jakarta jakarta, 1991
the first mcdonalds in indonesia opens in sarinah in central jakarta
as mustard yellow seeps into bhinneka tunggal ika white and red,
my father begins his first job at bank bali,
fresh out of his civil engineering degree at parahyangan bandung,
first generation college student, brother to many, son to three,
dreams of speaking english to his children,
of a longing to study in the land where his favorite singers live,
of hollywood, of opportunity,
of a place farther and farther from home, where his eyes cannot reach,
where lights seem to shine just that much brighter,
fresh, like cold water, for a young man who only knew the feeling of dirt weighing on arms, and the sting of sambal, and the bitterness of loss,
he settles for jakarta as a cheap bootleg of the western dream.
jakarta jakarta, 1997
in a hospital room in pluit they whisper selamat imlek, gong xi fa cai
to me, to chun ping,
new springs a hundred years removed, new beginnings a year early,
a quiet celebration in a hospital room,
where family come dressed in red, bearing baskets of oranges and flowers,
my mother, who is too scared to drop me on the floor,
asks my father to hold me first.
Christian, my father Christa, me,
he blesses me with the curse of resilience and loving too much,
in a world that is so cruel, and so uncomfortably warm and sticky,
it is jakarta, february of 1997.
a young couple, one and a half years married
welcomes their first child into a country on the brink of collapse,
jakarta jakarta, 1998.
rebuilt from the ashes of matahari supermarket, burned like the sun with a thousand souls inside.
as soeharto is pushed out by his own military,
waved by the hand of prabowo, who with the flick of a finger
commands men to shoot at university students who cry freedom,
of theirs, but not ours,
with chinese blood and bones they swore they’d construct the new flag,
nationhood and identity formed on the backs of the dead,
of those who suffered
33 years of silence, 33 years of silence,
of a history that says it won’t repeat itself,
colonial whips that only change hands from white to brown,
military junta that holds a great uncle captive for months,
hands are tied behind his back
cloth gag covering his stories of longing for toishan
this is the story of me, and not at the same time,
of the world around me, the people who raised me,
of a phoenix of a city
that burns down and rises again,
despite years of relentless beating,
like me, risen again,
after years of relentless beating,
jakarta is not at fault,
i am not at fault,
for the way the past beats at my back,
at cracking concrete facade,
the way my face grows sallow with illness,
in 2013, as the government is in flux
my weight is in flux,
just as the city grows with me,
the city falls with me too.
my story begins
one year and three months before the fall of soeharto,
and from the ashes of a fallen dictatorship
the city rebuilds, reinvents, relives, and honors past and present and dead
a city that sleeps strange hours,
told over and over and over again that survival is never a last ditch attempt
but always a way of life,
like rice pressure cooker that works in reverse,
i grow colder and harder and less palatable with time
jakarta jakarta, my home of monsoon rains,
of dirt roads paved over,
of erasure, of forgiveness,
of histories written and rewritten over and over again,
i spent so long trying not to call you home
in the fear that it would say more about myself than it said about you,
forgive me for my trespasses, for the way i had spat on the ground that my grandparents felt blessed to walk on,
flooded infrastructure,
unable to hold water anymore,
flooded eyes,
unable to hold in sadness anymore,
jakarta jakarta,
bebanku, jiwaku,
maafkan saya,
hanya waktu aku jauh saya mengerti
kenapa rumah adalah tempat yang suci.