This morning I was reading that a committee set up by the House of Lords had, quite rightly, come to the conclusion that the widespread use of CCTV and the storage of people's DNA information on nationwide databases in Britain had serious consequences for personal privacy. I couldn't agree more. However, I can't help thinking that Britons have it easy when it comes to surveillance and invasions of privacy, if you compare their system with the Indonesians'.
I've moved house you see. You may remember that I was living in a house several sizes too big for me and was enjoying the space, the balconies and the hammock etc. Well there were a few things that I was beginning, quite decidedly, not to enjoy. There was the leaking roof, windows and walls for a start; they only leaked when there was a torrential downpour but, in Indonesia, that's quite often. However, what had really got me steaming was the neighbours.
You'll recollect that I had had a few problems with the neighbours at my first home in Medan and so on moving into the last house I had done everything right. I'd informed the landlord that my girlfriend would be visiting often but would never stay overnight and told the chief of the village the same thing. Both had told me that this would not be a problem. I blame myself for believing them.
In the ten months that I stayed there, it seems the neighbourhood had been scandalised by my immoral behaviour to the point that they could stand it no more and the chief was forced to summon me for a meeting. I was informed that the local community were deeply offended by Novi's comings and goings and that she was staying until much too late at night (11pm at the very latest). It's a testament to how much I've learned of Indonesian culture that I reacted like a true local; I smiled, nodded agreeably, shook hands and silently fumed until I got home before going ballistic and beating Novi senseless. OK, not the last bit; I'm not completely submerged in the culture. Instead I commanded her to go forth and not return until she had found me a house on a Chinese complex. The Chinese, being discriminated against themselves, are much less concerned with the perceived morality of their neighbours and go less ga-ga at the sight of a bule. Ten months I lived at that house and every single day the residents acted as though they had never seen a Westerner before.
Several
days later, a tired and bedraggled Novi collapsed at my doorstep with
the news that she'd found somewhere. It's a lovely, tiny,
newly-built, terraced bungalow on a small Chinese complex a little
further out of the city than I was before. If you took all of the
space that I had actually used at my old house, and squashed it
together, you'd end up with this place. And it cost £900
for two years. I was packed in a jiffy and when the removals van
arrived (Achmed & Sofyan are Men with a Van) the neighbours
congregated around the house in excited curiosity.
“Where are you moving to?” smiled one of my detractors, in Indonesian .
“None of your fucking business, you ignorant, two-faced old witch.” I replied, in English. She smiled and nodded as if she understood and passed this information on to her cronies who all smiled and nodded too; it took several hours for Novi to peel away the hands that had been slapped to her cheeks in horror.
On New Years night, two young Indonesians came to my new home and Novi informed me that one of them was the chief. Very young, I thought, but made them feel welcome and offered them tea and biscuits while they rabbited away to Novi at a speed that I couldn't keep up with. They left shortly and I smiled inanely at them and waved them off. Seemed like nice guys, I thought and said so. Nope. One of them was the son of the chief and the other was the son of a chief from a nearby district. They had been trying to extract some money from me which Novi had refused in a much politer way than I would have done had I known. Novi put up with half an hour of me marching up and down the house, waving my finger in the air and moralising in various pitches of anger and incredulousness before I collapsed in a cloud of hopeless indignation.
When I had calmed down, a couple of weeks later, Novi wisely talked me out of going to the meeting that I would inevitably have to attend with the chief, and said she would go in my stead. However, she did go accompanied...
The chief had actually passed all responsibility on to his wife as he had had enough of the job; it seems her zealousness far surpasses his. Novi met with her one afternoon, a month or so after I had moved in and she and her companion sat and listened to this woman spew forth a barrage of lies and mendacity: Novi had been staying at the bule's house at night but wasn't married to him. It was intolerable. When she got up for morning prayer at 5am she always looked over the wall into the complex and saw Novi's motorbike parked at the house; these were not activities that could be tolerated in this kampung. At last Novi's companion spoke up.
“I think you must be confused,” she said sweetly, “you see I'm Novi's mother and I know for a fact that my daughter has slept under my roof every night for the past twenty seven years.”
To which the woman had little more to say, other than she wanted to speak to me in person and I have so far refused. In the telling of this story I was rather surprised at Novi's hitherto unheard command of English invective. I have no idea where she picked it up from.
On the plus side, I'm thoroughly enjoying living in this quiet little complex. The Chinese are friendly but unintrusive, the few kids that live here don't bat an eye-lid at a stark white bule drinking beer in his garden wearing nothing but a sarong, and the house stays dry when it rains. I've since learned that the area that I was living in previously was renowned for being somewhat at the lower end of the social scale, if not bottom rung of the evolutionary ladder if you'll excuse my flagrant snobbery and outrageous sense of superiority. The new area is much more relaxed; I can wander to the local market for my supplies without more than a brace of “hello mister”s and a smattering of double-takes.
I was up very early the other morning, before sunrise, and was sat at my desk in the semi-darkness. The chief's wife, unaware that I could see her, had walked into the complex and around to my house where she peered over my gate in the vain hope of finding an extra motorbike in the garden. Disappointed, she walked off looking somewhat confused and dejected.
It would almost be worth getting married quickly and quietly, just so that we could wait early one morning for the chief's wife to come around for her inspection and find me bending Novi over the garden wall and humping away while brandishing a marriage licence high in the air.
“It's
alright missus,” I would cry heartily, “we're married now!”
