By Lauren Gumbs
Like most things apprehended by Indonesians and added to their
dense bricolage of mediated signs and symbols, the coffee house and its resulting
café culture is manifest in a typically Indonesian way.
The idea of the coffee house that accommodates avid coffee
and conversation loving customers is well suited to Indonesians if not already
a part of Indonesian culture.
The ubiquitous warung, precariously shackled together sometimes
from just bits of wood and tin with a few plastic chairs or bench seats, is a
mainstay of public sphere culture.
It is customary to sit and snack in little warungs and
pondoks, small non-alcoholic public centres that already provide a solid
foundation for the social activities capitalised upon by modern consumer
culture.
Traditional 17th and 18th century
English coffee houses are attributed to instigating the contemporary public
sphere and the advent of newspapers. Coffee houses were inclusive public places
where people went to socialise, discuss matters of common concern, politics,
philosophy and the natural sciences, to read and learn.
Eventually coffee houses became a part of popular political
culture and were seen as being an early form of democratic civil society.
They generally serve a more commercial function today. In
the West (Australia at least) coffee houses, or cafes, are not common
intellectual centres, where people congregate in order to interact with one
another, but public spaces where individuals and small groups go to relax,
unwind, hold informal business meetings, read, and study.
They are privatised public spaces that no longer have a
collective atmosphere.
Cafes and chains in Indonesia are riding high on a
burgeoning café culture that on the one hand, blends Indonesian predilections,
sociality, and modes of belonging into yet another variation on the public
sphere staple and on the other, embrace Western social codes and conventions as
symbols of modernity and the middle class.
Yet instead of low key relaxation, cafes in Indonesia
provide stimulation. They are communal public spaces where patrons consciously enter
the public sphere to socialise, watch and be watched.
(Voyeurism is expertly harnessed by Indonesians to make an
event of the public sphere. People are allowed to watch each other with an
obviousness not often seen in the West. If you try to hold someone’s gaze they
will not look away quickly and it will soon become apparent that you have
initiated a staring contest where your lack of fortitude in staring down a
stranger will end in embarrassment for you and amused nonchalance for them.)
Cafes are noisy, crowded, smoky affairs. People go there
with their friends or families to switch on and be entertained by the sight and
presence of others.
There’s little chance of reading a book or studying, the
noise and atmosphere is not conducive to mentally challenging industry.
Mind you I do persist in using such spaces for these tasks
even though experience has taught me that you would be hard pressed to find a
quiet and relaxing space in Indonesia even if you could find a vacant cave at
the top of a mountain in between sholat.
Many a time I have asked a barista to turn the music down so
I can study, only to be met with a suspicious look and gracious promise to turn
it down, which only ever amounts to a two decibel difference in volume.
Many a time I have asked a yet to be emphysema ridden man to
kindly not smoke next to me, only to be met with confusion and a gracious
stubbing out of his cigarette, which only ever lasts five minutes until the man
at the next table lights up his tenth kretek.
Because alcohol consumption in Indonesia is frowned upon,
cafes have seized upon a social niche, replacing pubs and taking on the
function of the alehouse. They are therefore more like non-alcoholic pubs than
coffee houses.
The ease with which Indonesians turned coffee houses into
pubs strikes me as a particularly effective work of bricolage; the favourite
past time of astute Indonesians.
Indonesia is as inventive as it is intense; the sensory
overload makes it hyperreal. The atmosphere encroaches from all angles and I
guess that’s why tourists go a little loco there. It’s magic for a short time
but can be exhausting if you live there as an expat.
It is excessively hot, noisy, and teeming with people. The
smells are more pungent, the people closer together, the lines longer, the food
saltier, oilier, sweeter, the religious more fervent, the forces more militant,
the elites more corrupt, the smiles more broad and the help more freely given.
Sometimes I feel like an overstimulated junkie, strung out
and worn out, but mostly I enjoy the addictive buzz of Indonesian life.
Sensory overload however, is a cultural tool that draws
people in and knits them together, precluding disengagement at the risk of
losing a precious collective zeitgeist.
The sound of loud music is like catnip to Indonesians.
Noise is a constant reminder to engage and participate. Even
if you don’t want to.
There is a town in East Java called Sukaramai. It basically
means to like crowds. If somewhere isn’t ramai (crowded) and berisik (noisy) it
isn’t on. It’s a flop. There is nothing more embarrassing than a wedding where
only 500 guests turn up.
Sensory overstimulation extends to all hours of the day and
night. At 4am in the morning the Azhan rouses most of the population and says
pray! Be part of a ritual that millions are participating in simultaneously.
This is one of those times that I resent forced engagement
and prefer to embrace the hiatus of sleep.
But at 6am on a Sunday, another invitation to join the
socialising forces of excessive sensory stimulation thumps into my head with a semi-professional
rock band advertising indigestion medicine or a government sponsored community aerobics
class.
The cultural differences are resounding. Isn’t it illegal to
make noise before 9am on a Sunday in Australia?
And yet they aren’t. Sunday is an auspicious day for anyone to
hit the pub, I mean café, for some entertainment and caffeine fuelled people watching,
albeit after some vigorous government instigated physical
exercise.
Lauren Gumbs, Surabaya
September 2013
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