Jakartan, Mall, and Things in between

I moved to Jakarta around one and a quarter years ago and referring to my current job, I will probably going to stay in this city for quite longer. Well, long enough to adress myself as a Jakartan –a label I don’t really fancy but still, I need to get used to it, and maybe, love it somehow-

The interesting part is, I simply define ‘Jakartan’ as ‘a person who lives in Jakarta’ but according to some of my friends, or other people in general, apparently the meaning of this word is so much more than that. These particular friends who have been seeing my stories and posts on instagram tell me that I’ve become Jakartan because I hang out at malls and cafes a lot, and sometimes at the karaokes too, if I may add. Those comments make me laugh, for real. I don’t know how people see it but I come to a conclusion that ‘Jakartan’ is a label which is inseparable with some specific terms such as  Urban lifestyle, Prestige, Hedonism, and other similar things –which I don’t need a further mention since being skeptical isn’t my original objective here-

I once wrote on my instagram about how a city has the ability to shape its people and the other way around. This case is applied with Jakarta too.

Jakarta –as we all know- is a megapolitan with a very different characteristic compared to the cities I had been living in such as Jogja and Boyolali. Not only are the physical landscape and structure different, but also the citizen activities are rather varied which lead to the distinguished pattern of social behaviour –pardon the author of this post yang kebawa style nulis njelimet since she has been participating in an extreme TOEFL training in her new office lol-

Long explanation shortened:

Jakarta sets a new lifestyle for me and unfortunately, my dear friends, it is an inevitable occurrence so could u just not...ah, sudahlah.

Well, let me give you one simple example to get a better understanding of the point I am trying to make:

I am the kind of person who loves to socialize with my friends so I spend a lot of times with them. Eating food while having a good conversation, releasing stress through singing abruptly in karaoke, talking random things about life for hours. I value those moments the most, in fact...those activities are categorized as primary needs by me in order to balance my routine and my easy-to-get-stress personality. The point is, I will keep doing those activities regardless the cities I am in.

However, when I lived in Jogja I used to consider Mall as an uncool place to do such things –read: hangs out-. I thought a mall was an ignorance symbol of social disparity so I didn’t want to associate myself with that kind of place. Moreover, there were a lot of other hang out places in Jogja which offered abundant variety of activities so why bother, right?

Well,

Moving to Jakarta changes my standpoint quite drastically.

As a newcomer of the city, not only has my circle of friends got smaller but also my choice of hang out places is limited –mostly due to the technical reason such as traffic jam-.

When I was in Jogja, I could go practically anywhere since most of my friends had normal working hours and the traffic was friendly. Not to mention how every corner of Jogja was a comfortable place to hang out; Burjos, Angkringan, and SS –my fave eating place!!!- were literally in every pengkolan, there was no entrance fee for public places such as Malioboro, Alun2, and Nol Km, even the cafes cost relatively cheap you could buy a real teh tarik for only 8K and 2K per 3 pieces for gorengan.

But when it comes to Jakarta, it takes much more efforts and resources to do even the identical activities. To be able to meet my friends, first I need to match our schedule. It doesn’t always mean we are that busy to the point we aren’t available on the weekends but more to the sad fact that we are too worn out to go outside our cave due to the exhausting weekdays we’ve been through. So not every weekend is an open weekend for us. Second, still referring to the first circumtance, me and my friends tend to choose nearby places to hang out so we don’t waste our limited energy on trivial matters such as traffic jam nor our limited money for the transportation fare lol. Hence the Mall as a reasonable choice to socialize (almost every big pengkolan in Jakarta has a mall fyi). Meeting in a –slightly- costly place while having a nice time talking with friends for me is more efficient than going out to some low key-casual-places which in fact are sucking a lot of our energy and money in some other ways. For example, sure there is a quite big rupiah difference between 5K es teh in random warung PKL with 20K es teh in the 'commoner' mall in Jakarta, but when we see it on the service quality basis, 20K es teh comes with a package of comfy seats, a cool temperature room, a proper lighting etc. which makes it possible for us socializing for hours. 

This whole 'choosing mall' example, my friend, is what I call as a form of ‘compromising’

*Charles Darwin sighs from the distance and whispers; the correct word is adaptation, you fool

*ku berasa jadi tim marketing persatuan foodstalls di mall2 jakarta

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The point is,

The shape of this city and the culture of it indeed change me and my friends life pattern. We have to be willing to adjust our lifestyle and the way we see things in order to survive. As I said earlier, I used to think that mall was a symbol of social disparity but in Jakarta, people who visit mall come from various layers of the society -the more interesting fact is, the malls itself have its own ‘class’ and different targeted consumers-. Then again, the shape of the city frames us to do so. As the capital city of Indonesia and the center of national economic activities, the land and property price in Jakarta is insanely high. Therefore, there aren’t many affordable public places nor any other non-profit places functioned for leasure time. Instead, tall buildings –for any kind of purpose from working places, health, education, government, to entertainment- become a common thing in the name of land use optimality.

Wow, what a quite too.long.didn't.read.excuse to overshadow the ‘pembenaran’ of my hedonist trait.

Ah, this is what happens when I start drinking caffeine again.