The Daily Whine

I was at Apsara this weekend for a present. It happens that Apsara, one of these mid-sized upscale bookstores targetting expatriate readers (and spenders) in Jakarta, happens to be a rather cool place to spend a Sunday afternoon — you can spend hours browsing through books, CDs and magazines downstairs, and then proceed to a leisurely coffee and tartufo at the sandwich bar upstairs.

So there I was, in the magazine area reading through the latest Four Four Two (the finest football magazine out there, and one of about four or five publications I absolutely must have if I ever get sentenced to life imprisonment, and no, 8 Days is not on that list), when I hear thunder outside. Earlier that afternoon I had noticed the sky darkening, but since it’s the rainy season in Indonesia now, I hardly gave it further thought. Soon I could hear the rain pelting what sounded like a zinc roof (although that seemed incongrous with the Interior Decor of the store, which was fashionably modern). So I continued to read.

Then suddenly there was a loud crash.

I turned to look, and saw water pouring through a large, gaping hole in the ceiling of the store’s CD area. Not like water running off a tap. More like water gushing down a broken dam.

But since there weren’t many customers around,  you couldn’t say there was a commotion. The store attendant in that area walked (briskly, I must admit) to the back and returned with a little bucket. Now, two thoughts were running through my mind. Firstly, that the bucket seemed a tad tiny ("yeah right, that’s going to contain the water"). Secondly, the store attendant didn’t look worried. And if he didn’t seem to be nervous, I figured I had no reason to be either. I mean, it’s a sight I don’t see everyday, but surely this guy has dealt with it before since he looked so calm and prepared.

So I went back to my magazine.

Within two minutes, another crash. This time, much louder, and I could now see water flowing in my direction. Okay, this was a little un-nerving. I looked up and saw that where previously there was a ceiling, now there was just a dark, empty space through which water from a breached dam seemed to gush. And for the first time, I realized that the ceiling looked a little lightweight, a board that was held up in position by duct tape (duct tape!). Now I was worried.

I quickly grabbed the magazine and shoved it into my bag, then I retreated back towards the cafe on the lower floor (there are two eating areas in the store, one upstairs and one downstairs). The waiter there looked stunned by the crash, but had enough poise to greet me and asked if I wanted a table for one.

Now, the CD, magazine and cafe area are all on a depressed floor, below ground level (a short ramp takes you there). Naturally, the geography of New Orleans  flashed across my mind — like the bowl that became submerged following Katrina’s storm surge, the pseudo-basement that I was in suddenly felt like a trap. The rain was pouring into the store, I could clearly see, and the water level was also fast covering my feet.

I’m not suggesting that I was caught in a New Orleans-like situation. Hardly. I actually found the situation I was in extremely exotic, for the simple fact that you’d never see this happen back home. Shoddy construction not withstanding, I can’t ever imagine the rain getting this heavy. However, I felt a little alarmed by two possible dangers. One, that this tiny flood was going to sweep plenty of bugs and centipedes into my path, and I wasn’t too keen to make acquaintance with any of them. Two, that an electric cable somewhere behind the hoarding might come loose and swing into the water, creating an un-necessary hazard.

So I quickly braved the curtain of water that was guarding the ramp, and got back up to dry ground, where the cool air-conditioning immediately froze the bejeezus out of my toes.

I spent the next hour upstairs reading Four Four Two over a hot cup of chocolate, then when I looked up again, it was clear outside once more. The rain had stopped and it was possible to step outside to hail a cab. I went back downstairs to see how the staff were coping with their little disaster, but they’d smartly cordoned off the area with duct tape (again!) and the lights were all off downstairs, so I couldn’t really catch how bad the flooding had eventually become. But I reckon the store must have lost quite a few magazines and CDs on the lower racks (unless the store clerks moved really fast, but this being here, I can hardly imagine so).

Okay, the long and short of this little entry is that I was caught in one of those situations that I’d never experience back in sanitized, sterile, safe little Singapore, and it was mildly exhilirating. It reminded me of why I was excited about coming to work here in the first place. I don’t care if this makes me sound like a cowboy looking for a frontier, and I certainly won’t apologize for it.

But there was another reason why I brought this up. And this is so strange you couldn’t make it up. Right where the ceiling collapsed, in the store’s CD area, were a couple of posters of Dizzie, Fats, Armstrong and some of the all stars, including one of, yup, Dizzie with a trumpet in front of the French Quarter. It’s fascinating how many patterns in life create coincidence.

If I could choose to have any superhuman ability, it would be the extraordinary power to pick the right line every time.

Don’t need to fly (can’t collect frequent flyer miles that way). Don’t want superhearing (the noise in Jakarta would drive me nuts). Don’t want invisibility (I don’t get enough attention as it is). Don’t want to read minds (too easy to mess with my head). Don’t need invulnerability (would only lead to the missus complaining about me getting more insensitive) and certainly don’t want superspeed (life’s too fast already).

But the special power to pick the right line — that’s priceless.

Right now, my subhuman ability to stand in the wrong queue causes me so much anger it’s not even funny any more.

I’m at the pharmacy, there are 2 lines, I join the shorter one, but the other one moves much faster instead. I’m at the supermarket, there are 20 check-out counters, and I end up in the only one where the cashier’s shift ends right before my turn. I’m at the fast food restaurant, there are 5 lines, and I somehow contrive to stand behind fellow customers who don’t look at the menu until they’re at the counter. I’m in a cab on tollway, there are 8 toll booths, my driver picks the one that’s manned by the most menopausal matron in the entire Indonesian archipelago.

My incredible tendency to choose wrongly is most obvious when I’m flying home. En route to the airport, my taxi has to pick the wrong lane on the road to the tollway, and then the wrong booth on the tollway (thrice). When I arrive at the airport, I end up in the only check-in counter where passengers ask to check-in their luggage (Singapore’s a friggin 2-hour flight away, people! Why are you carrying 6 suitcases with you?). Then I need to get through Passport Control, where there are 6 lines (but only 2 open to foreigners), and of course, I’m in the one where all the Chinese nationals, Thai businessmen and 5-generation Indian nuclear families with expired visas and passports gravitate to. Naturally.

It’s a curse, and it’s rubbing off on the people who love me. May can’t pick the quickest customer service line at SingTel to save her life, my mom’s life whithers away in vain in empty taxi stands, and Edmund is still waiting to get laid.

So among all possible superpowers, I rate the ability to pick the right line best. Even above the power to leave carnage and destruction behind (which I already arguably possess, according to those who have inhaled my noxious fumes of death before).

I imagine all the time I would save every day if I instinctively picked the right line all the time. I’d spend less time on the road. I’d spend less time at the airport. I’d spend less time buying groceries, less time banking, less time time complaining about waiting in line. Oh how that would free me to do really important and meaningful things in life, like blogging or surfing for naughty Cyndi Wang pix.

Says here on my Friendster home page that the top search in my network is "naughty Cyndi Wang pix". Okay, fess up. Who’s combing through the web to dig up nakid photos of the ‘Manja Princess’?

You better email some to me ok.

Popular searches in my network

I just cut-and-pasted that list off my Friendster homepage. Most of it are unsurprising search choices by their own, but I’ll be damned if these are reflective of the choices of people in my network of friends. I mean, just look at number one — nakid Cyndi Wang pix? If I know my buddies, they’re looking for nakid pictures of Korean and Japanese actresses instead, and maybe Jessica Biehl now that Esquire has named her the Sexiest Woman Alive.

And I’m pretty damn certain most of my buddies aren’t wondering about true love (too cynical to care), not shopping for a Mitsubishi Evo (too Beng for them) and not interested in Polyphonic Ringtones (most of them are still trapped with Nokia phones from the Ice Age).

But this ‘Popular Searches In My Network’ list is fun. Even if wildly inaccurate (or maybe I just don’t know my pals well enough), it can be pretty damn hilarious. I mean, who even fills "姐姐教弟弟做愛" (Sisters teaching kid brothers to make love) in the Friendster search box? (And since nearly 85% of my friends flunked out of Chinese classes with me, I doubt they could type that out even if they wanted to). I’d be pretty interested to see how this list changes over the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, email me those Cyndi pix yah?

Every morning just before I step into the office, I play a new game I came up with recently. I bet with myself if the number of people who’ll come into the office on time outnumber the number who’ll not come in at all due to illness. I tend to bet that punctuality is a bigger problem for us, but in recent weeks, I’ve been backing the other team.

The numbers have been astounding. One day last week, we had 6 out of 18 staff members missing from work because of sickness. This week, that number grew. On Tuesday, for example, 8 of 17 went under the weather. That’s a staggering 47% casualty rate.

Clearly we’re facing an epidemic here.

I’ve been reading with interest the reports in the various media about the onset of Bird Flu, and how it is going to be scarier than the Smallpox epidemic in the early 20th century. I’m certain that it’s going to be a nightmare problem for health authorities everywhere, but if I’m to be honest, I can’t really understand the gravity of this particular infection.

I’m supposed to be living in Ground Zero of the current Bird Flu scare (Jakarta), and I know there’s been some attention being given to this problem by the local authorities, but from the way life goes on and Chicken gets consumed here, it hardly feels like there’s real danger. Of course, that’s just the sort of complacency that will come back to haunt me. (Suddenly that roast duck I had last night is beginning to worry me).

But I guess what’s really bothering me is the idea that, as far as we’ve come in terms of medical science, we’re still extremely vulnerable to germs. I’m currently reading J.M. Robert’s The History of the 20th Century, and this point has been really hammered into my attention by historical context. In 1901, doctoring was still 10% science and 90% magic. Despite the great advances we’ve made since, we’ve only been putting the science in medical science for little over half a century. There’s still much we don’t understand, and we seem to be constantly opening new Pandora Boxes, inadvertently or not. It wasn’t all that long ago that Anti-bodies were discovered, and already there are fears that most of them are no longer effective against ever-mutating strains of virii.

In a city like Jakarta, with a history of swampy conditions and tropical disease, and where proper sanitation is still an issue for much of the populace here, I cannot help but wonder at the scale of havoc that would be caused by an outbreak of infectious disease here. I’m probably over-reacting, though it’s easy to understand why — my mom’s a nurse.