Jakarta: People, Places, Plants, Birds & Animals

Introduction to: Jakarta: People, Places, Plants, Birds & Animals

The images of people are almost all of boys and young males. With each culture I have visited throughout my life, a similar process of slowly developing an appreciation of young male beauty occurs. For Indonesia there are the images taken in Jakarta, Bali, and Labuan Bajo (Komodo). Barely enough observation, and few captured images, to even begin the psychological process of developing an aesthetic sense – yet hopefully a satisfying and tantalizing glimpse into their world.

Jakarta is an enormous sprawling, messy, pedestrian un-friendly city. Build first as a tiny but planned capital (Batavia) by the colonizers from Holland. Once that period was over, city planning seems to have been thrown out the window! And once motorized vehicles arrived, the city gave up whatever people friendly face it had and the pedestrian took an often dangerous second place to anything with wheels and a motor.

My first experience after taking the bus from the airport into the city was as challenging and nerve wracking as anything I can remember. Even my ‘rehearsals’ using Google Maps, did not prepare me for the chaos and miss mash of roadways built with little or no thought to an uninitiated tourist dragging a trolley case, just looking for a sidewalk, a crosswalk, a street sign to orient by. Meanwhile entire battalions of motor bikes, taxis, private buses in almost solid blocks speed their way down the thoroughfares. No obvious way to even cross a street without risking being run over a dozen times. Yet these drivers seem so completely aware and sensitive to everything around them – including me. How they do it is beyond my understanding! Need to study accident statistics, however I suspect the number of accidents is much lower than one might imagine.

Rather than attempting to complete this and my other Asian gallery introductions in one fell swoop, I am inclined to return to each in their embryonic stages and add to them – when the spirit moves and my thoughts and memories coalesce. Bear with me!