New Indonesian Words

The Indonesian word for 'chest' is dada. And the word for 'tits' is buah dada. But buah also means 'fruit'. So buah dada literally means 'fruits of the chest'. How appropriate.

Kinky

Does anyone think that this is a bit of a contradiction?

Learning About Indonesian Culture

This is a conversation I had with the staff at my school. It's translated from Indonesian but I have tried to be as accurate as possible:

Me (to my tudung-clad tutor): Hey I have a question.

Tutor: Ya go on.

Me: You know for traditional Indonesians, after they shit, how do they clean their uhh.. what do you call it in Indonesian? Asshole? (said in English) Cos I notice that they don't have toilet paper in most of the toilets here.

Tutor: Er.. Why don't you ask Tuti (the office assistant).

Tuti: I can't really answer that question. Anyway, she's your tutor. She should be the one to answer your questions.

After some too-ing and fro-ing

Tuti (giggling uncontrollably): Maybe it's better to ask Pak Ruhi (the supervising lecturer for my course who happens to be in the office). I'll go get him.

Few minutes later, Pak Ruhi comes out of the office

Ruhi: Yup? Heard you had a question?

Me: Ya. It's about Indonesian culture. And since this is the Indonesian Language and Culture Department, I'd like to know how Indonesians clean their assholes after they mengeshit (Indonesians like to add prefixes to English words to make them appear Indonesian.)

Ruhi: Well... we do it with water.

Me: But like how? It's not like the toilets have water hoses that you can conveniently aim at your ass. How do you do it with the toilets where there're only basins of water and a scoop?

Ruhi: Well you kinda splash it on your butt.

Me: Do you use your hands too?

Ruhi: Well.. yes.

Me: And then like after that you eat with your hands?

Ruhi: Well we use the other hand.

Me: Right.. Then won't your butt be wet after you wash yourself like that?

Ruhi: Well you gotta kinda jump around a bit to get the water off. (mimes jumping around in the toilet)

Me: Isn't that kind of messy?

Ruhi: Well.. ye-a-h.. But it gets us clean.

Me: I guess it takes a lot of practice huh?

At this point the director of the department walks out of her office. She's obviously been listening in.

Director (to me): What about you? You use toilet paper. That's not as clean as using water right?

Ruhi (deciding to go on the offensive): Yeah. Paper's not that good is it? Cos your ass is a crevice like this (shows me the folds in the skin between the digits of his forefinger). So when you wipe its difficult to get into the crevice right?

Me: Well you kinda have to dig a little bit sometimes.

Director: How many pieces do you use usually?

Me: As many as it takes.

Short pause.

Director: Ohh.. begituuu (Indonesian for "Rii-iight")... Well, I'm off now. Have a good weekend then.

Ruhi (to me): Ya. Very interesting conversation. See you next week.

I still don't really get the concept. Some unanswered questions:

(i) How do you splash the water on your butt when you're sitting/squatting? Don't you kinda have to fling it upwards? What if some of the shit/water accidentally gets flung upwards too high? How do you wipe it off from, say your face when there's no toilet paper available? Do you use the water again? Won't you just get yourself really wet in the process?

(ii) How can you possibly expect to dry yourself sufficiently after you wash so that there won't be wet patches on your trousers when you put it on afterwards? I mean even with a bidet you have to use toilet paper to dry yourself right? Is jumping around really effective? Or do you have to kinda air it a bit before you put on your trousers? Doesn't that take quite a bit of time?

(iii) What if the water supply stops (as it sometimes does here in Indonesia) and there is not enough water in the water basin? I mean in toilet-paper-bloc nations you can shout out to other people and ask them to throw you a roll. But isn't it kind of hard to pass a bucket of water under the toilet door?

Strange country, this.

I Get Localitis II

The other day my mates from the other class just graduated. These guys are from the poorer and more Islamic (no correlation to the former intended) bits of Southeast Asia like South Vietnam, Cambodia. Basically the equivalent of your regular schoolyard bengs. Anyway, we had this celebratory dinner and after that we went for karaoke!

Of course I had to sing my Paradise by Beyond (which, surprisingly, they had the original version for). And then Sweet Child of Mine with a surprisingly authentic-sounding music backing (of course the video was, just like in Singapore, of some anonymous ang moh woman bouncing her impossibly big tits on the beach). Anyway, I think I made an impression because now when my tutor (who went with us to the karaoke) sees me, she goes "Para-para diiise!!!"

After that we went to the local arcade to play Winning Eleven (that's a soccer game for all you girls and girlie boys) on the rental PS2s and then (this is the clincher) I gave a lift home to not one, but two of the guys on my bike. At the same time.

I think my metamorphosis is complete. Fiona, whenever you're ready... Nice tat by the way.

Fun With Animals

So I've moved into this homestay to live with an Indonesian family so that I can practice my Indonesian. It's in one of the more upmarket parts of town. Or at least as upmarket as it can get in Yog-I-find-flies-in-my-food-regularly-yakarta.

Anyway, first day I move in, I take a ride around the neighbourhood to check it out. And then I see these two cats having some outdoor action on the side of the road. Doggy-style! Loverboy was even clawing his fuck bitch's back in ecstacy.

And then there's like live poultry running free everywhere who, I'm sure, regularly hang out with their wild cousins who've just flown in from God knows what bird-flu-infested exotic location. Would Monsieur like his H5N1 ala Chickene:

Or ala Swanne?


And then on Monday morning, the most champion thing happened. I woke up at 3am to watch MotoGP that day. So there I am sitting on the sofa, when I notice a fucking big RAT crawling down the wall across the hall. Thinking nothing of it, I continue watching the race. Five minutes later, a smaller one does the same thing. Being only slightly perturbed, I continue watching stoically. Another five minutes later, I see something brown and furry run across the floor straight towards me. I lift up my legs but its too late. Before I know it, the fucker's run up the sofa onto me! So as not to appear too much of a wimp, I merely jump out of my seat but managed to supress my girlish squeel.

I spent the rest of the race standing beside the sofa with half a wary eye looking out for any more rat expeditions up my trousers. Next day I told my teachers at the school and they're all like "Yeah. It's pretty normal to find rats in houses around here." Maybe everybody here's vaccinated against bubonic plague from birth. Wonder if my BCG injection covers that.

Interactive TV!

Indonesians are obsessed with "interactive TV". There're all these TV programmes with like live opinion polls where people can send in SMSes or call in with their opinions. These range from the slightly cool (see picture and caption below), to the immensely kok - on MetroTV news every night, they have "interactive news" where they display all the stories for the night on the screen and viewers get to vote for the story they want to watch first. And then after every story that's been shown, they show the same screen with the remaining stories and get the viewers to vote again for the next story. How kok is that?! I mean what is the fucking point? They end up showing all the stories anyway. Even more kok, they have viewers who call in to choose the next story to be shown and they say things like "Ohygod I'm on TV! Uhhh... I will choose... the story about the earthquake victims in East Java because I think it's like.. So. Important. that we give adequate coverage to their plight." Fucking boh liao right? Then sometimes the connection is not good. Then the newscaster goes "Hello? Hello? Bapak? Are you there? Ok we've lost the caller, let's see what the next caller will choose... Hello? Caller number 2? What story would you like to hear Bapak?"...

Bet you won't see that on BBC.


On the MotoGP programme on TV7 here, they have this weird video game thingie where two callers get to race with each other on a split-screen by pressing the keys on their mobile phones. "Press 2 to accelerate, 8 to brake, 4 to turn left and 6 to turn right".

Defence Ministry

Everything here is hard core. I just discovered that the proper name of the Ministry of Defence here is Departemen Ketahanan. It's like the Department of Tahan. Or the Department of Fuck-You-We-Can-Take-Whatever-Shit-You-Throw-At-Us.

Old School Bike

Saw this on the trip to Borobudur. How old school is that? Doesn't it make you want to put on some goggles and a scarf and just tear away on it into the sunset? Alternatively you could attach a sidecar with an icebox and sell ice cream bread along orchard road.

I Am Heartbroken

Early this morning I woke up early to watch MotoGP. This was Valentino Rossi's chance to regain his position at the top of the table after his fantastic performance last week propelled him to his second-place ranking.

So Rossi starts the race in the third row at tenth position but that's ok cos he's the man and always gets to the front after a few laps. He fights his way to fourth and he's closing on Chris Vermeulan in third when suddenly he drops to sixth. I think its ok. Maybe he oversteered into a corner or something. No biggie. Nothing he can't fix.

But then the camera shows him pulling over with black smoke belching from his exhaust. Technical problems! Fucking Yamaha. Can't even make sure the bike runs properly. Rossi's forced to retire from the race and doesn't pick up a single point from the race.

Heart pain man. His ranking's now dropped to third and there might not be enough races left this season for him to regain his lead. I think Buddha's decided to punish me already.

I Listen to Half Baked Stories About Buddha From Lazy Tour Guides

So I just went to visit Borobudur yesterday cos my school arranged an excursion for me. Quite nice but fucking hot. We get a tour guide so that I can practice listening in Indonesian. He starts out pretty enthusiastic, narrating each of the relief carvings that tell the story of Buddha's life. But then the heat gets the better of him. From what I could make out from him, the story of Buddha's life goes something like this:

There was once this prince by the name of Sidharta Gautama. He was the son of a great king. Before he was born, his mother dreamt that she would gave birth to a baby boy. Soon after, she was indeed pregnant. She and the king were very amazed because the king never could really get it up. When Sidharta was born, he could walk straightaway. He also had special powers like he could feed thousands of people with a single bowl of rice and he could heal all sorts of illnesses. Anyway, would Sir want to view ALL the reliefs because its an awful lot of reliefs and Sir might get tired before he can reach the peak of Borobudur which represents Nirvana and perhaps it might be better for Sir to save his strength so that he can reach this most amazing and fulfilling of places. Yes? Sir would prefer to skip this part of the story? Ok.

(After climbing up two more levels in the temple.) So Sidharta decided to meditate under a bodhi tree. After meditating for a long time, he attained Nirvana and became Buddha. This temple was built in his honour. There. End of story. Would Sir want to try to touch the Buddha inside the stupa for good luck?

Anyway, at the top of Borobudur got a lot of kok signs like this:

What no scratching? I like to scratch leh. Cannot ah huh? My downstairs itchy leh. I want to scratch leh. Why? Not happy ah huh? Hahahaha.

But anyway the scenary there quite nice lah:

Next time I bring my Indonesian girlfriend go there and fuck at night under the stars. Wah lan eh she sure love me long long time.

Then there is this hill range beside Borobudur that was supposed to have inspired the locals to build it. It's supposed to look like Buddha lying down, meditating. But from the looks of it, he might have been thinking about something else:

I think next life I'm going to be reborn as bacteria. But its just too funny not to blog about.

Phua Cheebye Whole Of Singapore Become Like NS Like That

What is this man... I go away for just one month and when I come back, there's this new law that says people can only smoke in 10% of the seats in Singapore restaurants. And, just to make sure people cannot act blur, every restaurant must paint a yellow box around the seats where they can smoke. Just like last time in NS.

In fact, at least in NS how many people go into the yellow box also can. In restaurants how to tell those people seating in the yellow box, "sorry ah, I come in smoke for a while ah." Sure kenah fuck one.

Then there are other places that try to get around the problem by having "designated smoking corner". You know like last time primary school got punishment corner? Ah nowadays got smoking corner lah. Where got shiok? Want to smoke must go to the corner to smoke. Can't even act cool in front of the chicks. Better migrate man.

Room With A View

Took these photos from my hostel room window before I moved into this home-stay place I'm at now. Fucking hell.. wake up every morning and see the volcano. Scared sial.

Then last week I went to the foot of the volcano so have a closer look. Lagi scary:

Imagine. In the last picture above, somewhere in the cloud of superheated volcanic ash on the right side of the mountain, lives Mbah Marijan (see previous post), faithfully doing his naked Javanese traditional dance to ward off the eruption, saggy testicals and all.

I Get Localitis

Did I just say "My Other Vehicle Is Travels At Mach 2"?! Fuck man my English is suffering from all my bahasa Indonesia lessons. The other night, I was on MSN and I wrote "economi" instead of "economy". Soon I will be writing "ekonomi".

Then I will have to kill myself.

Bad Ass Bumper Stickers

You know those kok SAF bumper stickers you see in Singapore that say "My Other Vehicle Is Travels At Mach 2" or like the ones with the name of their ships like "RSS Jalan Tua Kong"? Well the other day I was parking my bike and I saw this bumper sticker on the one in front of mine:

In case you're wondering, Kopasus stands for Komando Pasukan Khusus. It's the Indonesian special forces arm that (i) carried out the "scorched earth" campaign that burnt down half of the capital of Timor-Leste (formerly East Timor) when the Indonesian military was forced to leave the country by a UN order, (ii) was suspected to be involved in the murder of six students who were protesting against former President Suharto and (iii) has been fingered by Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission as having killed more than 781 Acehnese since Aceh is a special operations region for Kopasus. For more more fun facts and figures, check this out.

How fucking bad ass is that? National Day Parade, eat your heart out.

At The Airport

So I just came back to Jogja by plane and when I was waiting at Changi Airport, I managed to covertly snap this picture with my phone. Its a bit grainy but you can just make out the details:

Within the red circle, is a woman wearing a white sweater. And she's helping the guy (partially hidden by the blue airport trolley) to pull out his nosehairs with a pair of tweezers. Shiok right! Woohoo! Actually I wanted to take a closer picture but I dare not.

Anyway, "walaupun", as modelled in the above photo, is beginning to become my favourite Indonesian word/personal exclamation. "Walaupun" means "although" in Indonesian. But for me, its like a combination of "walau" as in "walau that bastard fuck my girlfriend" and "pun" as in "cheebye that guy so kok pun eh sai get promotion" (eh sai means "can" in hokkien). Its like a combination of two of my favourite words.

In the above context, "walaupun can be used as follows:

"walaupun, airport also can do personal grooming".

Spread it around!

I Write Essays In Indonesian

When you're writing in a language that you are still learning, sometimes you're not in total control of the piece because the direction of the story is dictated by the limited words that you know. For instance, today my tutor ask me to write essay. This is what I wrote:

"Mengapa Saya Belajar Bahasa Indonesia

Saya belajar bahasa Indonesia karena saya malas. Ketika saya di Singapura, saya harus bekerja dengan rajin. Tetapi, di Yogyakarta, setiap hari saya senang-senang, bisa tidur banyak.

Saya ingin belajar bahasa Indonesia karena di Singapura, saya mendengar bahwa ada salah satu pengmotocross yang sangat terkenal di Indonesia. Namanya Valentino Rozihan. Saya ingin mencari dia dan minta dia mengajar saya motocross. Tetapi, karena dia hanya bisa mengerti bahasa Indonesia, saya harus belajar bahasa Indonesia untuk komunikasi dengan dia.

Juga, saya ingin belajar bahasa Indonesia karena saya adalah orang miskin dan orang bodoh. Saya di Singapura tidak bisa mencari bekerjaan. Karena keluarga saya tidak cukup uang, memang mereka ingin menjual saya kepada keluarga mafia di Cina. Tetapi, saya berlari dari Singapura. Saya berenang di laut ke Indonesia. Ketika saya tiba pantai, lho! saya lihat bahwa saya di Yogyakarta! Saya sangat senang karena saya tahu Valentino Rozihan tinggal di Yogyakarta. Kemudian saya berjalan ke kantor INCULS di UGM dan registrasi untuk khursus bahasa Indonesia.

Saya sangat suka belajar bahasa Indonesia!"

This is the translation:

"Why I Study Indonesian

I study Indonesian because I am lazy. In Singapore, I have to work very hard but here in Yogyakarta, I can take it easy everyday and sleep a lot.

I want to study bahasa Indonesia because when I was in Singapore, I heard that there is a very famous motocross rider in Indonesia by the name of Valentino Rozihan. I wanted to look for him and ask him to teach me how to ride motocross motorcycles. However, because he can only understand Indonesian, I have to learn the language so that I can communicate with him.

Also, I want to study Indonesian because I am poor and stupid. I could not find a job in Singapore. Because my family in Singapore is very poor, they wanted to sell me to a mafia family in China. But I escaped from Singapore and swam across the sea to Indonesia. When I finally reached land, wow! I realised that I was in Yogyakarta! I was very happy at this because I knew for a fact that Valentino Rozihan lives in Yogyakarta. After that, I walked to the office of the Indonesian Culture and Language Centre in Gadja Mada University and registered for the Indonesian language class.

I love studying Indonesian!"

Don't think she was very amused.

I Buy a Merc

So I need a car for when I work in Indonesia and I figure might as well travel in style. Just bought a Merc C180. Low mileage and engine's pretty good. Problem is it's silver. I actually wanted a fucking bad ass black merc. Thought about respraying it black but then the dealer tells me that if I want it done properly, they have to remove the engine. I think too troublesome and I dunno if they can fit the engine back properly. So silver it is. Anyway, it'll look something like this:

I guess don't have black also can lah hor?

The Sign of Q

Apparently this is how you sign the letter 'Q' in sign language.

Wonder if the right hand is supposed to move. But imagine my surprise when I found out how you sign 'T':

Go figure. Got one more. Guess what word this is. It's quite a long one:

Help Me Buy An MV Agusta F4-1000R

MV Agusta is the equivalent of Ferrari in the bike world. Exhibit A, the F4-1000 R (see below). This baby does 174bhp, goes up to 187mph and costs about $40,000.

Do you not weep as you gaze upon its moody black livery? Does your pulse not quicken as you notice the 50mm Marzocchi USD forks? Do the radial Brembo Monoblock front calipers and forged Brembo aluminium wheels with the Y-spoke pattern not make you want to come in your pants? Ewan McGregor declared in Long Way Round, "It even smells nice".

I want one. But because I'm poor, you can help me to raise money to buy it. Make a donation at mvagusta4me.pledgepage.org and 10% of your contribution will go to another worthy charity which might very well benefit me in the future.

Show me your love, people.

If You're Ugly And You Know It...

The other day I was catching up on news when I came across this article. Then I saw this picture:

I think they were demonstrating in support of the Anti-Porn bill that the Indonesian parliament is trying to push to the government. (I deduce from the dressing. Smart hor?)

Anyway, I think ah.. If I looked so dog like that ah, I also better support the Anti-Porn bill. Or else wait next time married already my husband don't want to fuck me.

Quaint Javanese Traditions

I'm back home for a while cos must stock up on porn. I try to download the Sperms of Endearment at my hostel but the connection too slow leh.

Anyway, on the subject of naked people, check this out. I read it before I went there. Thought it was horseshit. BUT, the other day as I was riding out of my hostel to go to school, I saw a naked man standing by the roadside. Didn't know if he was just too fucking poor or if he was performing some Javanese ritual to stop the volcano from exploding. Actually I wanted to take a picture and put on the blog but I scared he catch me and fuck my backside so I just gawked at his reflection in my rear view mirror. The volcano's still smoking though. Maybe cos he never eat snake bladder first. Hahaha.

Wah lan eh but if I see the man in the centre of the picture in the article above naked, I think if shit halfway, the shit also go back inside my backside man. Maybe its supposed to be the same way with the volcano.

And then even more kok is that the local government in Yogyakarta actually employs this guy called Mbah Marijan who stays within a certain distance of the crater of the volcano. His job is just to do some Javanese ritual everyday so that the volcano doesn't explode. This is what their civil servant do. Everyday just dance dance a bit in the morning can get salary. Wah lan eh I also want man. And the best thing is, since this guy lives alone within the danger zone of the volcano where everyone has been evacuated, even if he doesn't do it also no one know.

Anyway, I don't think its working. The other morning I felt a tremor for about ten seconds. The furniture in my room shook a bit. Was thinking whether to run or go back to sleep but since it stopped before I could decide, I went back to sleep. Think I'm settling in just fine.

Snake Bladder Increases My Sexual Prowess For A Day (And I Meet a Pop Star)

So the other night Toyo (that's the cook's name) calls me on my phone and says there's this Indonesian pop starlet I should meet and she's at his restaurant now and she's hot as hell and I should come over immediately. So of course I'm like ok and ride on over.

Anyway, turns out she's just signed on with a local label and starting to catch on here. Apparently she's touring in Surabaya and Jakarta and stuff like that. Anyway, as an ice-breaker, she shows me some of her promo pictures and offers to autograph one for me. Err.. Oooo-kay. Weird way to introduce yourself. "Hi, I'm famous. Here's an autographed picture of myself." Well anyway she does. And Toyo cooks up some pork to mark the occasion. She says I can go check the band out when they practice. Think that'd be pretty cool actually.

Aaaanyway, after fucking Barbara Streisand leaves, Toyo and I start talking about Chinese food again. I say Ari told me that there's this place that sells snake meat and that I've been dying to try some. Toyo's like oh you can get snake meat here in Jogja and when you eat snake its like really good for your body blah blah blah. Then he says he's got some snake gall bladder or heart or something (I didn't quite catch it) in the fridge and says I should try some.

Before I can protest, he's ambled across to the fridge and pulls out this ice cream box filled with little vials of whatever the thing is. Apparently its like fucking bitter so they're all soaked in honey. He gives me one and says its on the house. I take one look and figure, what the hell and I drink the thing. In mid-gulp I'm about to chew on the thing but Toyo says I should just gulp the whole thing down. So I do.

Like ten minutes after I feel a bit warm and Toyo says my face is getting red (though it might have been the beer I had been drinking). He says when I wake up tomorrow, I'm gonna be real "strong". I go.. "Strong for...?" and then I make an 'O' with my hand and shake it back and forth. Toyo goes yeah.. you're catching on, boy.

Valentino Rossi - Kaninabechaocheebye He's the Fucking King Man

Watched MotoGP this weekend at the hostel lobby again. Holy shit man. Rossi started out in the fourth row at twelfth position. He then proceeds to slowly chew up all the guys ahead of him one, by one and overtakes his way to third where he has this fantastic battle with Marco Melandri for second place. Riiight at the end, Rossi squeezes past Melandri to take second. My heart almost stops and the Indonesian uncles (and auntie) yell "Yaaaa!!!" The Indonesian auntie shakes my hand.

Valentino Rossi. He's number 46. He rides for Team Camel Yamaha. And he's one bad ass motherfucker man.