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Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Your Clean Slate Lives

Today i was busy goggle-ing few apartments in kota and north jakarta, for work of course. The interesting thing is that the most search results i got were news/blogs related to karaoke companion (or more familiar with the term Lady Companion), coukong (up to now i still hvnt found out the valid definition of this term, anyone knows?), drug trading, and of course prostitutes; as most of them dwell in these dodgy apartments.

All these remind me of the 'secretive' event i had few weeks ago. But nevermind that, as that will not be the topic here.

So interesting is the life of the "True Jakarta strugglers", as my best friend put it. LCs and prostitutes are such intriguing figures. Somehow they are lost, somehow it seems as if they need help, and somehow you will always have this flash of heroic thoughts that you could be the one who could vindicate one of them.
Some of these strugglers could surprisingly have a monthly income 10 times yours. Yet sadness and hollowness can be seen from their eyes and they're behaviour. Maybe at the end, money has only been a 'short-term' solution to their worries and needs. But money is one they cannot escape from. Not that they don't want to, but they just can't.


Living a clean slate life is a blessing. Not many people have such priviledge. Ask that to them. Nevertheless, it was themselves who made the choice out of so many options they can have in Jakarta. And yes, money will always seem to light their way out of the tunnel.

It's just common sense that one would opt for an average of 10 million rupiah for working only 3 nights in a week as an LC (esp. the 'party' ones), rather than earning around 1.5 million a month for working at a clothing store in a mall.

There r prices you hv to pay for living clean. (i.e. the tougher life attributed by less income), and there r prices you hv to pay for not (i.e. mess up future).

But all these phenomena should but remind us to be grateful for the life we are currently leading. Living straight is a blessing for some people. Ask drug dealers who couldn't get out of the pressure from their drug-dealing networks, ask LCs who couldn't escape their work, as it has been their life-long dream to be findycated.. sorry i mean vindicated.. haha

Sometimes we whine about our jobs, our salaries, our colleagues, and even at jakarta's ever worsening traffic (thx to our president-wannabe governor who has been busy collecting the remaining 'project-money' before stepping down). We often forget how lucky we are.

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