Everyday Life - Spinning Plates and Dragons

This weekend was Chinese New Year, something I wouldn't normally pay much attention to, but Jakarta has a large Chinese population and red and gold decorations have been turning up everywhere of late. It's a good chance for the boys to experience snippets of another culture, so when we heard the beating drums at the local mall on Saturday we decided to go for a look.

 This isn't a great photo, but it shows the larger of the dragons that were wandering around. There were also smaller gold and white furry dragons cuddling up to shoppers! Eamon thought it was great, if a little noisy.

The same mall had a free show of 'Spinning Plate Acrobats' from Beijing which sound too good to miss. Eamon was a little disappointed that my description of people throwing plates into the air didn't actually eventuate but still did a good impression of a stunned mullet watching the ladies do various rather athletic feats while holding six sticks with spinning plates apiece. Personally I was especially impressed by the headstand on top of someone else's head trick (while continuing to hold aforementioned spinning plates!).

Not bad for an afternoon trip to the mall to buy sandpaper (and a small saw - $1.89 AUD for a small coping/mini hacksaw, can't really go wrong!).

Oh, and my excursion back to Tanah Abang in the morning also netted a chinese dragon wandering through the place.....must have been looking for some new threads...

Exploring Jakarta - Tanah Abang

Tanah Abang is one of the larger Indonesian-style markets in Jakarta and is home to the largest wholesale textile market in south-east Asia. As with many markets here the name refers to an area of the city rather than one specific place and the market covers several buildings. The main building, a relatively new rebuild after fires partially burnt the market in 2003, is a beautiful example of Islamic decoration with the exterior covered in geometric patterns and the building itself painted a distinctive green. A big improvement over similar markets, the main building contains such luxuries as air-conditioning, banking centres, food courts and even a 2000 person mosque! 

Image Source: http://tanahabangreview.com/2010/09/03/sejarah-tanah-abang/

Being keen to check out just what fabric is available, I have visited Tanah Abang a couple of times. Given its size and the sheer number of shops, I decided early on a "little-by-little" approach, and have really only investigated a tiny part of this behemoth, restricting myself to the two basement levels of Blok A & Block B, and a single foray to the rather less salubrious Blok F. The basements of Bloks A & B contain the majority of the textile market (I think!) with the remaining 6 or so floors being mostly fashion stores, food courts and parking (although I going by reference here - I haven't been above ground level!). It's about a 30-40 minute drive from our place to Tanah Abang in the early(ish) morning, but up to an hour home, plus at least 20-30 minutes waiting for the car to pick you up as the traffic around the buildings gets absolutely insane by mid to late morning so my time inside is generally a bit limited.


The market itself is a huge space reminiscent of a storage facility where each roller door secured niche hosts a mini-, or in a few cases fairly large, fabric store. Rows of stores are intersected by narrow corridors, often filled with stacks of fabric, and dark corners pop up every now and then where corridors dead end unexpectedly. With my remarkably limited knowledge of textiles, I would broadly categorise the offerings as cottons, batik, fancy chiffony/shimmery/gauzy stuff, and everything else (which includes things like curtaining, suit fabrics etc.). Within these categories, there is a wild range of products, most available for between Rp 25,000 and Rp 80,000 (roughly $3 AUD and $8 AUD per metre - the latter being the price provided for 100% wool suit fabric, with very authentic looking European labels). Cotton prints, including business shirting and extra wide sheet/duvet cover fabric was at the low end of the range and I indulged in several pieces for Christmas shirts for the boys (which I've actually made) and business shirts for Kieran (which I'm still looking for a tailor to make!). I also picked up some great sheet fabric to make a lego playmat/bag for Eamon in a bid to tame the explosion of little lego pieces in his bedroom.

While Bloks A & B have a great selection of fabric, sewing accessories are rather scarce and it took some testing of my Bahasa to determine that these are more readily available in Blok F, behind the main buildings. Blok F quite clearly missed out in the refurbishment stakes, and is much more what you might expect of an Asian market experience. It is reached by crossing a stretch of mud optimistically posing as a street, although probably really more of a combined rubbish tip and sewer (I later discovered that you can also access it internally from a higher floor, but that would spoil the fun!) and picking one of the narrow, dark egress points to the interior. A few places on the ground floor sell zippers, thread etc., but most of the action is on Lantai 2 (Level 2) at the right-hand side (looking from Blok A). Here, along with the poor cousins left selling textiles outside the main arena, are a collection of stalls selling all sorts of sewing bits and bobs - scissors, thread, elastic, zippers, ribbons, beads and all manner of decorative geegaws. Strangely, there isn't much in the way of buttons - I'm guessing they must congregate in some other Blok somewhere, beyond the limits of my basic Indonesian. Being a wholesale market, don't expect to buy small amounts of anything - elastic comes by the roll, most other small items by the dozen, but the prices are cheap enough it's not a big deal. I grabbed 100 yards of 1/4" elastic for about $3 AUD and some really cute little stuffed felt strawberries, butterflies and cars for about $2/dozen. I'm not sure whether everything is harga pas (fixed price) or not, I figure being the only bule (white person) in sight puts me at an automatic disadvantage in bargaining so tend to just go with the stated price unless it seems ridiculous, but our nanny seems to think most of the material side at least is fixed price.

I'm looking forward to heading back to Tanah Abang - aside from the obvious "what's that white person doing here" looks, the people are friendly and ready to try out their English (and more importantly accommodate my abysmal attempts in their language), the selection is great, just wandering around is fun and visually engaging, and the place is so big I'm going to need a pile of trips to explore it all!

In progress - Eamon's Lego Bag/Mat

and the finished product!

Exploring Jakarta - Pasar Pagi Lama

Feeling like I hadn't experienced much of "local" Jakarta, I decided to try exploring one of the traditional markets - Pasar Pagi Lama (the old morning market), also known as Pasar Asemka.

In North Jakarta, near the old town, Pasar Pagi Lama is a collection of buildings and stalls built under a  flyover. For directions I had the name and a text message "from where you'll get dropped off, walk a couple of hundred meters and there's heaps of stores in the centre - I go through those and to the stores on the other side of the street", rather vague fare, but with trusty driver at the wheel, we were soon in the thick of a maze of stalls and small shops selling a mass of bags, lunch boxes, stickers, pens, soft toys and anything else you might think to stick an angry birds or Ben 10 logo on. The eclectic mix also includes vendors selling balloons, decorations, fake Christmas trees, buckles and clips, light bulbs, cheap kids toys, stationary, wall decor, badminton rackets and other sporting goods (they string the rackets while waiting for customers) and fireworks.

A colourful, crowded and chaotic place, the market is best arrived at early, sans kids, as it gets hot quickly and becomes somewhat un-navigable by car by midday. We arrived around 9:30am and delved straight into the mix, coming up for air a couple of hours later when the crowds started to really slow progress. Surprisingly it was less intimidating than I expected, even as the only white person in sight, although I did keep one hand on my wallet, just in case. Suited to the impulse buyer, something I am, regrettably, not, I relished the sights more than the shopping, enjoying the craziness of being able to buy a disney backpack, umbrella, Christmas decorations and new tennis racket all within 10m and for probably less than $20! It is definitely a good place for buying more than you ever needed of stuff you'll likely never use. Being a wholesale market, purchases are best made in bulk - the price per unit for six or a dozen items often being significantly cheaper than for a single, in some cases ridiculously so, as in my purchase of some wall decor stickers - 1 sheet for Rp 10,000 (roughly AUD $1) or 6 sheets for Rp 18,000 (AUD $1.80)*. I'm still sure there's something seriously wrong with that sort of maths!
*Note: I saw the same stickers today in the Mall across from the hotel for Rp 34,000, still cheap by Australian standards!

Although it took longer to get there and back than we spent actually in the market, and I came home feeling in need of a shower and a cold drink to wash away the dirt, Pasar Pagi Lama is definitely a place I'll return to soon, if only for the fun of wandering around knowing you could buy more than you can carry with the $30 in your pocket!