Sorry for the slack in updating the website, but my recent travels have kept me away from my beloved computer for a bit, and, much as a mobile handphone is handy for many things, uploading articles onto blogs is not one of them. Anyway, the following is my observation from my recent visit to one of my most favourite cities in the world, which is Paris. I hope you enjoy it.
This month marks my two decades of living in Jakarta aka the Big Durian. So, what’s the big deal, I hear myself ask. Not much, except that in the last twenty years I’ve seen the growth of this place from a city having only a couple of shopping centres (namely Ratu Plaza and Sarinah), a couple of hotels (Hotel Indonesia and Mandarin), the odd KFCs, to a sprawling metropolis of glitzy malls, fancy hotels and
countless international brand cafes and fast food joints.
The one thing that has not changed that much is the number of roads around, although the number of cars has grown exponentially, hence the increasing amount of traffic jams and travel time on the road.
Indeed, I’m always struck by how quickly this city metamorphoses every time I come back after being away even for only a couple of weeks, whether in the form of a new building, a new shopping mall or a new
condominium.
To be honest, until now, other than the daily route from home to office, I’m still unfamiliar with the general lay out of this place and how to negotiate its labyrinthine roads. Put me anywhere in the middle of the city and tell me to find my way around unaided, and I still would have no idea what number bus or ‘mikrolet’ to catch or how to direct a dishonest taxi driver.
Perhaps this is exactly the charm of this capital city - a pulsing, living and ever-changing cosmos that constantly vacillates between the familiar and the foreign, the mysterious and the mundane. Where even
the people change in origins, looks and the way they speak (it used to be when you visit Jakarta you take on a ‘Betawi’ accent and you call people either ‘Bang’ or ‘Non’ instead of ‘Mas’ and ‘Mbak’ of nowadays), and in the types of food they eat.
Present day city dwellers now have fried chicken, pizzas, spaghetti, sushi, burgers and sausages as their daily staple on top of the regular fried noodles and fried rice. The palates of the young generation are comfortable accommodating different tastes from all over the world with brands that could be found in global supermarkets. While for the more educated ones, their tongues could wag as easily in English as in Bahasa, or a confused mixture of both.
It was a different feeling when I revisited Paris, a city where I used to live well over two decades ago. Apart from the number of public bicycles parked on the sides of the ‘trottoirs’ not much has changed in the landscape. Even the smell, a cross between crushed lettuce and damp carpet hung out to dry, was the same. And once I figured out where the Seine River is, I could more or less get my bearings on where things are, even with an old Parisian map.
When you have grown familiar with the narrow streets, the ‘arrondissement’ or areas that circle the Seine like a nautilus and the iconic landmarks that seem to have been there forever, it’s actually easier to feel at home here than in any street of Jakarta. At least it seems that way to me, someone whose attachment to a place
is measured in how the cobbled streets feel beneath my well-worn shoes, how the air smells in Autumn and the comfort I take in sharing space with strangers in a public transportation.
None of which, alas, I could fully appreciate or experience in my beloved Jakarta, where even in the most public of areas, the city would always treat us as strangers and we feel like an alien out of place.
With Paris, on the other hand, perhaps more than in Hemingway’s ‘Moveable Feast’, you can develop an exquisitely romantic love affair with the city even if you don’t know a single soul in it. It changes of course, but in a familiar and recognizable way, like a dignified person growing old as opposed to Heidi Montag going through drastic and multiple plastic surgeries. If anything, she looks younger as the Notre Dame Cathedral and other well-known Parisian landmarks have been thoroughly cleaned.
The city offers itself to the visitor like a paramour who wants to be enjoyed, discovered and to be delightfully lost in; whether in the famous places or in the little courtyards in some obscure street alleys. And whose historic architecture and plethora of cafes and restaurants would provide endless solace and lift the spirit of even the most dispirited soul.
I looked for the street where I used to live. It didn’t take me long. A few minutes brisk walk following the same streets that I used to trace by foot and there it was. And there also around the corner the ‘boulanger’ and the ‘epicier’ that I used to frequent for my daily ‘baguette’ and cheeses. Different owners most likely, but the same place, nevertheless. I felt as if I had never been away.
(Desi Anwar: first published in The Jakarta Globe)
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fenny
said:
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... I've never been to Paris, so I don't know how it feels like. But I know the feeling of walking down the streets, listening to surroundings, and everything's just right. Strangely, that's when I find myself at the 7th floor of Grand Indonesia, listening to my friend's mp3. At least I do walking down "the streets"  |
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