You do not need to watch a horror film to make your flesh creep, as Daniel explains Pope.
Journeyman English teacher in Jakarta was an unusual way to demonstrate the difference between passive and active voice. Apparently - I had his word for it - he stood before her class of adult students and loudly breaking wind. This came easily a heavy drinker like him at nine in the morning after a night on the town. Allow a few moments for the gasps and muttering between his students to calm down, he explained: "So you see, I am shocking , and you were shocked. Questions? "
English can still be the most useful language to learn of his international popularity, but when I returned to my hometown of Oxford after an absence of nine years, he no longer seemed the dominant language . in fact, I understood less of what was said about me in the crowded streets of Oxford than me in central Jakarta, although much of the confusion was due to mispronunciation.
in cafe up the street I ordered a cup of tea. "You wan meal?" asked the waiter.
"No thank you." I was not hungry. When he handed me the tray with my drink on it, I said, "Can I have some milk, please?"
He stood and looked at me impatiently. "I wonder if you wan meal and you say no. Now you say you wan meal ..."
Anyone wishing to live a simulated day in Jakarta should find an industrial dryer, full pump exhaust fumes of vehicles, the mandrel in a pair blaring loudspeaker calls to prayer and other various noises, add heaps of filthy rubbish - anything that will rattle around, turn the heat up and climb inside with enough strangers to overload the drum. An hour in full fall should make you feel the same way disheveled, disoriented and in need of a stiff drink.
In recent years, Jakarta has seen a growing noisier than ever with all the demolition underway. Down every street there seems to be a muddy entrance to a site littered with rubble are mounted stop edge. loud crashes, booms and clangs resonate above the roar of diesel engines, the clatter of the exercises, the shower of broken concrete. You must be as waterproof as a common dog to sleep through this.
But in predominantly Muslim Java, dogs are neither common nor are man's best friend. Instead, they are haram , which means they are considered impure and must be avoided. Even in Hindu Bali, dogs are considered by some to be reincarnated thieves and criminals, and are rejected as such.
Much of Jakarta but is dominated by cats, especially the tatty and mangy cats. They survive off pieces that humans reject or make donations, and living around landfills and food stores. In the 1990s, when I came to Indonesia, the majority of cats were twisted tails. Some said it was due to inbreeding, others said that the cats slept on the roadside and had their tails run on. Or maybe changes under President Suharto in favor of crooked tails.
But cats are nothing compared to the most terrifying creature associated with human habitats found in Indonesia. My worst encounter with the dreaded vermin came during a ride in a becak , a kind of rickshaw popular in some parts of the country, a storm and the day of traffic-gnarled.
In Jakarta, traffic jams are so formidable that, like hurricanes, they are given names. The Indonesian word for traffic congestion is Macet , so you Macet Marauder Macet Mayhem Macet Nemesis. At least in my fanciful mind that you did. But the greatest of them were certainly folklore fabric, as well as floods.
I am in the capital of East Java and Surabaya due to catch a train, and myself had given much time to get to the station. But suddenly, it was pouring rain, and kept sinking relentlessly until the roads around my hotel looked like fast flowing rivers. Catching a taxi has become impossible.
So I rolled my pants, hoisted my bag on my shoulder, and waded into the streets in search of alternative means of transport. I finally found a becak parked nearby, large half-spoke wheels submerged in murky water. The driver, looking dressed like a sailor to round the sea off Cape Horn, agreed to go to the station in a few minutes remaining before my train was to leave. I climbed aboard.
What followed, as the driver presses the pedal, haunts me to this day. If you are not familiar with the cockroaches of the type found in Indonesia, think about the insect most grotesque as you can - mangy brown, about the size of a thumb, but spongy hard, some might say crisp
.Next, imagine that this miniature alien, pretty awful as he scuttles up chair legs and across the table tops, can split open its rear wings, shoot, and fly.
But it flies so rarely that it is always a shock. Not only that, but it also tends to target and land on man a dizzying, and it runs through your bare skin with feet that seem to pinch and pinch.
However, it was not their ability to fly that bothered me on this occasion. Unseen in the darkness, masses of these abominable creatures were seeking refuge in the middle of dry spokes and rims halves tip wheels on each side of becak .
When the wheels started turning, carrying insects to the waterline, they all swarmed up on the passenger seat, in an apparent frenzy to escape drowning. Further up again until I was covered in cockroaches, all scrambling around my body.
As becak accelerated, I must have looked to other road users as if I were an adjustment - writhing and jerking and I slap around. I finally removed my jacket and thrown overboard. I'm too disgusted to even shake it clean.
The becak driver pedaled forward through the flooded streets, puffing and panting, sometimes pushing " aduh ... " when the current became too difficult and he was forced to jump from the vehicle to push it.
But we finally managed to stop with seconds to spare. I am relieved and happy that the incident if nothing else had given me my own classroom anecdote to illustrate the active and passive voice. Because certainly I had been horrified , and cockroaches were horrifying. Questions?