2 January 2011, 18:11 to 19:36, Mie Goreng Aceh, Tanah Kusir
I am always fascinated by how people sit down in ordered tables and then wait for their foods. There are children, grandma, and a middle-aged. They are families, individuals, and they are waitresses.
One kid is playing a PS. He is very drawn into it. I am trying to observe what he is doing, trying to get into his head. Is that what I feel when I was small and played with a game gadget while going out with my parents? Of course, i am waiting for the food as well as i am also hungry. But it is just fun to be so engrossed into something i really like doing, something that takes my mind off of things. Like writing this piece. Writing this piece in such a mess of order is not something i usually do. I am a lawyer and a legal scholar. What we do is we must think of every possible structure, argument, and counter argument before even writing it. This piece is a mess in terms of structure and coherence. But i simply want to write something and then reflect on it.
Now the food has arrived. The kid is still playing with the PS while eating. His mom and 2 other aunties (seems to be) are eating with full consciousness of eating to get full. They have a shared plate which sort of indicates intimacy. They are chatting over some issues about their maids. It looks serious. But the kid does not respond to it whatsoever.
I, then, see right on their side, a man who seems to be the father of that kid. He is moving toward the kid's direction and eating up some of the kid's food. The guy seems to like it very much. Oh it turns out that he is waiting for his food to be delivered and decided to eat up some of the kid's food. He, then, went back to his cellphone, playing with a blackberry.
*Blackberry is a popular device in Indonesia by 2011.
Right now i am waiting for my food. The guy seems to forget that i have ordered my food (my noodle) and of course the egg (it is called telur mata sapi, which literally means cow's eyes as the egg resembles cow's eyes shape). I will usually be very mad about this as the cook delivered the food to the person who came later than I did. I think this may be a good way of living a different kind of life. You know, as a lawyer, I am typically all the efficient guy and righteous. I dont tolerate people being inefficient, not especially when he delivered someone's food first while i have ordered first. Now I am going to talk to him as I am hungry and I need to eat.
I have talked to the guy and it turns out that he was cooking a huge portion of noodle for roughly 8 plates. The reason why he delivered the food to someone else first is because that person ordered fried rice and it seems the stall has ready fried rice, but not noodles. So I was wrong to assume to he forgot my order. Now I would like to eat...
While I am eating, I see that kid does not finish the food. It looks like it is one-third of the original portion. He does not seem to be interested in the food anymore. He went back to his game gadget. Occasionally, he would take a small piece of his food and eat it while playing game. His grandma joked about him not wanting to finish the food. I wandered why his grandma was laughing at all. What is so funny about it? I suppose because his grandma thought he was a funny kid. I still wonder why the grandma was laughing at all.
I lit up a cigarette after I finish my food. I always have this precaution that some people are perhaps are not happy at all about me smoking. There are several reasons. One, perhaps, is because they dont like the smell of cigarette or second because they perceive smoke from cigarette to be unhealthy. I, then observe around me whether people are noticing me or not. They were 2 glances. And as a cultural convention, i suppose, it is not polite to stare at someone, so their stares usually end as soon as I glance back.
There is a big guy who just arrives at the restaurant. He seems to come alone and doesnt seem to be waiting for anyone. He is almost bald and his body is well-built. I suppose he is a body builder or an army member. There is another guy who has just come in. He was engrossed in his cell phone. He looks like a business person (not a wealthy one). He looks quite decent yet almost poor. But it does not make sense because he is holding a blackberry that i know is quite expensive. It perhaps costs more than Rp 5 million. But there are a lot of assumptions here. Credit system for blackberry is rampant. I mean he may be paying installments for that piece of blackberry or he may steal it. But I will assign benefit of doubt for him, that is to think that he did not steal that blackberry. I wonder what he is doing. He has been staring at the blackberry for more than 5 minutes. Now the big, almost bald, body-building guy is also playing with his cellphone. Ok, now he is eating. He looks very serious about the blackberry. It is as almost as something very urgent and important is going on. Perhaps, his business, family member problem? Oh, it turns out that he was waiting for his food for a take away. He is not eating in the restaurant.
He took out a Rp 50.000 piece of money, paid his food and then left. He took his car key out of his pocket. At least, it looks like a car key. Oh, it is a motorcycle key. The key just resembles a car key very much. He left using a motorbike without a helmet. I suppose in this are, people are accustomed to not using any helmet at all. It is not because they are just outlaws or because they do not dread the police officer arresting them and ticketing them. I guess it is because there is an established norm that in this are it is okay not to use helmet.
I was once ticketed by police around this area (it was 500 meters aways) because i did not use any helmet at all. But it was at 1 a.m. When i delivered my friend home. The police was conducting a December inspection (usually at year end, police conduct this special operation). It is a special operation where there are several police officers at certain locations they project many traffic violators would pass.
I saw a couple sitting beside me. I assume they are a couple because they look intimate. It is generally not the case of brother and sister because most likely they will not chat that much as they perhaps have known each other very well. It is a generally accepted notion that brother and sister are very close in Indonesia, hence, it is very likely that the two people sitting beside me are a couple. In addition, they dont seem to be an old friend meeting each other because they would have otherwise looked very enthusiastic about each other's story. They seem to know each other very well, just like a couple should be, and they yet seem a bit awkward about each other, with the shy look and almost attention-craving attitude. It looks to me that they know each other's story (at least most of it) but they still want to chat. The guy is laughing right now and the woman seems to be happily upset (she looked down on her food while making a face, with her lips tightened up and therefore looks bigger and forward from the original position). I think it is because he seems to be joking about her or her misfortune, yet the woman has mixed feeling about it because on the one hand she does not like to be 'bullied' and embarrassed but on the other hand the guy was happy and the joke becomes a conversation subject that keeps the situation alive. I suppose silence will be awfully awkward and unpleasant. Now the conversation seems to be serious. The woman keeps on looking down. She played with her food by using the spoon to take up a portion of rice while her spoon is already full. I dont know whether it is because she has not finished swallowing, not in mood to eat suddenly, Or whether is constantly thinking about something, hence she just needs an object to constantly jeep h body moving. She smiles a bit, not a bit laugh. Her lips just open a bit where I can see her teeth, quite white, clean and well structured. Of course, I occasionally have to look away while observing her and the conversation at her table which is just beside my table separated by 1 meter. Again, it is because it is not polite to stare. People may have several prejudices, e.g., I am a psycho, an impolite person, or attracted to the woman who already has a boyfriend or maybe a husband.
There is an old couple. I did not notice when they came into the restaurant, but they sat across me separated by roughly 2,5 meter. The guy seems like a tidy person. He wears casual attire yet he looks so tidy with the watch on his left hand and a polo shirt quite well dressed. His wife on the other hand looks very fancy with a brown bag and a seemingly expensive cloth or even if it is a cheap dress, she seems to act like it is an expensive cloth. Again perhaps it is just my assumption, she is perhaps attracted to fashion irrespective of whether the cloth is expensive or not. But under the circumstances judging from (although short amount of observation) the culture around here and her attitude, it does not seem that she appreciates fashion that much. She is more like a follower and trend-conformist rather than a fashionista or even a fashionista in progress. The guy looks very serious even when he is eating his food. Is that how I look when I live my bitter person character?
I am quite tired and my back is hurting. I suppose I need to pay for my food, stop typing this on my iPad2 (i love my iPad2) and go home to take a bath. Maybe it will make me feel better about my loved one being away on a vacation.
