Well, what a deep and profound question yet I answered it with a super duper shallow answer, I responded to her, "Well, I think I'm going to miss the monthly stipend"
Well, on the surface, yes... that's the number one thing I will definitely missed. but then again when the time actually come to part with that little-amazing-red-dot and landed in the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, it struck me, lightning-hard and damn... what I actually missed from Singapore is "the convenience of living in Singapore".
If you ever tried the mass rapid transport in Jakarta called TransJakarta, you will know why.
Then I think deeper, why could this happened and the answer was, "We simply don't have the luxury to it"
Having a convenience life in Jakarta is a luxury.
In Singapore, if you're crossing the street, cars, buses, motorbike, truck everything that moved on the street will stop for you and give way to you. You can try that in Jakarta and I can assure you that you will end up in either hospital or six-feet-under.
And I think again, there's no reason to rush in Singapore. There's no harm in giving way to the pedestrians. If you lost a moment in the street, you can easily catch up because the road in front if you is almost clear of cars. While in Jakarta, if you stop in order to give way here's what will happen:
1. Cars behind you will honking like crazy
2. Cars behind you probably will hit your behind because it was not anticipated
3. Cars behind you will outride you
4. Once you stop, you will definitely stuck in traffic, so basically your life is always on the rush.
We simply don't have the luxury of having a convenience driving. If you're going slow, everyone will outride you. So everyone is fighting the opportunity to be on the road and yet I think that's the main cause of traffic. If only people can drive with their brain instead of their hands, they can make things easier by giving way to others. Instead, people are always fighting over the road and no one is willing to stop for a moment and drive with ease.
In Singapore, it's rarely to feel 'stuffed' in the bus or train. You can try the public transport in Jakarta, okay.. I will skip the "angkot" part because that's on another world. Let's talk about "TransJakarta" or famous with "Busway". You will almost all the time found this happened:
1. People are pushing other people in order to get in the bus
2. You will be standing and stuffed inside because the bus is freaking-full
3. Smells awful
3. You feel healthier when you get down because you just enjoyed a sauna in a bus
Well, again... we simply don't have the luxury of having a convenience transport. I asked again why? well, in Singapore you stop at the designated bus-top or train station, therefore there's no bus stop at their own discretion and creating traffic. secondly, if you see a bus getting too crowded you can just not riding it and wait for the next one to come because the arrival time is (almost) definite and you can see it in the app. As here in Jakarta, One bus come and you can't tell when another bus will passing by and waiting in a crowded and hot busway-station is not comfortable. So once a bus come, you will surely have to fight you opportunity in getting one ignoring the fact if the bus is already full. The bus can show up once in every 5 minutes if you're lucky yet I once waited for freaking 30 minutes and no bus showed.
In Singapore, It's so convenience to walk at 2am in the early-morning from orchard to Dunearn Road. If you don't feel like taking a cab because it's a bit expensive and decided to live a healthier life by walking more often, you can enjoy the stillness of Singapore at 2am and you feel safe. You can try walking at the same time in Jakarta, I will have to warn you... please hold on tight to your wallet and on the side of the road you might see some unpleasant view.
Well again, we simply don't have the luxury of having a convenience walking in the middle of the night. Why? I actually enjoy driving in my bike as late as possible because at that time, I can enjoy Jakarta as if I'm in Singapore with a road clear-of-cars and I can drive fast. But I can tell you this, as long as I live in Jakarta, (knock on wood) I never got mobbed on the street, though... my motorbike once got stolen in my boarding-house (alias kost). so from my perspective, Jakarta street is actually safe. but the fact that the image and the news are making it worse that it is.
In Singapore, there are some trash but you will rarely see it outside of the trash-bin. It's 98% clean from trash. When you walk in here, you will see the trash is everywhere and the smell is freaking horrible. even while driving I often see people are throwing cigarette-butts from their car or tissue and even a plastic bottle.
as I've said over and over, we simply don't have the luxury of having a clean life. But then again I think about it. It's true that Singapore have the law of littering with fine up to SGD 1,000. But do you know that in my hometown there's also similar law that prohibit littering from cars with fine up to IDR 5 million (about SGD 500). But I can assure you the difference is at the rule of law. I can talk about this littering issue at a great length, but your span of attention in reading this is almost running out (i know, it's getting too long isn't it?).
Well as a conclusion to this writing, Why don't we have that luxury of living a convenience life here??
Okay, Indonesia is having 250 million people compare to a small Singapore is might be not apple to apple comparison. We might have less infrastructure built, but we still have same resource, that is HUMAN RESOURCE. The convenience of living is not only about the infrastructure, but also about the MINDSET of the people.
You can have traffic in front of you but that must not stop you from become a considerate-driver. Always look around you and stop when you have to in order to prevent more traffic ahead. If you ever notice in several main intersection in Jakarta there's usually a big yellow box and it means that there should be no car inside. So stop even though the traffic-light shows green sign if the cars in front of you can no longer move forward.
MENTAL TRANSFORMATION is once came out in the campaign season last presidential election and this could be an answer but hard to implement. I often see when I'm visiting beaches, there are teachers, parents, people that should set the example for the future generations, littering. Damn! what will happened when those people set the wrong example and what future generations are we creating?
Think!!!
We really are don't have that luxury of living in convenience, but if you're changing your mindset and start act towards it, we might see some changes towards it.
One act can't make things change, but it surely can start.
So let's start from ourselves and start changing!!!
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