Surabaya

Surabaya, the capital of East Java, proofs that Bali is in fact very different from other places in Indonesia. This city is a Moloch. On my first day I already escaped from heat, dust, stench, dirt and poverty to Tunjungan Plaza, a big mall in downtown.


What you see is just one of several domes, which are interlinked by six floors high corridors lined with more or less luxurious shops of all kinds. After Bangkok this is the hugest mall I´ve ever been to. And I see those people shopping: Chinese-Indonesian families, rich Javanese, young wealthy couples, beautiful girls... After having met some rather well-off boys and girls in Bali and seeing this place here now, I start to wonder, where does all that capital come from? These people got lots of time, go out almost every night... I do not want to blame them for that, no. They´re nice people. Doing their job. Sympathetic. But it seems to me to be much easier to get things done with the family background they have. Talked to two girls here in the KFC, and they wondered that I walked from my hotel to here, what is about 10 minutes only. Those people live “aircon”. I also wanna manage an established family business or take the money and realize something new instead of working in order to save the money to open up my own thing lateron. That steals me years. Asia is the future. Germany has missed it´s opportunities. Everything here is bigger and has more style. I find books: Chinese Contemporary Restaurants, Asian Architecture, Bali Style Houses... those places are so posh, you won´t even find anything that comes close to it in our country. And it is all so virtual. A clever composition of raw materials and ideas.

The next day did also become a day of contrasts. I went to Chinatown and the Arabic quarter. It´s an interesting area, where Becaks (kind of rikshaws) carry goods and people through the narrow lanes. Especially the Area around the Sunan Ampel mosque has it´s very own flair. It was interesting so see the youth joking around in the mosque. I sat together with some boys and had a chat. You feel completely different to what you normally perceive in connection with people wearing Peci, long robes and beard when you switch on the TV and get the latest news from the near East. I strolled through the bazaar to try various kinds of sweets and cakes. In the evening I went to some guys which the girls in the mall had recommended. “They will join you. Don´t go alone. There are many criminals. Threaten you with a knife for your mobilephone.” The way to those guys went past very run-down areas and I at first wasn´t convinced of that idea either. But one has to take risks to get something. And I wanted some pictures from the Surabaya ladyboy scene. I took my IXUS only. There are many ladyboys here and they aren't as ugly as I was told, but it´s a poor and pitiful street-scene. Asking produces mostly boring images and hunting for shots isn´t possible with a compact camera. The result of that night is thus just a single sad picture. I don´t know if I will use it for the project. Those guys joining me were far more interested in showing me the “biggest” red light district of Southeast Asia. I suppose that it´s not the biggest. But it comprises varioius streets already. You can watch and choose out of hundreds of girls sitting in rooms behind big windows. They told me the price is between 5 and 25 Dollars. Most aren´t looking good and all are looking bored. The craziest thing: you see even girls wearing veil in those rooms. We went into a pub, I spent some beer, they brought me to downtown, police barricade on the street, discussion why I don´t carry my passport, two dollars for them not bothering us anymore, back in my hotel. Next morning I woke up again by prayers of the muezzin echoing down from the minarets.


To try an answer on the question on capital: the capital comes from a corrupt national economy, that in opposition to Germany missed it´s opportunities to combat poverty and create a broad middle class instead of thousands of rich and millions of poor. The dual economy of that country is omnipresent. You can see poverty in Bali as well, little kids begging on the highway crossroads, but here I almost stumbled over dozens of people lying on the streets like dead when I was out to get some food at the stalls on my first night. After four days in Surabaya I have seen some more poverty, and I didn't even go to the slums. The pedestrian bridge is just outside the mall.


Probably the people who were warning me are right. I suppose that dangerous situations might be possible here. Especially for westerners, and especially if they are outside their cars and carry symbols of wealth like mobiles, watches, cameras. Or even if they arrive at a shabby place by taxi and not by Ojek (motorbike taxi). But nevertheless it might be not dangerous to the extent everybody told me before. I was more than careful here for that reason. But maybe the perception of threat by wealthy Indonesians is more sensitive than my own. In Cambodia robbers have firearms, I had red at that time, and it didn't keep me away from going out at night ... nothing happened. One has to be careful and express a certain level experience and self-confidence towards ones environment. Hanging out in Bali lets you loose this a bit because it´s simply not necessary. But next time in Java I will know what I have to expect. It might be a critical city, and I will indeed need a clever guy helping me with my project as an interpreter and bodyguard as well, but I am not scared anymore of Surabaya. It´s not as nice, easy or interesting as HCMC or Bangkok or Phnom Penh, but it has it´s very own character, too.