high school in jakarta??
where indonesian pride begins and ends
i listened to a new single by musical artist niki, “high school in jakarta.” and man, i was disappointed.
i guess i should be disappointed knowing that my and niki’s high school experiences are very different. she went to an international school (rebranded due to a law that prohibited the use of the word “international” for any school in indonesia), which is a marker of class distinction in jakarta. despite the name change, people still use the classifier “international school” to brand these types of schools: schools not following the national curriculum (usually adopting an international curriculum such as IB) and schools mostly catering to uber-rich parents, including celebrity parents and expats. of course this wouldn’t be a common “high school in jakarta” experience. the first obvious thing is that niki’s high school is not really located in jakarta (it is located in tangerang, a suburb residential area on the outskirts of jakarta), but also that this experience is unattainable for most jakartans; you can expect to spend 478,600,000 IDR (~$32,000 USD) for the entire high school period in an international school in jakarta. as a comparison, the average price of most national and private schools in jakarta is 13,000,000 IDR (~$870 USD).
this difference reflects in her lyrics. of course, with such a different income level in these international schools, the experience of these kids are different than most kids in jakarta. in niki’s high school, every one of her friends would disperse internationally after graduation, as if it was a casual thing. she even has a coloradoan friend. her promotional material looks really nice; it seems like it could easily substitute an american high school in an american TV show.
i grew up middle class on the outskirts of jakarta — not as well-off as niki and her friends. i pay way less for school compared to niki, in the same bracket as private schools in jakarta, as i went to a catholic school. my curriculum was national-plus, which was really just an excuse to wrap the national curriculum in a prettier package — and with longer hours in school, the teachers gave us whatever group projects to keep us working. we only had one expat student throughout school and he’s filipino; the only white people in the school were english teachers (as it is common for private schools). when i went to new york and as i meet the same kids from the song “high school in jakarta” — children of celebrities, rich investors, government figures, etc — i found myself alienated from them. of course i can’t afford new york fine dining twice a week, or any type of louis vuitton private sales, and unlike them, i’ve actually been inside of a warkop. so, when i heard “high school in jakarta,” i was reminded of my interactions with these kids in new york. yes, we are both international students; yes, we are both indonesians. but our experiences are nothing at all the same. the ruling class and the rest of the people in jakarta live different lives — lives so far apart, we might as well live in different countries.
of course my experiences also does not reflect the “high school in jakarta” experience: my school is in south tangerang (another residential suburb), i grew up pretty well off, and i experience advantages going to a private school in a nice suburban community. but, from all that, comes one question: what makes the jakarta high school experience what it is? another question is: with the obsession of representation that us indonesians vouch for in popular figures who’ve made it in the western world, niki included, how important is it to accurately represent the indonesian experience? of course, i couldn’t blame niki for writing about such an unattainable experience — she is an individual artist writing about her experiences, and with how the industry is built right now and how children from well-off families have a higher chance in succeeding in arts industries than those who don’t, there is a whole other layer we have to peel in here. from such an underrepresented country, indonesians desire to be seen on the screens with their experiences. lorde writes: “we live in cities you’ll never see on screen,” and with even the littlest mention of “kopi luwak” uttered by morgan freeman, we piss ourselves with enjoyment. and maybe that’s what we desire: references that are close to how we view the country, in a language that is understood as commonly as possible: dry sun, gray-and-white high school uniforms, a bajillion malls.
i guess this post would be a fun experiment to tell you a little bit about my high school in jakarta south tangerang. high schools in jakarta (and beyond) might not be a universal experience for everyone, but some experiences (and definitely not the experiences of the ruling class) will resonate more than others.
your school has an annual pensi and everyone’s in the organizing team. the liaison officers seem to have the coolest job in the world, taking the band hivi to the green room. while all i do is design tickets and certificates for the band competition.
your school also has an annual sports cup competition and you find yourself volunteering to score a table tennis competition no one was there to see. then, you get off your shift and watch the highly-attended basketball game, where everyone cheers for the home school.
no, we don’t have the freshman-sophomore-junior-senior distinction. we call it kelas sebelas-kelas duabelas-kelas tigabelas.
attending a bajillion sweet seventeens when you were in 11th grade through 12th grade.
after we graduate and after a semester’s hard work of taking the UN exam (ujian nasional), most of your friends drive straight in to take inten (intensive courses) to take the SBMPTN and get into national universities, while the minority of others going to school abroad are absorbing the last summer of teenagehood. for me it’s dedicating myself full time to the craft of theatre by joining a theatre company, knowing that the following fall i have to switch gears and work my way into a computer science degree.
alcohol is fucking expensive !!! i host parties at my place, and would steal a stash of my parents’ alcohol, and even then there’s not as much available for everyone to drink.
mom driving me to school, prambors on the radio.
malls, malls, malls. all we do is go to malls. even after working on a group project in someone’s house, we’d go to the mall to get dinner and catch a movie for fun.
upacara bendera every monday, you pretend to pass out five minutes in, so you can just be in an air conditioned room in the school’s health center instead of spending an hour in the dry sun.
and finally, after school, going to the warkop on the school’s parking lot, ordering yourself a comforting bowl of indomie and an iced orange drink in a plastic bag.
Reread this a year later and it's still so good.