Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Cab Drivers and Religion

    Aside from the folks at the Freedom Institute and security guards at our apartment complex, the only people who we regularly talk to here are cab drivers. For some reason, probably like in New York, cab drivers here are either very surly or very friendly. There seems to be little in between.

    Yesterday we were in a taxi at the exact time that the call to end the day’s fast started. (We could tell because our cabbie was listening to a Muslim station on the radio.) The cabbie turned around, smiled, and took a big swig from a bottle of tea he had with him. Then he spit it out the door. Then he took another sip and drank it. (People in general here, when stuck in traffic, have no problem opening the door and clearing their throat and hocking loogies. Maybe it’s the smog and the cigarettes.)

    An interesting observation is that without fail, the Christian cabbies want to talk to us. Always. And they go on and on about how radical Muslims are such a problem. Now, we, on the other hand, try to be a little more evenhanded. While we would never point out the Protestant violence against Muslims in central Sulawesi, we do say that it’s such a small percentage of Indonesia that is actually radical. They eventually agree with us, but seem a bit disappointed that they don’t have a sympathetic ear to whine to. They also tend to talk to us for a couple of minutes before letting us know that they are Christian, so we are extra-sensitive and extra-careful to be politically correct.

    The Muslim cabbies, on the other hand, sometimes talk to us and sometimes don’t. Among those twho do talk, they all like to ask about Pak George Bush, but oftentimes I (TP) am the one who brings it up. They are also sometimes interested in how Americans feel about Indonesia, but alas, we tell them that most Americans don’t think of anything about Indonesia. Sometimes they ask us if we are scared of Indonesia, especially since the Australian embassy bombing a month ago. We reply that we are not, and are particularly saddened by the fact that it’s only Indonesians who actually perish in these attacks, excluding the Bali bombing. They like this. They, like the Christian cabbies, tell us that Muslim radicals are bad for Indonesia, and that Indonesia needs good government and free education for kids. We agree.

    NB: This is all contingent on us actually understanding them. Cabbies in Jakarta are seldom actually from Jakarta, but rather come as itinerant workers from the outer provinces, which means that their Bahasa Indonesia is heavily accented and peppered with loanwords from Minang, Javanese, Menadonese, and/or Jakarta street slang.

  • Masakan Padang

    On Saturday night we ate at a restaurant that serves Masakan Padang (MAH-sah-kahn pah-DAHNG; Padang-style food). This is the closest thing to the national food style of Indonesia, a country with thousands of islands and hundreds of distinct cultures. Padang is the capital of the province of West Sumatra.

    Masakan Padang is neat because of the way they serve it. When you get to the restaurant, you just sit down, and the waiters swarm you. First, they bring a big mug of hot water (the hotness is supposed to be a sign that they boiled it) and a little pan of cold water to wash your hands in. Then the food comes. Every dish that the restaurant makes–usually between 10 and 15 dishes, comes out in a small portion on a little plate, along with rice, sambal (SAHM-bahl; chili spice paste), and sometimes fruit. We counted 12 dishes plus a bowl of soup for the two of us, and this does not include extra rice or fruit. You eat only the dishes that you like, and you pay only for what you eat. If you touch it, though, you bought it. It is good, and the food is nice and spicy.

    Our dinner the other night consisted of the following:

    1. Fried chicken. Traditional Indonesian deep-fried chicken, leg and thigh only.
    2. Some other type of fried chicken. This type had a sort of coating on it.
    3. Boiled chicken. Again, leg and thigh, but it seemed to have been boiled in stock.
    4. Chicken curry. This dish had a thick coconut-based curry sauce and was absolutely fabulous.
    5. Rendang daging. This is a type of Indonesian pot roast, with an unidentified meat (beef, lamb, or mutton, or maybe goat) slow-cooked in coconut, spices, and herbs until it almost falls apart. There is a heavy use of spices like nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. This is my favorite (TP).
    6. Dendeng daging. Again, an unidentified red meat, but this time sliced thin, boiled, dried, pounded, and then deep-fried like a potato chip. No, really.
    7. Fish blocks in red sauce. Don’t really know much more than that, but they were good.
    8. Steamed cingkong. These are just steamed greens, sort of like spinach.
    9. Pickle/stew of chili, okra, and something else. Very good, but oily.
    10. Hard-boiled eggs in curry sauce. This is very common in Indonesia.
    11. Shrimp and clam stew. We didn’t try this because I’m allergic to shrimp.
    12. Indonesian latkes. These are Julie’s favorite. They are little, fried potato-shallot-garlic-scallion patties that are heavenly. They are like latkes, but thicker and with a smaller diameter.

    We ate numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 12. For dessert we had sliced papaya, watermelon, and pineapple. You mainly eat with your hands so you get really messy, plus you get really hot because everything is spicy and there’s no AC, but it’s great. Plus, you feel like a king cause you have all these dishes stacked in front of you.