The most popular man in Indonesia ?
by nigel on 15-May-2010
We are in Jakarta and yesterday morning we visited Monas, the National Monument, which is set in a large park in the centre.
On exiting the lift, several women queuing for the lift descent smiled sweetly at me and tapped me in the chest. I smiled sweetly back and thought this a bit odd.
As we wandered round the small viewing platform staring at the Jakarta that was visible, and it was a reasonably clear morning, we fielded a number of queries:
"Where are you from ?" "New Zealand";
"Does it have lots of islands ?" "A few";
"How long are you here for ?" "Nearly two weeks";
"Can I have my photograph taken with you" "Yes".
So we posed a number of times with Indonesians for the records of a trip to Monas, I thought this was a rather odd.
That was yesterday, today we caught the train to Bogor and went into the Botanic Gardens.
We had hardly looked at our first plant when a group of three girls asked if they could ask us some questions for their school assignment "To talk with some foreigners". So we did:
"What is your name ?" "Nigel";
"Where are you from ?" "New Zealand";
"What is different between Indonesia and your country ?" "It's hotter here";
"What Indonesian food do you like ?" "Padang";
and more including "Can we have our photograph taken with you?" "Yes".
The last was despite the fact that at least one member of the group appeared to be responsible for videoing the entire interview on their mobile phone.
They were only the first of many. In revenge we starting taking photographs of them as well, as you will see in the Bogor photographs. Eventually we declined to give any further interviews or pose for photographs due to the pressing matter of having a train to catch.
So there is a broad spectrum of Indonesian nationals whose photographic memories of 2010 will include the "one with that foreign couple". I think that this is all really odd.
Update: Sun 16-May-2010. Today we went to the Wayang Museum and were certainly not the only available foreigners. However today included a school teacher and her class who wished to ruin a perfectly good set of pixels by including us.
On exiting the lift, several women queuing for the lift descent smiled sweetly at me and tapped me in the chest. I smiled sweetly back and thought this a bit odd.
As we wandered round the small viewing platform staring at the Jakarta that was visible, and it was a reasonably clear morning, we fielded a number of queries:
"Where are you from ?" "New Zealand";
"Does it have lots of islands ?" "A few";
"How long are you here for ?" "Nearly two weeks";
"Can I have my photograph taken with you" "Yes".
So we posed a number of times with Indonesians for the records of a trip to Monas, I thought this was a rather odd.
That was yesterday, today we caught the train to Bogor and went into the Botanic Gardens.
We had hardly looked at our first plant when a group of three girls asked if they could ask us some questions for their school assignment "To talk with some foreigners". So we did:
"What is your name ?" "Nigel";
"Where are you from ?" "New Zealand";
"What is different between Indonesia and your country ?" "It's hotter here";
"What Indonesian food do you like ?" "Padang";
and more including "Can we have our photograph taken with you?" "Yes".
The last was despite the fact that at least one member of the group appeared to be responsible for videoing the entire interview on their mobile phone.
They were only the first of many. In revenge we starting taking photographs of them as well, as you will see in the Bogor photographs. Eventually we declined to give any further interviews or pose for photographs due to the pressing matter of having a train to catch.
So there is a broad spectrum of Indonesian nationals whose photographic memories of 2010 will include the "one with that foreign couple". I think that this is all really odd.
Update: Sun 16-May-2010. Today we went to the Wayang Museum and were certainly not the only available foreigners. However today included a school teacher and her class who wished to ruin a perfectly good set of pixels by including us.