Today is the close of two years of Jakartass.
I didn't have any startling objectives when I started. I was then severely underemployed whereas I'm not now. I started Jakartass as a sounding board for the various obsessions and mysteries which daily plague expats in Jakarta.
I wasn't the first expat blogger in town; I believe that honour goes to Brandon who remains focussed at Java Jive with his superb mixture of photographs and words. There was seemingly minimal interest in commenting on Indonesian affairs per se in English (the lingua franca of international news commentators) from other than we two. Internationally, the Swanker ~ who's currently off exploring the world, in Sydney and Friskodude in - where else? - Frisco, were supportive, as were Simon and Myrick who are now more focussed on things China.
And somewhere - they (he?) tell me it's Monaco - there is a co-operative of former convent girls observing the gritty side of life using the moniker of Aangirfan. As they/he are/is into conspiracy theories, then they/he shouldn't object to my giving a plug to Kent Clark's timeless writing as Jakarta Kid, a series of vignettes of encounters with the poor underclass of Jakarta. After all, they both give a link to My Web Page, a set of photographs posted online 3 years ago.
The tsunami at the end of 2004 saw the first networking of bloggers here for the benefit of the wider community. Since then we have not been lone voices. There is occasional dissension among us regarding perceptions, but we remain supportive by commenting, offering links and varied perceptions on each others blogs. We are beginning to inspire as well as provoke and that is as it should be.
As for Jakartass, I may have to post less frequently because money talks. I hope to move this blog to its own site sometime but that's going to depend on my learning a bit of HTML and not relying on the knowledge and skills of the Reveller and Treespotter. Whatever, as well as highlighting some of the good things which interest me, I intend to continue to point you to the inanities and insanities which pervade all our lives. Such as this:
And if you think vehicles are overloaded here, you ain't seen nothing yet. Which one could be Indonesian?
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