Disgusting Situations

Palembang is really a place that generates a lot of mixed emotions in me. On the one hand, I find it very affordable to live here. Not only are everyday grocery items cheap, my weekly foot reflexology only costs USD 6. If you're not too fussy, clothing and shoes are also very affordable. Naturally, I get really happy when I find bargains while out shopping or having my foot massaged.

Undoubtedly, there is a huge gap between the rich and poor in Palembang and this is clearly visible just driving around the city. A very common conversation in our household is about how much money the majority of the population here earns and how they still survive. Not only do they survive, I often find them to be very jovial, sincere and open. These people often have such heavy financial burdens with households that include their parents and children to support. I've mentioned before that I initially felt some sort of pity for these people but have since grown to realize that it was too insulting to the people to feel that way. They are a proud people, work hard and survive. I've grown to admire them instead.

Every so often, I come across a situation that I now start to term as "disgusting".

Today, I went with a friend to look at a house he was thinking of renting. It is on the outskirts of some housing area and therefore, next to swamp lands. All I can think about was the snakes and mosquitoes that would be visiting. Here are a few photos of the house itself. (No, nothing disgusting about these photos.)





The house is going to be rented out "as is" and the landlord will not be chipping in to to make the place any more livable.

Alright, here is the "disgusting" situation that I mentioned. They're all variations of how some people spend money in comparison to the annual rental for the above house. By the way, the rent will undoubtedly burden my friend heavily because he needs to come up with the entire year's rent within the next couple of weeks. Rental here is paid a year in advance.

The yearly rent for our house would be able to pay for 12 years of rent for that house above.

Also, Richard told me that when his boss came, he stayed at the penthouse of Novotel for one night. That one night would have been able to pay 3.2 years of rent for that house. Imagine that....one night!

Richard's boss' wife did some shopping while here. She bought some beautiful batik and that cost about 1.6 years of rent.

I know that there are plenty of people in the world far richer than the majority of the world's population and they too have a right to spend their hard earned money in whatever way they choose. But, sometimes, the difference between how the money is spent is just so way off that my limited vocabulary just keeps spitting out "disgusting".

I haven't forgotten about Bird Flu

A couple of years ago, there was no such thing as H1N1 or Swine Flu. Instead, Bird Flu was all "the rage". In fact, at the time that we moved to Palembang, Indonesia had the highest number of cases of Bird Flu (H5N1) and did not seem to have the situation under control.

I was so paranoid at that time that we did not eat any chicken (AT ALL) in Palembang. I realize that you can't get it from cooked chicken but what about the raw chicken that needs to be prepared. And even if I went to a restaurant to have it, the people in there would have handled the raw chicken, and all the other food.

With around 95,000 cases of Swine Flu about these days, the Bird Flu, with a total of 436 cases since 2003, seems to be forgotten. What shouldn't be forgotten is that the total number of deaths from Bird Flu is 262 or a 60% fatality rate. So you've got one that spreads so easily, and another that is so deadly....I hope they don't meet up somewhere!

I have always shopped for fish at one particular market that is farther away from my usual one because the chicken section wasn't anywhere near the fish. Unfortunately, during my visit yesterday, I noticed that the perimeter of the fish section was now mostly filled with chicken vendors. My paranoia has returned!

The guy on the bike rang his bell to tell me to move aside. I got the shock of my life when I turned around and saw what he had.



Maybe its time I looked at shopping elsewhere....

YAY! Big Cleanup Completed!

I've been putting off doing a big cleanup of all our stuff here in Palembang for quite awhile. This house is very spacious but it has very little storage space so, I really need to either get rid of some things or send them back to Ipoh with my mother when she leaves. I finally started on it on Monday. Things got dusty, I got grouchy and tired, and that in turn probably set off a few of Aaron's whining episodes (which makes me all the more grouchy). Hence, the two day blogging break.

I've trimmed down to the bare essentials now. Especially in the clothes department. When we first moved here to Palembang, I really didn't know what to expect. I didn't know much of Indonesia at all and had the impression that it was a conservative place. After all, it is the nation with the largest Muslim population in the world.

The bulk of the clothes that I initially brought here were shirts with sleeves, long pants and calf length skirts. Everything that I disliked wearing when I was in Malaysia. Don't ask me why I even own them.

Needless to say, it was hotter than hot when we arrived here. The temperature has reversed since then but in February of 2007, Palembang was a hotter place than Ipoh. We arrived on a Saturday and on the Sunday, we went to Mass and I wore a proper shirt and longish skirt.....and nearly fainted from the heat. After a few days in Palembang, I was back to my shorts and sleeveless t-shirts. Its actually quite acceptable to dress this way and I've noticed that more and more people are wearing shorts over the past two years. The Muslim girls are of course more conservative but while they don't show much skin, many of them dress in extremely tight fitting clothes - skinny jeans and snug t-shirts.

Actually, the Muslim women here seem to be much more practical with their clothes. When they are at home, or in their own neighborhood, I've often seen them in sleeveless dresses. I don't think this happens very often at all in Malaysia. (Remember the dress code at the state library?)

So, if you're planning to visit Palembang, you don't need to get all covered up. But don't go to the extreme of spaghetti straps or hot pants (no, I haven't tried that), you'll get too many unwanted stares. The staring here seems to cause extra discomfort...maybe because they stare openly and for longer periods of time and there is often some leering involved.

How long do you take to get ready?

I pride myself on being pretty efficient in getting ready, not just in the morning but any time of the day. I distinctly remember one time where I went from nursing Aaron to being dressed for an evening out in about 10 minutes. I thought I looked decent.

This guy has a few tricks to make anybody super efficient in the morning. Guys, the way he puts on his pants and tie are particularly impressive.

Telephone Porridge Anyone?

It must be because my mom is staying with us but here is another Cantonese saying, "To make telephone porridge". The porridge here is rice porridge. It usually takes several hours of slow cooking to make the perfect bowl. So, making telephone porridge means to have those long loooooooong telephone conversations.

I used to be an expert at telephone porridge and of course refined the art during my teenage years. I have a distinct memory of being in the 9th Grade, arriving home from school at about 3.45pm and then jumping on the the phone with my best friend (who I would have said goodbye to less than an hour earlier) from about 4pm onwards until my mom got home at 5pm. We had a brown, dial phone that was attached to the kitchen. UGLY. THING.

By the time I was in university, I would be on the phone for 2, 3, even 4 hours! I can't believe it thinking back now. But, in those days, before email and online chats, I couldn't last a day without a phone call to somebody. I don't know how my mother put up with it because I don't really remember getting in all that much trouble for it.

This all died down once I started work. I found something new - online chatting. I don't go to any chat rooms or chat with strangers. Its just the medium I use now to keep in touch with all my family and friends. So, these days, I make IM porridges and they can take as long as a day to complete. I know that I prefer it to using the phone because you can do so many other things at the same time (blog, surf the internet, watch TV, have dinner etc). But, that means you're not always giving the other person your full attention.

Just as Bilbo often writes about the lost art of letter writing, I now find that I have lost the art of chatting on the phone. I just don't like doing it anymore. And, even if the other person is a close friend that I haven't been in touch with for awhile, I find that I get uncomfortable being on the phone after the initial 15 mins of small talk. And if its the cell phone that I'm on, I get off even quicker because my ear always gets so hot.

No matter how many emoticons they come up with, IM-ing is cold and sentiments often lost. I believe that it is a warm gesture to sometimes give a person a call to speak with them. And these days, we can go a step further and use video in our calls too. I'm going to make an effort here. First, I need to try to look decent for cameras that always give me a big bald forehead! So, don't anybody call me yet :)

Baby-less Holidays

In the past 2 days, I've had 2 friends tell me that they are going on holidays without their babies. My immediate thought was "WOW! That would be fantastic."

However, upon giving it further thought, I don't think I would do it. Not right now. After all, my mother is constantly asking me if she could take Aaron back to Australia for a holiday and, I always refuse. Its not that I don't have moments where I don't wish that the little guy was somewhere else. I do. And I usually regret the thought seconds after thinking it.

My mother's reasons are that Aaron is too attached to me and that he needs to learn some independence. The longest that he and I have been apart is 6 hours when I went for a day of sight seeing in the north of Cairns with my brother. I was still back in time to put him to bed that night.

Of course, I do think that a baby-less holiday would be thoroughly relaxing and we could probably go on some holiday that we couldn't take Aaron on. For example, the diving holiday to Sipadan that Richard and I had planned for 4 years ago but never happened. *let me spend a few seconds in dream land here.....sigh*

So, why don't I just accept my mother's offer? Partly, its because I know he can be such a handful and I don't want my mother to get all worn out because of him. The other part is just because I can't. I don't feel comfortable doing it.

I can just hear some people saying "Oh don't be one of those moms that can't let go". Honestly though, I am one of those moms at the moment. Perhaps this is my own fault but I don't think I've prepared him adequately to be away from me long enough for me to go on a holiday. I am doing a lot more of it now as he starts to find his own independence even without me prompting him. More experienced parents tell me that one day, he'll be begging me not to go places with him anyway. I'm not really in a rush for that day.

For now, I wish my two friends a fantastically romantic time away. Maybe I'll ask my mother to watch Aaron for a couple of hours this weekend while Richard and I go get a massage.

Perumnas Market Seems To Have Exploded

Its been about two months since my last visit to the Perumnas Market. The place seems to have exploded with extra stalls everywhere. I think the vegetable sellers are more or less the same people but there are all these new food, toys and jewelery stores. Yes, jewelery in the market!

You can see one of the stalls here, in between two fruit stalls.



Unfortunately, I don't have a photo for comparison but here is what the main street of the market now looks like.



Walking through the various stalls took me a lot longer this morning because there were so many new toy stalls and of course, Aaron had to stop and look at each one.



We came across this extremely cute little girl. She's about 14 months old and was very contentedly helping her mother put various items into bags to be weighed. The beanie you see on her is an extremely common sight. It doesn't matter that the weather is around 30 degrees Celsius daily, all babies and toddlers will have one of those on their heads.



Palembang (not just the market) is really changing and growing so rapidly. In the two years that we've been here, I think it has grown more than Ipoh has in the past ten years! I should make a point to take even more photos of the place.