This is the mast head of Jakarta's new newspaper. Except it isn't really; it's just that it's been a few years, 262 to be precise, since the last issue. In fact, it probably isn't very readable because it reads in old-fashioned lettering but not in Bahasa Indonesia or English, but just to show how up-to-date it is, there's an accompanying blog which is in modern languages and includes, thanks guys, Jakartass in its blogroll.Apart from mentioning my birthday, I rarely dwell on the past; I merely moan about the present. And, yes, I do believe that nostalgia is what it used to be. So for that reason alone, I'm giving a permanent link to another new site, Old Jakarta, which has some fascinating articles to prove that Jakarta was once a city which was quite pleasant to live in with strangely familiar parallels, albeit mirrored.
An Indisch family was usually of an odd combination: a white man who took a native lady as his mistress. The mistress was called a njai and became an important element in the Dutch East Indies, filling in for the lack of white females in the establishment.
Naturally, a njai would take advantage of this unofficial relationship. Their white 'masters' would frequently shower them love and compassion. However, through the eyes of the Dutch justice system, the njai did not have one single right before the law. Most of the times, a njai had limited opportunity to communicate with her own children, borne from this unbalanced relationship. So, she always had to cautiously watch herself, as at anytime her master could oust her, due to his not wanting the children to be affected by kampong influence.
Now, of course, it's we expats who have to cautiously watch out in case we get booted out the country and have to return to our kampungs.
