The Curious Schemer

Apparently the TV stations of Jakarta decided that there had been one too many women being raped, robbed, murdered, molested, abused, stripped naked and dumped in the middle of nowhere, while they are taking a cab in Jakarta. So they put together a TV program that gives you tips on how to survive the murderous hordes of Jakarta taxis. However, being a TV program that it is, it cannot really tell you _everything_ you need to survive, because it cannot favour one taxi company, for example, although everybody knows which one taxi company it is.

So, here’s Ray’s Survival Guide for Jakarta Taxis’ Passengers:

1. Don’t take a taxi. Yes, this is the most reliable way to avoid the “death/rape by taxi” phenomenon. Of course, you can always get murdered as an innocent bystander by highschool students who are busy killing one another in a “tawuran”, but that’s another matter.

2. If you HAVE to take a taxi, then… be a man. Taxi drivers in Jakarta don’t seem to like raping men yet. If you happen to be a woman, then… dress sensibly, yeah? Don’t show off any body parts unnecessarily. If you think you’re so beautiful that even without showing off you’re in danger, then get a man to drive you around, dammit. Shouldn’t be so difficult for you in the first place, yeah? Especially those platonic friends whom you’ve already LJBF-ed (Let’s Just Be Friends) but still hoping to get into your pants one day. They are the best. (If you don’t have any, time to look in the mirror again: you are NOT beautiful.)

3. If you have to take a taxi and you’re not a man, then choose Bluebird Taxi. These blue taxis are known for their safety record. I don’t think I’ve heard of any Bluebird taxi driver raping or murdering anyone. Be careful though, knowing that the blue colour of the Bluebird Taxis is associated with safety, a lot of bastards are trying to cheat you by using a similar colour and logo placement for their taxis. The Bluebird logo looks like this:

You see, it IS really a bird, and it is really blue. Also, note that all Bluebird drivers are in uniform, have short hair, and wear shoes. Like they say, “judge the book by its covers, lest the book rapes you”.

4. If you have to take a taxi, and you’re not a man, and there’s no Bluebird around, then call a Bluebird. The number is 7941234. If you just arrived in Jakarta’s airport, note that there is a Bluebird counter at the airport. Do NOT go into the queue directly. Book one from this counter.

5. If you still can’t get one, then make sure that the trunk is empty. There are many occasions where the evil taxi driver’s accomplice is hiding inside the trunk. The TV program that I saw urges us to ask the driver to step down and open the trunk for inspection before getting inside the cab. Safety first.

6. Before stepping into the cab, look inside the cab. Make sure that all the other seats are empty. There have been many occasions that the accomplice is hiding at the back. Ask the driver to turn on the light for a while.

7. After you’re sure that the cab is empty except for the driver, take the left backseat. That is, the one not behind the driver. I’ve heard of taxi drivers pushing their seat all the way back to trap the passenger.

8. Do not close the door first. Match the ID on the dashboard with the driver’s face. Make sure that they are similar. Remember, safety first.

9. After you’ve got in, lock the doors to prevent would-be murderers and rapists from getting into the cab somewhere along the way. But at the same time, after you’ve locked the door, try opening the door to make sure that he’s not locking you inside. Just say, “Eh Pak sebentar Pak.” (Dude, wait a minute), and then try to unlock the door and open it.

10. Check if you can roll down the window. This is necessary to find out if your scream can get out if something bad is happening to you (touch wood).

11. Of course, you need somebody to hear your screams, so, be aware. Don’t let him take you to a remote and dark area. Unless you know the way and you do live in a remote and dark area, that is.

12. If after reading all this you still insist on taking a cab, well… all the best to you. Try to bring a gun or a knife along or something. Of course, if you can afford an illegal gun in Indonesia, you don’t have a business taking a taxi since you’ll have a personal chauffeur to drive you around in your luxury car. Knife, then.

Whenever I go back to Jakarta, I am often harshly reminded of how Singapore really spoils my intestinal defense system. The moment I’ve landed my feet on the earth of Jakarta, I’m counting down to the next repeated, liquid visits to the toilet. Usually, it doesn’t take long. Three or four days into my Jakarta eating orgy, the toilet bowls usually start to kiss my ass very often.

True to my expectations, this time, it started happening on my 3rd day here. I got a food poisoning case so bad I found it quite difficult even to speak, I could only whisper. Luckily I had rented a few DVDs to watch. For 2 days now, I’m only able to sleep, go to the toilet, wake up to eat/drink something, go to the toilet again, take some diarrhea tablets, watch a DVD, and go back to sleep.

Phew. Siomay. Noodles. Satay. Gado-gado. Soto. Fish crackers. Fried chicken. Love these poisons of Jakarta. They even help you to lose weight.

I’m back in Indonesia! Heh. Good food, beautiful women, humongous malls, horrible pollution, bloodvessels-exploding traffic, and avian flu magical cure all drug peddlers (“bird flu? drink HanyaOrangGoblokYangMinumIni traditional medicine! Made from 100% natural, herbal ingredients, it will protect you and your loved ones from the raging bird flu!”).

But one ubiquitous thing that nobody can escape from, is Indonesian TV. Oh man. Indonesian TV is so much more colourful than Singapore’s. If there’s one band that’s described Indonesian TV perfectly, it is Red Hot Chili Peppers with its album Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Plenty of them, in every channel.

Despite its supposedly strict censorship law, sex is everywhere–which is quite surprising, considering that:

1. I’m in Indonesia. This is a country whose TV stations were very much like the Singapore Navy until 1999 when I left. (That is, Nothing Comes Close.) You could only get your lips so close to your partner before they pasted some scenery (or if it was at night, the moon) on you two.

2. We’re very near to the Moslem’s Holy Month of Ramadhan.

The TV stations start bombarding the perky viewers with sex late at night. (See, I’ve always known that being insomniac will pay off one day.) I saw a program two nights ago about those ISWs (no, not Independent Software Workshop–Independent Sex Workers) and their modus operandi. There’s nothing surprising about that. But near the end of the show, they leaped ahead of Singapore by light years by installing a hidden cam in a hotel room to capture a working girl doing her, er, work, on one of their colleagues.

When do you think you can expect to see something like this in Singapore TV? My prediction is 2438, provided that by that time Singaporeans have done enough unprotected sex to keep the population from dwindling to zero.

The program was followed by a report about “Indonesian Women Who Flaunt Their Booty”. This is about naked women in print who happen to have Indonesian blood in their veins. Of course the printed material in question was also displayed, with proper dark spots in the right (or rather, wrong) places. Featured was also that Indonesian girl who recently appeared in Playboy Spain–apparently she had been in Indonesia at that time, doing some swimsuit fun. And I thought my insomnia would get better in Indonesia. Sigh.

Anyway, this was Indonesia, right? So I was duly flabbergasted, right? I mean, hey, this _is_ Indonesia after all, this had to be too bad to be true, right? Well… you know what they say about when something is too bad to be true it is usually true? True (to my expectations), the following night, there was a program about a nightspot that was closing down. Strangely though, the program was much more about the nightspot while it was still in operation (i.e.: scantily clad Indonesian girls shaking their booties), instead of about the closing itself.

Oh, nevermind. The nightspot thing was followed by a program about models. I think this program is supposed to show that models are not bimbos–which I think is quite pointless because NOBODY CARES. They show you like, 5 minutes of armpits, cleavages, legs, and then shoot off a question that’s supposed to take more than a few brain cycles to answer, like: “What do you think about polygamy?” (the answer: “It’s bad.”), then more armpits, cleavage, legs, and “What do you think about drugs?” (the answer: “It’s _very_ bad.”). Nice.

I know I’m supposed to write about the blood (the crime that is enough to be shared among the 10+ stations everyday), the sugar (how everyone on TV seems to sport a lifestyle that only 0.001% of the Indonesian population will be able to afford, even if in the story they are just school teachers or lecturers–two of the most underpaid professions in Indonesia), and magik (a team of white-clad Indonesian ghostbusters going everywhere to, well, bust ghosts, they’ll scream at an empty corner of a “haunted house” and WAA! WAA!!! GO DEMON GO!!! and then speak victoriously to the camera with a straight face: “We just drove away a demon monkey, and put it into this bottle!”).

But somehow I lost interest after the sex part. Maybe it’s a guy thing. Heh.