters of rock and mud.  An associated air blast from the slip was so powerful that it denuded and flattened trees for acres in front of the slip.

Getting supplies in has required monumental efforts of aircrews and transporters. All made difficult by a lack of open roads and lack of helicopters.  Desperate people early on had been raiding trucks on occasion making distribution even harder.

Available open spaces are dotted with tents and people seem to be settling in for a while.

At the same time, there is an incredible amount of resilience at least in the city. Some 10 percent or more fled for the country in the days after the quake.  Slowly, the city is regaining her people back. More and more shops are open. People are talking and laughing more. There are lots of veggies for sale and I saw a truckload of flat screen TV’s being loaded into a store, so there must be a demand. At night, the city has been quiet, but in recent days bars and clubs have been discretely opening.  No garish lights, but if you listen hard you can hear the strains of old cover tunes.

Rather quickly people are cleaning up.  Without waiting for an insurance settlement, crumbled bricks have been chipped free of their mortar and stacked neatly on site for reuse later.  Sidewalks and city streets are all open.  Some buildings, though notably listing, are frighteningly being used for business even though the doors don’t open all the way.

Though bouncing back, these people need help.  Aid has started to flow in. One would think that after an eternal line of tragedies and disasters we’d know how to distribute aid safely, quickly and equitably, but it still starts slowly and at the top and trickles down.  One man, being pragmatic, painted a sign outside his shop.  “Stop Praying, Start Paying.  Support the Nepali People!”

Given that tourism is so important here, I worry how these people will survive after the giant news eye turns its focus elsewhere. It may be that the next best thing to sending money is saving up for a trip to this mountain country after the monsoons depart. It would provide some much needed capital.

All around though, people are creeping back to normal.  Legend says that a woman wanted to honor the Buddha and asked the king for land on which to build it. The king said she could have all the land that was covered by the skin of a water buffalo. The woman, being crafty, cut the skin into one long, very thin strip and encircled a piece of land 150 meters around. The king stuck to his bargain and thus the Boudinath, the world's largest stupa was built. In the evenings, the Nepalese gather to circumambulate.  Walking thrice around slowly, spinning the prayer wheels as they go, or just talking with each other as a way to wind down the day. It is remarkably crowded.

I spotted a girl there in a green shirt with flashy gold letters. She’s taking it in stride.  The words on her shirt read, “Everything Happens for a Reason.”    

My last morning I tried to recreate my experience of 20 years ago. I woke at dawn and headed back to the temple. There was some effort to barricade the place, but scores of the faithful were there already. I hiked up the steps and over fallen bricks and broken glass, and there, with the sun rising, it was exactly how it was twenty years ago.  There was singing and blessings and offerings.  Forget twenty years; it’s been like that for hundreds of years.

One man told me they rebuilt everything after the big earthquake in 1934 using all the stuff that fell down.  We’ll build again.   I heard another local saying. “We’re Nepali. There is always another story.”

A Drive in the Park

May Day is a national holiday in Indonesia and it fell on a Friday making for a 3 day weekend. The offspring's prior plans, though, precluded taking full advantage.

Mrs. S.A.M and I decided to take a road trip. Surprisingly, it was our first since we’d been here.  We didn’t think it was too ambitious.  A trip to the nearby “Rain City” of Bogor, so named because it is up in the hills and that is where monsoonal rains germinate.  

We had a busy day planned.  We’d leave early, breakfast at a tea plantation on a high mountain pass, see the premier zoo, visit a gamelan gong factory and dine somewhere on the way home.

Many people warned us of the crowds and the traffic, but we thought if we left early we’d avoid much of the problem.  We set a goal of a 6 am departure and were late by 20 minutes.  90 minutes later we were stopped at the side of the road about ½ from our goal.  It seems there is one main road up the mountain and the close it during times of heavy traffic and make the whole thing a one way road up the hill.  To avoid catastrophe, they stop all traffic and clear the road.  So we napped and waited for a good long while.

The locals, sensing a money making opportunity, hawk their wares up and down the lanes of 2 km worth of stopped traffic.  Fried tofu, chips, water, pizza, toys, tissues.  Buskers with ukeleles or even just kids clapping, sing for their breakfast.

Nearly 3 hours on we’re moving again.  Our driver says that the best way to do this trip is to do it on a weekday.  “There’s no traffic then!”

4 hours on we realize that our plans need changed.  If we go to the Tea Plantation we can’t get back to the zoo, because traffic on the road is moving the wrong direction.  We abbreviate.  We nix the gong factory and decide to go to the zoo first and see what opportunities present themselves after that.

4 ½ hours on we made the turn off to Taman Safari.  The road winds off and is lined with stalls of people selling carrots and bananas.  The driver tells us that people can feed the animals, so we buy some produce.

We gained entry to the park along with a nice, solid line of cars and busses.  Taman Safari is firstly a driving zoo.  This fits in Indonesia where walking is discouraged. The road starts along and we ask the driver for a break. We’ve not eaten and we need to use the toilet.  The driver tells us that the road is one way and the toilets and restaurants are at the end.  He thinks the drive will take about an hour. We cross our legs and eat some of the bananas.

From my previous descriptions, you may have some idea of the zoo, but this was actually well done.  Certainly they could use a consultant from Disney, but so could a lot of places in the U.S.  The animal part of the zoo was well done.  They’d done well to make the place as native as possible.  The animals roam free amongst the hills, road and clouds of exhaust.  Really, we had a lion dart across the street behind our car. Our driver told us of a time a bear climbed on his car and broke the radio antenna  For a while, traffic was blocked by a hippo in the road. Despite being in the car you could actually see a lot.

Giraffes, Zebras, camels and elephants had the racket down. They knew most of the cars bought carrots outside and so there was a bit of a shakedown.  With the volume of holiday traffic, some of the animals got full and so were subjected to just being pelted with lots of produce thrown from cars. That was rather sad

At the end of the road you could park.  There was an amusement park with animal shows, rides, a water park and some restaurants. There was an aviary and a baby zoo.  There you could get your photo taken with a tiger cub or baby orangutan.  You could even walk into the cage and feed the penguins.

We took in the Tiger show.  It was all done in Indonesian.  I know there was plot.  The Tiger tamers came out and did a dance with three women scantily clad in tiger outfits.  Then the women departed and three tigers came out.  They did some leaps and tricks and that was that.

We spent a leisurely 3 hours wandering the park.  We could have done less, we could have done more, but we decided to see what else we could salvage from our plans.  The road was still flowing uphill, so we opted for the tea plantation.  

This was quite a peaceful place.  Terrace upon terrace of hedged tea trees up and down the distant hills.  There are some platform tents and a nice tea house.  After the crowds go home and the sun goes down, I bet it is a pretty nice place to spend the night; looking across the valley watching the thunder clouds roll in or the sun sink down.  

After a tea break with darkness falling, we headed back home. Traffic was flowing our way, so we didn’t have to stop.  We cruised with the windows open. Catching glimpses of a million different stories in all the stalls, shops, nooks and crannies along the way. We made it home in an hour and a half.