Time to Learn Some Indonesian

Working in Indonesia requires that I pick up some Bahasa Indonesia, even if only to be able to get around the place via taxi. When I first started working here, I could not even count from 1 to ten! Now I can roughly make out the large numbers, if the person speaks slowly. Even though the limited Malay we learnt as marching commands in the school uniformed groups and in the army helped, I could only tell left is kiri, right is kanan, and belok is turn. So I picked up some words from my Indonesian colleagues in order to get the taxi driver to send me home. For example, I will tell the taxi driver “seberang Ambassabor”, which means “across Ambassador Mall”, if he does not recognise the name of my apartment. To get him to go straight and make a U-turn, I will say, “lurus dan putra balik”, and “depan lagi” when he was going to turn or stop earlier than he should.

I was in ITC Manga Dua with a colleague once, as he wanted to get a DSLR camera and some Compact Flash cards. ITC Manga Dua is like a huge Sim Lim Square with load of IT stuff, pirated DVDs, CDs and other stuff. My friend went into one of the shops to inquire about the price of the Flash card and I followed behind. As he stood at the counter talking, I was aimlessly browsing the goods behind him. There were two ladies sitting at the counter talking to another sales person. Then out of nowhere, one of the ladies on the left turned around, looked in my direction and said something like, “jam berapa?”. I was a little taken by surprise and in my mind I was like, “Are you talking to me?”. “Jam berapa?” came the words again, and I quickly looked behind me to check that no one was standing behind me. There was only a cardboard sign behind me, and I turned back to face the lady again. She looked at me and asked for the third time, “jam berapa?”. And I must have looked rather stupid, plain dumb or something, because the second lady told her something and she mumbled and nodded, “oh ya…” then turned back to the sales person. I think they must think I was a retard or more politically correct – mentally challenged.

Anyway, I mustered all my powers of comprehension, and Darkspore-gled my limited Bahasa Indonesian dictonary, for about 10 seconds and finally realized that she was asking me for the time! I guess it was because I was wearing a watch, and I seemed to be the only one standing around doing nothing. Then I looked around the shop and found a clock hanging on the wall behind us…WTF… you should have asked the store people lady. I think even if I knew what she was asking for, I will have great difficulties telling her the exact time. I would probably have told her something like “err… enam jam” (which means 6 hours), or “err… jam enam… err something minute pm!”. Maybe it will be a good idea that I should stop wearing a watch in Indonesia.