Poorly Controlled

So this is my update from the last few days before we shunted into the workshop proper. Workshop reflections will be mostly posted at chriswenn.net. The weekend was mainly spent exploring the local markets – we’re in the heart of the textile (rendered endearingly as ‘tecksteel’, in the fluid Jakarta accent) district here in Tana Abang, so most of my gifts for friends and family are in the form of scarves, sarongs and t-shirts! As I’ve mentioned before, Jakarta is a mercantile city – everything that can be sold is being sold here, and the locals take pride in their bargaining abilities. Our guide for most of our shopping trips has been the streetwise Jack (whose name is either spelt Zack and pronounced Jack OR spelt Jack and pronounced Zhack), who seems to greatly enjoy the ‘press’, as he calls it, forcing the stallholder’s prices lower and lower until it reaches the point he deems acceptable. In the last few days, we’ve left a string of local traders shaking their heads in bewilderment, as if they’re not quite sure what just happened. We’ve reached an accommodation with a scarf trader in the Thamrin City market – Ika – who has had a garrulous group of Westerners descend on her stall every day for the last few days. We have been variously introduced as Jack’s brothers, cousins and sisters (in the face of overwhelming evidence, naturally) and have watched with delight and amusement as the drama plays out. Even speaking in Bahasa, the process of bargaining is carried out in pantomime, mock-scowls and grimaces, handwaving and backs being turned. At a tshirt/streetwear stall in Thamrin, the bargaining seemed to be entirely in disbelieving laughter. Jack pushed harder and harder on the poor fella: holding out fistfuls of rupiah, then snatching them away; holding out a handshake as the trader shook his head. All this conducted with good humor, of course.

Jack is an amazing character – completely untrained, he moves with a grace that is as intense as it is beautiful. He is a veteran of the Tana Abang slum – born and living there until by some remarkable osmosis he became a fixture of Indonesia’s most beloved theatre company. Slamet has given him a home, a job, and an education – receiving in return a powerful, magnetic stage presence that embodies traditional virtues of courage, strength, honour and generosity. It was Jack that was our guide through the slums, and has been our main communicator with the street people in this area. In our improvisations he has provided vocal work – deep, demonic laughter; raw howls; the aching calls of the azan (the call to prayer); and gorgeous, wordless lyrics in the traditional Javanese style.

It’s somehow inspiring to see this remarkable young man walk the streets of Jakarta with the confidence of a young lion. He steps into the feral traffic with a hand raised, guiding us across the four nominal lanes (in practice, more like six or ten) to whatever our next destination is. The traders and their hangers-on call out “Ay, Jackie!”, “Pagi, Jackie!” as we pass, as though he’s a local fixture.