The Shark and the Crocodile

Posted by John

Legend has it the shark and the crocodile staged a wrestling match off the coast of Surabaya for the title of strongest animal.

This purported battle of the beasts has become the city’s foundational myth. The story doesn’t specify a winner, but today the episode is depicted on the urban seal (left) and embedded in the city’s name. (“Sura” is the Javanese word for shark and “baya” the word for crocodile.) This zoological showdown remains an apt metaphor for a place where rival forces contend for the city’s soul. Ostentatious wealth and Western styles of consumption pull Surabayans one way, while tenacious poverty and Javanese traditions pull another.

During morning rush hour, German luxury automobiles careen through swarms of motorcycle and pedicab drivers. There’s money to be made in Surabaya, East Java’s largest port where cargo ships unload consumer goods and international companies vie—like their crocodile and shark predecessors—for supremacy. At the end of the day, businessmen and foreign diplomats retreat to satellite communities ringing the city. Tree-lined avenues in these nicer neighborhoods wouldn’t look entirely out of place in Orange County.

At the same time, shanties sprout up on the city’s clogged alleys to accommodate hundreds of thousands of workers who migrate to Surabaya from nearby villages. They leave their rice fields with hopes of earning a few more dollars a month in the city, maybe as a housekeeper or busboy. People view coming to the city as an economic opportunity, but it still often means living next to open sewers in a one-room house with a dirt floor.

Danielle and I straddle the chasm that separates Surabaya’s upwardly mobile business classes from recent village transplants. Our dollars go a long way here, but we won’t be living in the plush condominiums that shelter wealthier residents from the city’s harshest aspects. Yet we’re not about to forego air conditioning in 100-degree temperatures or treat disease-carrying rats and mosquitoes as inconveniences that we have to endure.

Each day in Surabaya becomes a search for some sort of middle ground. That search includes our daily trip to check e-mail at one of the city’s 20 shopping malls. Surabaya has its share of Internet cafes, but their connections have all the speed and reliability of a passenger pigeon. They often have long waits as well, since teenagers here are eager to get online and don’t have computers of their own. If Danielle and I want to stay connected to the rest of the world, we’ve had to make our peace with bringing our laptops into Surabaya’s glittering glass cathedrals of consumer capitalism.

It still feels like something of a middle ground, however, since we make our trips to the mall more economical by piling into a bemo (left) with 10 or 12 Indonesians. These minivans, usually three or four times cheaper than taxis, are outfitted with benches and serve as the informal means of public transportation in Surabaya. My brother, sisters and I used to push and shove each other in what seemed like the tight confines of our parents’ 1987 Dodge Caravan. Compared to that, however, a bemo ride feels more like the circus routine where clowns keep piling into a comically undersized sedan.

The Indonesian passengers aren’t sure what to make of us. On one of my solo journeys, a group of schoolgirls giggled and dared each other to talk to me. When I greeted their “Hello, mister,” with a smile and an arched eyebrow, it set off peals of knowing laughter. Most passengers smile and some offer directions, which can be helpful since I’ve already ended up stranded across town twice. With no posted maps or schedules, information about buses becomes like folklore that travels through informal networks. You’re supposed to ask other passengers if they know which bemo goes where, but that doesn’t help when you don’t speak Indonesian.

Several people have cautioned Danielle about copet, the dreaded pickpockets that supposedly lurk behind every corner. After all these warnings, we’ve made a habit of riding the bus with our money hidden about our person. So far, however, most bemos are full of mothers and young children, nothing like the hardened criminals we’ve been told to expect.

Once the bemo ride has ended, entering into the mall requires a complete cognitive and sensory realignment. These climate-controlled and meticulously clean palaces of commerce have far more in common with retail spaces in suburban American than with the noise, dirt and poverty outside. High-end stores like Louis Vuitton, Zara and Calvin Klein cater to Indonesians with a passion for fashion and the rupiah to pay for it.

There also appears to be a robust trade in lingerie, despite the modesty that prevails in all exterior aspects of the Indonesian wardrobe. However, both Danielle and I have noticed that all the photographs on storefronts appear to depict Caucasian women modeling the revealing undergarments. Perhaps images of Indonesian women—presumably the vast majority of customers—in various states of undress would rile cultural or religious sensibilities. Or it’s possible that “whiteness”—and the personal freedom and standard of living it’s meant to entail—can be some sort of luxury brand. Either way, it’s very obvious and a little peculiar.

When we express our dissatisfaction with the antiseptic facade that the malls present, people are at a loss. Why wouldn’t you want to be there if you can afford it? The mall is the vibrant neighborhood, the locus of all social activity. No other city I know seems to have engineered such a complete privatization of public space.

Surabayan leaders realize this about their city and have vowed to do something about it. The Jakarta Post reported yesterday that the Surabaya municipal council will pass an ordinance requiring malls to provide reading spaces or face a $5,000 fine. Malls already have Muslim prayer spaces, so perhaps a library is the next step. A survey showed that 80 percent of Surabayans lack access to reading material and that Indonesians rank 96th out of 100 countries in terms of citizens’ interest in reading.

If there’s room at the Surabaya mall for the cultural imports like McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, there’s probably room for Ernest Hemingway and Jane Austen as well. Perhaps the shark and crocodile can sit and read Moby Dick together.