One of the things I love about living in this country is the feeling of living in the past; a past where streets are lined with stalls and independent shops, and things are repaired, not thrown away. Walk (at your peril) down any of the streets here and you’ll find tailors, blacksmiths, electrical repair shops, hardware shops and purveyors of all manner of items that you would only find in superstores back in Britain. Many of these shops are owned by the very people who serve you and who will often be found having a quiet snooze behind the counter.
Sadly it won’t be too long before this culture disappears just as it has back home, as shopping malls spread like cancer throughout the cities and the younger generations begin to shop and socialise in these sanitised and homogenised Temples of Retail, so indistinguishable from their Western counterparts. However, problems arise when Indonesia attempts to import and emulate Western retail culture, as I found out when I purchased a camera recently.
I knew which camera I wanted and it was just a matter of finding one for the right price. That was my first mistake. For the sake of a few quid I had gobbled the Dark One’s appendage and bought the best priced camera of choice from a gleaming electrical retail outlet in one of the newer shopping malls in Medan. Accompanied by the long-suffering Novi, I marched past brightly lit glass cases of mobile phones, space-age vacuum cleaners and washing machines that resembled extras from Star Wars; attracted the attention of one of the many white-shirted automatons and pointed at the object of my desire, which in this instance was not my girlfriend. Mechanically, the Customer Interaction System nodded an acknowledgement and withdrew, to be replaced by two Product Packaging Engineers who unlocked the camera from its stand, unlocked another cupboard from beneath, and proceeded to encase the product in its packaging in much the same way that you would expect Laurel and Hardy to.
Foolishly, I interrupted this intricate ballet to indicate a set of rechargeable batteries and a memory card that I had decided I wanted, both of which were housed in two separate display cases. The PPE’s were clearly not qualified to deal with such a task and so one of them, obviously startled by this unprecedented turn of events, shambled off to find a CIS, leaving the remaining PPE to struggle on alone.
Ten minutes had thus far passed.
On his return I repeated my audacious request to the CIS who asked me to wait and hurried off to heaven knows where. My camera had by now been packaged and was taken away to another part of the store. Meanwhile, a Computer Input Technician appeared and asked me to follow him. CIT’s were quite patently not built for speed and we followed him at an agonisingly slow pace, trying not to tread on his heels, across seven kilometres of shop floor, to a dazzling computer terminal perched upon a swish pedestal, with a flat-screen monitor at neck-straining height. The CIT robotically inputted the seventy five digit product codes and then gestured to the screen in a manner similar to that of a game show assistant, in order that I should witness the feat that he had performed in my honour. I gave him a round of applause; he bowed modestly and graciously asked us to accompany him to another area of the universe.
Twenty minutes so far.
We left the confines of the known universe, traversed space and time and finally came to rest at the Transaction Pod situated several light years outside the shop floor and which was populated by two make-upped TARTS (Transaction Assessment and Re-Typing Systems) who had had toothy smiles surgically implanted into their faces. They set to work immediately, typing furiously into their keyboards and before you could say the entire works of Shakespeare, there on their screens, by some manipulation of the space-time continuum, was the same information that the CIT had typed in to his terminal only seven light years ago! The CIT watched my face and waited for this marvel to sink in, before sweeping majestically away; his job done.
BUT WAIT! What was this? The surgical smiles contorted hideously, frowns cracked the paint on their foreheads as the Product Transportation Pilot docked, carrying my batteries (no sign of the camera or memory card). These were not the batteries being shown on the magic screens! Alarms sounded, the CIT was recalled, lengthy discussions were held, personal declarations of blame were made, numbers were erased, new ones added, the CIT fell to his knees in shame and begged my forgiveness, I gave a thumbs-down and he was shot on the spot. The TARTS, paint re-applied and smiles re-sewn, took my cash and we were escorted to a lounge stylishly strewn with magazines and the dusty skeletons of other shoppers.
Thirty five minutes.
I had now passed from smiling tolerance, through befuddled amusement, disbelief, irritation and was now being patted by Novi as I veered between hysterical giggling and noisy incredulousness. Several minutes passed in this manner until I spied my camera moving slowly towards us in the hands of a PTP. Closer and closer it advanced, until it reached the office space separating us from the store itself.... and was placed upon a desk.
This was it! I had paid! It was rightfully mine goddammit!! I leapt to my feet and launched myself headlong at my purchase, a pleading girlfriend vainly pulling at my arm to prevent me from doing anything foolish. I reached the desk and made a swipe for the camera but not before the BITCH (Barrier Inhibiting Tetchy Customers Helpdesk) snatched it away.
“Give it to me, it’s mine!” I snarled while she smiled sweetly and picked up the phone, presumably to call security. Two unsmiling men strode purposefully towards me, and Novi wailed pleadingly. However, instead of slapping me in chains they picked up the camera and indicated that we should follow them. Pulling ourselves together, we sheepishly followed them and were led to the Final Resting Place where a Product Checking Officer stood behind a counter. She examined the receipts, eyed the batteries, memory card and camera suspiciously and frowned; a flake of paint fell from her brow onto the counter. Where was the free 0.5kb memory card that was supposed to come with the purchase?! Sirens sounded, phones were barked into, staff ran frantically in several directions and into each other while the PCO calmly bagged the camera and accessories, stapled the receipts and handed it all over to me.
I had, by now, reached a place of inner peace. I had elevated myself above the proceedings and felt almost mystical in my patient acceptance of the mysterious ways in which the universe operated. Angelically I awaited the arrival of my bonus card which was being conveyed across the store by a lady of obvious importance because the rest of the staff dropped to their knees and grovelled before her as she held the gift aloft. She reached me, handed the card to a minion, for she could not be seen to transact directly with me, and disappeared. The minion un-prised my fingers from the bag and I watched in horror as he began to unpack the contents in order to place the card in the camera box. This was too much. I hurled my rucksack at him, knocking him flat, snatched my hard-won possessions and stuffed them into the rucksack before any of the heavies had time to react.
“There’s a bomb in here!” I yelled holding the backpack up in front of me and glaring at the amassing staff. God there were hundreds of them, heaven knew what commands were hardwired into their circuitry to deal with this kind of situation. I grabbed Novi’s hand and we edged towards the doors, rotating slowly so all could see my Martyr-Pack, until we reached the exit. And then we ran. Thankfully we were too quick for them.
Fifty three minutes and more than a dozen staff it had taken to buy that camera. I have begun to think fondly of Argos.
1st Indonesian: Mighty Mohammed on a Moped! Look over there!
2nd Indonesian: What?
1st Indonesian: A bule! (common term for foreigners.Means albino)
2nd Indonesian: No. Fucking. Way!
1st Indonesian: Walking! I just can’t believe it.
2nd Indonesian: They are so hilarious man. Look at it.
1st Indonesian: I know I know! (much hilarity) It’s just ...like.... walking!!
2nd Indonesian: Hey. Watch this...... (to bule) HELLO MISTER!
Much laughter and backslapping.
1st Indonesian: (through teary eyes) Oh man, you are hilarious.
Bule: (wearily) Hello.
Laughter exceeds all previous levels
1st Indonesian: Bouncing Beelzebubs did you hear what it said?!
2nd Indonesian: Yeah man! It actually said hello!
1st Indonesian: I can’t wait to tell everyone.
2nd Indonesian: Hey hey hey listen to this..... HOWAREYOUMISTER!
Explosion of more guffaws.
1st Indonesian: (through snot) You should be on telly, dude, I’m telling you.
Bule: (as if for the 50th time that day, which it probably has been) How are you.
Paroxysms of laughter. General collapsing of limbs and all faculties.
2nd Indonesian: I think I just weed myself.
1st Indonesian: I’m gonna have a go....hang on a sec...ok. .... HEY, MISTER..... er...
2nd Indonesian: (whispered) what dude?
1st Indonesian: I dunno I couldn’t think of anything.
Bule: Mau apa? (Indonesian for “what do you want?”)
Several minutes of stunned silence while bule disappears into the distance
Indonesian 2: Man, that was the freakiest thing I have ever seen.
Indonesian 1: (shaking head in disbelief) ... spoke Indonesian ... nobody’ll ever believe us.
Indonesian 2: Holy friggin’ Allah! There goes a female one!
Indonesians 1&2: HELLO MISTER!!
