I think an appropriate way to end this blog is to list some things about Indonesia/Jakarta that I’ll miss and some things that I won’t miss —

I’ll miss constantly being treated better than I deserve

I won’t miss constantly being the subject of attention

I’ll miss geckos

I won’t miss 3-inch long cockroaches

I’ll miss making my own schedule

I won’t miss having to personally motivate myself to get anything done

I’ll miss cheap, last minute plane flights out of Jakarta

I won’t miss worrying about whether a wheel will fall off every time the plane lands

I’ll miss eating meals at Jakarta’s finest restaurants and 5-star hotels

I won’t miss going through metal detectors and having the taxi be checked for explosives when entering

I’ll miss using the word “Fulbright” as a secret passage word to get meetings with bigwigs

I won’t miss having people ask me how they can get a visa to come to the United States

I’ll miss it always being tee-shirt weather

I won’t miss the convention that shorts are not appropriate outside the home

I’ll miss the dry season

I won’t miss the rainy season

I’ll miss how easy it sometimes is to get things done here

I won’t miss how incredibly difficult it sometimes is to get things done here

I will miss being able to find a taxi anywhere, anytime and paying $1-3 dollars for a typical ride

I won’t miss sitting in gridlock for hours on end

I’ll miss sate, whole grilled fish, rendang, and great Chinese food

I won’t miss most Indonesian food

I’ll miss feeling like I’m wealthy

I won’t miss people assuming that I’m wealthy because I’m a foreigner

I’ll miss having clothes tailored for me

I won’t miss the crazy guys at the tailor shop

I’ll miss the days when I feel good about my language skills

I won’t miss having to speak a foreign language on a regular basis

I’ll miss Sunday bocce at MONAS

I won’t miss spending extremely little time outside

I’ll miss my friends here

I won’t miss the Indonesians I meet who instantly want to be friends because I’m white

I’ll miss having easy access to Indonesia’s finest scholars

I won’t miss the deplorable state of scholarship in the country

All in all,

I’ll miss living in Indonesia

But I also won’t miss living in Indonesia

It has been noted Washington, DC’s China-obsessed policy community that the level of China expertise in Indonesia is remarkably scant despite blossoming bilateral relations. Initially this is surprising. How can there be so little knowledge of Indonesia’s giant neighbor? Unfortunately, though, the assessment is correct. However, the reason for this deficit is interesting and, like many other problems in Indonesia, it finds its roots in Suharto-era policies.

Throughout the New Order, anything that smelled of China was forbidden. On the grandest scale, official diplomatic relations with China were “frozen” from 1967-1990 and direct trade relations were only restored in the 1985. On an everyday level, the government banned the public use the Chinese language, Chinese characters, and anything else “Chinese”. On a human level this most affected Chinese Indonesians, but another victim was scholarship.

There were virtually no Chinese language classes and certainly no centers for China studies at universities. Any Chinese-language material that came into Indonesia was from Taiwan, since books from the Mainland were contraband. Even books on China in English could not be found. As a result, a whole generation of scholars and government workers came of age with little knowledge of Indonesia’s giant neighbor. When one looks around the scholarly and policy communities in Indonesia, the result is evident; there are now only a handful of serious China scholars with language competency and experience in the country. While any knowledgeable analyst of international affairs has a general understanding of the importance of China and Indonesia’s strategic interests therein, the number with deep knowledge of the country is staggeringly low.

When foreign scholars confront this fact, their immediate question is, “What about the Chinese Indonesians?” This is a fair point, considering that much of Indonesia’s China expertise lies in the Chinese Indonesian community. However, while Chinese Indonesians are engaging in commerce and helping to bring the two countries together through trade, they are virtually non-existent in the realms of government and academia.

The consequences can be seen in the international relations between Indonesia and China. While the government of Indonesia has been quick to sign agreements with Beijing, they have often lacked substance because the Indonesian side has not properly understood what they were doing. Furthermore, investment deals between Indonesian and Chinese companies, including state-owned enterprises, have been notorious for their lack of realization after headline-grabbing signings. On a very practical level, by all accounts, Indonesia’s diplomats in Beijing are not equipped with the Chinese language skills necessary to sufficiently represent the interests of the Indonesian government.

While the current situation may seem bleak, Reformasi has come to the field of China studies as well. With restrictions gone and China booming, China studies is increasingly popular and the ranks of Chinese-language students at Indonesia’s finest universities are swelling. Indonesians are flocking to China to study, including a great number of non-Chinese Indonesians. On any taxi ride around Jakarta, it would be difficult to not pass at least a few schools offering Chinese language courses.

Although there is no doubt that most of these students are drawn to study China and its language with hopes of succeeding in the business world, it is also certain that some will become academics and policymakers. This is extremely encouraging and suggests that Indonesia’s China deficit will be decreasing in the relatively near future.

Given that the current Indonesia-China relationship is strong and ever-deepening despite the country’s lack of China expertise, one should be optimistic about the hands in which it will be left. The coming decades will certainly see the relationship become more important and complex and Indonesia will only be more prepared.

The near to mid-term challenge, however, will be for the Indonesian government to trust this emerging generation of China specialists and allow them to lead Indonesia forward in this vital relationship.

Before leaving the country I decided to take a trip out to the eastern part of the country.  I decided on going to the Kei Islands and Banda Islands of South Maluku solely due to phrases in the Lonely Planet such as “pure narcotic serenity,” “white sand so powdery it feels like flour,” “crystal-clear seas,” “underwater drop-offs vibrantly plastered with multicolored coral gardens,” were they more accessible, this might be one of the world’s top tourist spots,” and “these petite little morsels of paradise are a dream-come-true for seekers of superb snorkelling and picture-perfect white-sand beaches.”  Amazingly, these lines were all spot-on and the Bandas, in particular, are simply the best place I’ve ever been in the tropics.

The trip started with a lesson in just how big this country really is.  I took a 3 1/2 hour plane ride east to Ambon, the largest city in the region.  I then got on a propeller plane for another 1 1/2 hour flight southeast to Tual, the major town in the Kei Islands.  Even en route, it was obvious how ridiculously beautiful this little corner of the world is.  We passed over atolls and islands ringed by brilliant turquoise water that must rival the best that the South Pacific has to offer.  Immediately upon landing, it was clear just how far away I was from the Indonesia that I have gotten to know.  For starters, the people just look different.  The Keis are tucked under the western end part of the island of New Guinea, an island that has nothing in common with the more populated islands of central and western Indonesia other than the fact that they are the same country (which many in the region would rather not be a part of).  The people of the region are simply not “Asian.”  Instead, they are a mixture of Melanesian and whatever race it is that ethnologists call the aborigines of Australia.  Perhaps looks shouldn’t matter, but it is impossible to ignore that these people are completely different from what most people would conceive of as “Indonesian.”

While in the Kei Islands I stayed at a little guesthouse on a spectacular bay, ringed with white sand that literally looked and felt like flour.  On other days I saw other parts of the island that also had sand like flour and amazing turquoise water. I ran into three other foreigners there.  One was an English guy who spends about 3 months of the year there and two friends of his that were visiting.  That said, the guesthouse I stayed at gets a steady trickle of foreign tourists (40 in 2007 up from 5 in 2006!).  Clearly not enough for people here to be used to seeing foreigners here, however.  I’ve never been so inundated with “hello misters” and shouts of “white person!” as I was here.

I found the rest of the foreigners in the Keis when I showed up to take a boat from the Keis to the Bandas (3 young Germans and a middle-aged Danish couple).  Helping to connect the far flung islands of the archipelago, the national shipping line also acts as a ferry service that operates on fixed schedules and goes to some very remote places such as these.

Joining up with the Germans, we arrived in the tiny town of Bandaneira in the middle of the night and made our way to a friendly guesthouse with a great dock that faced Pulau Gunung Api, one of the ten islands that make up the Bandas and which is a perfectly shaped volcano.

In addition to being notable for their beauty, the Bandas are also historically fascinating.  These were the original spice islands and the reason why the Portuguese, Dutch, and English to come out here in the first place.  These ten tiny islands were the world’s only source of nutmeg for thousands of years until the English snuck  some out to plant in their other colonies in the 1800s.  These islands were also the site of brutal, small-scale wars among the would-be colonizers and against the local people.  And, in what must be one of the greatest pieces of trivia in the world, Pulau Rhun of the Banda Islands was the island the English traded the Dutch for Manhattan (only because it was so worthless since it didn’t have any nutmeg on it).

Evidence of this history remains in ruined colonial plantations and forts and the one major fort that has recently been restored (amazingly enough).  And, since the Bandas’ importance always outstripped its size under Dutch colonialism, it is also the home of many late colonial homes (some in tatters), which is something not often found in Indonesia.  Part of the reason for this is because some have historical importance as the homes of exile for some of the heros of Indonesia’s revolution against the Dutch, including Hatta and Sharir, the first vice president and prime minister.

The Bandas only got better when taking day trips from Bandaneira to some of the smaller islands.  Again, spectacular beaches and water, but this time with perhaps the best coral reefs I’ve seen anywhere.  The variety of fish was impressive (manta rays, turtles, napolean wrasses, etc.), but it was the lushness of the coral gardens that really impressed.  Truly as alive and colorful as a garden, with the healthiest and most profuse soft corals I’ve ever seen, all at shallow enough depths for snorkelling until the reefs dropped off at a 90 degree angle a good distance from the shore.  Despite being prohibitively expensive (one shop with no competition), I decided to go diving one day, which was a great decision.  The second dive was maybe the best I’ve ever done.  The most amazing part was that after about 20 minutes underwater I realized that I’d hardly even looked at the reef: this was because my diving partner and I were mesmerized by tens of thousands of 8-10 inch fish swimming and turning in unison, all the while being hunted by dozens of tuna, giant barracuda, jacks, and other predators, with the occasional manta ray swimming by.  Absolutely incredible.

The long and the short of it is that if you ever have the chance to go to the Banda Islands, make it happen.

It’s the strangest thing. Most of our diplomats live amongst themselves in either an embassy compound or an exclusive apartment building, many taking a shuttle bus together to our heavily-fortified embassy, and most spend nearly all of their time outside of work together in Jakarta’s finer establishments. It makes for a comfortable life, but I’ve come to wonder how much they’re learning about Indonesia.

This usually comes out when just chatting with some of our embassy workers here. Many know an enormous amount about Indonesian politics, economics, and society (plenty do not, to be sure) and are a great source for good information on these topics. However, when conversation turns away from what can be learned from books and government meetings to the lives that Indonesians live, I’m often appalled at how uninformed they can be and their lack of common Indonesian experiences.

For instance, almost nobody knows that virtually every young Indonesian lives in a dormitory/boarding house.  This may seem like a trivial thing, but it is just completely common knowledge to anyone who has spent any time with young Indonesians and very much a part of culture here.

On a completely different topic, I’m often appalled at what little people know about the Suharto era, other than the vague notion that he ran an authoritarian regime that ended about ten years ago.  Knowing anything about the events that brought Suharto to power (political genocide, more or less)? Forget about it.

Or, I hear things like, “someday I want to take the TransJakarta” (the snazzy new rapid busway).  Or, “you eat food from street vendors??”

There are many ways to learn about the country, but to get a real feel for it, getting out on the ground is essential.  You can learn more from a day of riding the train to a neighboring city than from months of meetings in government offices.

The source of much of this reluctance to really experience the country is the foreign service’s overprotective parent – the State Department’s Regional Security Office.  To put it bluntly, this office sees Indonesia as one notch below Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of danger to its employees, even though this is absurd. Nonetheless, this seems to be drilled into our diplomats until it starts to wither when the reality dawns that there are no special security issues here.   They also prescribe health precautions that would make you think that everyone in the city is suffering from dysentery.  Soak my vegetables in chlorinated water??? No thank you!

So what does it matter?  These people go to work everyday and do their jobs well, afterall. The problem is that knowledge of this country in Washington is appalling and it seems like it might be helped a bit if our diplomats spent a little less time hanging out together and a little more time engaging with Indonesian society. Is it really so bad and is it all their fault?  Certainly not.  But I just would have expected a little better.

Please, just sit down and talk to a sate vender.  You’ll probably learn something.

Could there be a more simple demonstration of income inequality in Indonesia than the ubiquity of pembantu (literally translated as “helper,” but more accurately as “maid”)?

So how wealthy do you have to be to have a pembantu? Not very wealthy at all by our standards. I’m currently staying with two friends in their huge apartment. They have a pembantu come two days a week to clean their place and do laundry, which takes all day. And they drastically overpay her with $50 a month, since I think it would cost about $100 plus room and board for a live-in pembantu in Jakarta. In my house in Yogyakarta two years ago, our live-in pembantu took home a big $30 a month. The woman who cleaned my room 4 times a week and did all of my laundry at my last place received $10 a month from me.  The guy who came to clean our house everyday in Lombok and do our laundry got $50 for the month.

Many of the pembantu come from small villages and come to work in the cities. They are often very, very young. The one at my house two years ago couldn’t have been older than 16.

Some pembantu travel a long way from home to work. A few months ago I was staying at a friend’s house and while I was there his father came to Java from Papua, partially to find a “good” pembantu, since he apparently wasn’t satisfied with those from Papua. So, two days later a young woman from a Javanese village got on an airplane for the first time to go to Papua to work for at least a year.

Regardless of how far they travel fro m home, they are often transported to a different world – from the Indonesia where half the country lives on less than $2 a day to the Indonesia that is air-conditioned, professional, and consumer-oriented. The most striking examples are on weekends at Jakarta’s fancy malls where wide-eyed pembantu, wearing the “pembantu uniform” (which looks like pajamas), trail behind their employers carrying children. These examples are also often racially striking – the “indigenous” Indonesians following Indonesians of Chinese ethnicity.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a foreigner with a pembantu trailing them around the mall, but most have one come to their house at least a few times a week. That said, many foreigners here definitely feel a little uncomfortable about the whole arrangement and actually want their kids to learn to learn to clean up after themselves, which is clearly something many Indonesians with money don’t know how to do. But paying a few dollars for somebody to come over for the night when you’re hosting a dinner party? Nobody seems to have problem with that!

After almost three weeks of completely goofing off in Bali and Lombok, I flew up to Yogyakarta today to attend a conference that I helped put together.

The event was a meeting of a commission that I’ve helped assemble in conjunction with Yogyakarta’s Sanata Dharma Univerity’s Center for History and Political Ethics (PUSdEP) and the Salzburg Global Seminar’s Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (IHJR).  The goal of the commission is to get a diverse group of Indonesian scholars and civil society activists to sit down and begin to write a “consensus history” of President Soeharto’s New Order (32 years of authoritarian rule that ended in 1998).  The group is currently doing a pilot project to determine the feasibility of a larger initiative, with the aim being to write a short piece on “Religion and the New Order” to which all the commission members can sign their name.

As for the project, so far so good.  But why is this project remarkable (it is if you know Indonesia)?  Because Indonesia has done a staggeringly poor job of reflecting on the gross human rights violations of the New Order since its transition to “democracy” almost ten years ago.

Let me begin from the start —

A series of events, fundamental to understanding modern Indonesia, began with the evening of September 30, 1965, when seven senior Indonesian army generals were taken from their homes and executed. The details of that fateful evening are still unclear; some historians see the incident as an attempted coup by junior military officers while others see the incident as an aborted coup by communist insurgents. What is clear, however, is that Major General Soeharto saw the incident as an opportunity. Soeharto used the events of September 30th to take the mantle of power from Soekarno and massacre his political enemies. In mid-October 1965, the Army began killing prominent members of the Indonesian Communist Party, the PKI. By the time the killings ended in early 1966, the death toll had soared to at least 500,000, perhaps as many as 2,000,000. Born in blood, President Soeharto’s authoritarian rule was predicated on violence, legitimated by economic development, and justified by the manipulation of the nation’s memory of the events of 1965-66.

Now that Indonesia has moved beyond Soeharto, the nation faces important questions about how to deal with the legacy of those events. How does the legacy of the massacres impact Indonesia’s transition away from authoritarianism? How was “historical memory” of the massacres, the way that people remember the past, manipulated by Soeharto’s authoritarian regime? How can that memory be rehabilitated? I contend that the memory of 1965-66 was a tool of the regime to promote its own goals and instill Indonesians with values necessary to sustain authoritarianism: physical force as a tool for governance, conformity to state goals rather than the acceptance of difference, and subservience to an all-powerful state. The most important question then is perhaps not how to remedy the past, but how to remedy the future. How can Indonesia build a strong democracy that promotes democratic values of pluralism, participation and cooperation?

The problem is that Indonesia hasn’t even begun to answer these questions.  Why?  Because the country’s remaining powerholders (the military, Muslim clerics, and politicians) find it prudent to hold onto the Soeharto regime’s version of the events.

How can these leaders condone (and even celebrate) the slaughter of so many people?

For the military it’s easy.  They can say that they saved the nation in 1965 and remain the only institution that can be trusted to safeguard the country.

It’s just as easy for the clerics.  For them, Communism is equivilent to godlessness, and therefore, in their narrative, the country was saved from that fate in 1965.  Any chance to bring out the Communist bogeyman is a win for the faith.

It’s a little harder to figure out why the politicians can rally around the New Order’s version of the events, but at least three reasons can be identified.  First, most political parties are identified with either the military or particular religious organizations.  So, it’s smart politics to pander to their party bases.  Second, polticians point to what happened in Cambodia and the Soviet Union and confidently state that at least Indonesia didn’t suffer their fate (don’t bring up the million people killed in Indonesia, though).  Third, the New Order did such a good job of telling its side of the story, that they actually believe it is the only version!

So now that Indonesia has become a dramatically more free country over the course of the last ten years, there remains this one taboo issue: questioning the New Order’s historiographical orthodoxy.

Want proof?  Look no further than the burning of thousands of history textbooks (both officially and publicly) over the last several weeks.  And what was wrong with them?  They dared to describe a bit of the complexity surrounding the events of 1965 and didn’t unquestionably blame the PKI or celebrate the massacre.

So what’s the big deal, since all of this happened over forty years ago?  It’s a big deal in two ways if you ask me.

First, if this is really a democracy, there must be a free exchange of ideas, which is clearly not the case (I’ll follow this entry with my own experience in pushing the limits of inquiry in Indonesia’s democracy).  And, second, if a nation can’t unequivicably condemn the killing of a million of its citizens, then what value does it place on its citizens’ lives today?

In case you’ve missed the early action, the Asian Cup is the Asian equivalent of the European Football Championships and the Copa America and is currently in the group stage. Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia are co-hosting the event, which brings together 16 qualifying teams from across Asia (FIFA defining Asia as being everything from Jordan to Australia).

Lucky for Indonesia, its role as a host automatically qualified it for the tournament. I say lucky because despite being the world’s 4th most populous country and being filled with soccer fanatics, it ranks #143 in the world, coming in just ahead of Swaziland, Mauritius, and Lesotho (check out the FIFA world rankings if you think I’m exaggerating).

After Indonesia’s miraculous victory over Bahrain last week, some friends and I decided that we absolutely had to get tickets for Saturday night’s game versus Saudi Arabia, a relative powerhouse in the region. So a good friend went down to the stadium and bought 8 upper deck tickets at double the face value ($3 instead of $1.50).

Since clearly the correct thing for these 8 Americans to do on game day was to go on a pub crawl during the afternoon, the group met up earlier in the day. However, after an afternoon at Jakarta’s finest drinking establishments, they realized that they were running a bit late and would never get through the traffic to the stadium in time in taxis, so they did the only reasonable thing they could think of — find 8 motorbike taxis. Luckily for all, the white guys on the backs of the motorbikes got there with enough time to buy Indonesia soccer jerseys.

We knew that the game was sold out (all 80,000 seats), but had no idea that there would be tens of thousands of people outside the stadium, although they couldn’t get inside the gates that stand about 100 feet away from the stadium itself. After fighting through the crowd, we got past the gate and began to make a sprint for our seats (although one friend was delayed because the authorities made him dump his moonshine into a plastic bag and gave him a straw).

We got to our “seats” (although they were assigned, it was a free-for-all throughout the entire 50,000 seat upper deck) just as the Indonesian national anthem began, which we had been studying earlier in the day. From then on out, it was absolute pandemonium, much of it because it was actually a good game. Saudi Arabia scored in the 14th minute and Indonesia evened the score 6 minutes later. Everyone in the crowd was wearing red and white, the national colors, and hanging on every play. Raucous wouldn’t even begin to describe the atmosphere. And even the one in our cohort who went to the University of Texas was impressed.

But who was the rowdiest? Clearly the Americans who had been on the pub crawl all day and, more specifically, the fine young man desperately trying to lead the crowd in a chant of “Death to Saudi Arabia.” (don’t worry, it wasn’t me)

Perhaps it was best summed up by the one other foreigner trying to get tickets today for Wednesday’s game against South Korea. He was a reporter for ESPN-Asia’s Sportcenter, “I’m standing here in front of the national stadium in Jakarta where if the crowd behind me is any indication, we can expect another sell-out this Wednesday for Indonesia’s match against South Korea. I’ve been told by Indonesians that the atmosphere inside this stadium is so intense that even many Indonesians are scared to enter.”

And in case you’re wondering, Saudi Arabia scored a cheap goal 3 minutes into injury time to win it.  And thus ended what was unanimously declared the most fun any of us have ever had in Indonesia.

So what are kretek, you ask?  Well, they are the ubiquitous, clove-scented, Indonesian cigarettes, whose smell one might call the smell of Indonesia.  If there were a perfume called Indonesia, it would smell like kretek.  But don’t fret.  They don’t smell so bad (they even smell good in mild doses) and the smell doesn’t stick to things for very long.

In any case, four things happened in the last few days that made me think that an entry on kretek was needed.

First, Marlboro introduced a kretek cigarette for the Indonesian market this week.  Perhaps they finally realized why they were losing out in one of the world’s largest markets — Indonesians prefer kretek!

Second, I found out that Marlboro’s new kretek is apparently only one of 500 new brands of kretek introduced over the last year!

Third, I read an article that said at least 2/3 of men here smoke (I was shocked at how low this number was).  That said, clearly less than 1% of women smoke, and when they do, it’s a bit of a statement and only seems to happen in Jakarta and other large cities.

Fourth, I saw with my own eyes a child no older than six years old smoking a cigarette like he knew what he was doing.  Granted, he appeared to be a street kid, but still…

You get the point.  An image of everyday life in Indonesia would clearly be incomplete without men hanging around and smoking kretek, which could easily pass as the national pastime.

In any case, the small scale corruption, which doesn’t get the media attention (but which is exactly what you’d expect), gets a little lost sometimes.  So, I thought I’d offer up a few anecdotes that demonstrate how endemic it really is and how open people are about it.

- A foreign researcher overstays her visa by four days, which by law requires you to pay a fine of $20/day, payable next to the immigration desk as you leave the country.  However, when the offender approaches the immigration officer and explains that she has overstayed her visa by four days, the nice, older woman behind the the desk simply smiles sweetly and says to just put $10 inside her passport.  Then, without further ado, the date on her visa is changed and she is waived on.

- When floods inundated much of Jakarta four months ago, most of the better-off residents of Jakarta tried to leave their neighborhoods for higher land.  A foreign friend living in one of the worst-effected neighborhoods (4-5 feet of water everywhere) likewise wanted to get out, even though he lived on a high floor of a large apartment building.  Luckily there was a small marine base across the street that was using large trucks to get people out.  Since he was casual friends with several of the marines, they let him get onto one of the trucks quickly (and even gave him a hat).  Then, as the others from the building tried to get on, it became clear that they were being charged $30 each.  Sitting in the cab of the truck, the foreigner overheard the conversation between the marines and their commanding officer regarding how much money they had been made so far.

- According to law, foreigners with “temporary stay visas” are supposed to report to their local police station within 30 days of arrival to register and get an identification card.  However, one particular foreign researcher completely forgot to do this until about two months after he arrived.  So he went to the police station immediately and was told to go see a particular officer in an office on the second floor.  This officer was a middle-aged woman who sat at a desk in a room packed with other officers.  When the foreigner explained that he’d forgotten to report to the police within 30 days, she just smiled and said that it was okay, but that he would have to pay a fine.  When the foreigner asked how much the fine was, she asked how much he thought it should be.  Then, when the foreigner asked how much the fine usually was, she replied that it was usually about $25.  When the foreigners said he only had $20 cash on him, she took it and said that $20 would be satisfactory.  Clearly, this just went straight into her pocket.

The mystery about which I speak concerns the crowds of young men who stand on the side of the street at certain times of day that look as if they’re looking for a ride.  However, they never actually get in a bus or taxi, as far as I’ve seen.  And, perhaps since public transportation costs as little as 10 or 15 cents, hitchhiking doesn’t happen as far as I know.  So what exactly are these people doing?

Well, it turns out that the answer is both interesting and amusing.

As I’ve noted, Jakarta has a monumental traffic problem.  Everyone has their own statistics, but it seems that Jakarta has about 8 million residents, but the number doubles during the workday.  And, as a city almost completely devoid of efficient public transportation, this means that the city is absolutely choked with traffic Monday through Friday from 7am to 8pm, with world-class gridlock routinely occurring during peak hours.

So, one somewhat sensible recent  initiative of the Jakarta government has been to enforce a “3-in-1″ policy from 7-10am and 4-7pm, meaning that cars on main roads must have at least three occupants during these hours (I think you can tell where I’m going with this…).

So, it turns out that our “hitchhikers” are what are referred to as “3-in-1 Jockeys.” Depending on how far the ride, they are paid between 50 cents and 1 dollar to ride in the back seat of somebody’s car so that they can drive on Jakarta’s main roads during rush hour.

And, as far as I can tell, these “jockeys” and their benefactors are the only ones benefiting at this point, since nobody can possibly claim that congestion is even slightly better now than 6 months ago.