My trip to Asia

An old friend and martial arts junior classmate, Shenzhu, booked a suite at Mountain Sky Condotel. There, I spent about a week eating food that I was familiar. The hotel is situated in Pluit of Jakarta, an area when Chinese Indonesians from Medan congregate. A condotel must be something between a condominium and a hotel.

We ate at a market place where Chinese dialects of Fujianese, Cantonese, Madarin and Indonesia were spoken.

Food was great there but extra spicy. Prices were great.

Shen Zhu was a big time operator, a very successful businessman but he does not use computers. At one time he had soldiers standing guard in front of his house as security guards. Impressive! Bing Hua, another old friend, is a retired electrical retail shop operator.

For many days I did not hear from my niece about when her mom, my sis, will be home.  It was one of the main reason I went on this trip to see my sis and mom.

After about a week, I called Charles, my nephew and his dad, my cousin, Surya. Then Surya sent him to pick up my 2 friends and me to go to his office. Listening to his explanation of what he is doing was very informative and educational. He invited me to go to Batam. Batam is where he bought a few islands. He wanted to be “doowong”, which to me it sounds like “gambling king” in Cantonese; but what he wanted, according to him, was to give himself a title of island king, which is also sounded like “doowong”. He wants the term doowong to crack a joke on his friends.

Batam is a town near Singapore and Medan, the capital of the province of North Sumatra. If you do not know where Sumatra is, you may know where the great tsunami started. It was in Aceh, the western province of Sumatra, where my grandfather operated his timber harvesting business before the great depression.

The surrounding sea of Batam is very beautiful and calm. The sea is always calm because of the wind is obstructed by the string of islands. We went on a boat ride and visited some of the islands Surya just bought. Then he bought another island while we were in Batam. He brought in some friends and one of his civil engineers (an employee), a medical doctor and a fish expert (an employee) and his girl friend. In our group we also had 2 botanists, and a mushroom grower. The western medical doctor was proud of himself that he also knew “akupangtur” (acupuncture). The members the group are very rich except the employees, the doctor the young girl, and me. The rich friends can be potential investors in developing those islands.

We took a ferryboat to Singapore. The boat was very nice, like a commercial airliner. Stayed in one of his 2 houses there. Met some of his old classmates, laughing, dinning and cracking dirty jokes. Although the physician is of Chinese descendant but could not understand our jokes in Chinese. He is a Muslim but would eat anything if no one pointed it out if it was not “halal”. I think halal is the Muslim version of kosher. Doktorr Aris is about my age. You have to roll your tongue with extra force when u pronounce Indonesian words with R, as in Scottish pronunciation. The doktoR and I were the oldest in the group. Sometimes we talked about some medical issues and according to the young girl friend of Muli, the fish guy, who is in his 20's. His girl friend, Lida, is even a few years younger.  Surya 's sister later came to join us in Singapore. She laughed at us as 2 stubborn old men insisting their view points were correct. I did not notice that the doktoR and I argued at all. Well, she might not understand the biochemical terms at all and misunderstood us.

Surya asked an old classmate of his to give us a ride to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, a six or seven-hour drive, in mostly traffic jams. On the way the friend, who loves his own SUV so much, said he would not let any body drive his car. He called himself the captain (of the vehicle) but Surya addressed him as “supir” meaning chauffeur. He called Surya “Kenet”, meaning the lowly assistant of a bus driver. The captain scolded Surya, the kenet, that he was the dumbest guy he had ever known and that he only knew how to make big money and nothing else; but we needed the rich guy to feed us and could not do without him. Surya did not know how to counter and simply spacing out eventually.

Dr. Aris could not understand Chinese Fujian dialect that we sometimes used, actually he knew none of the Chinese dialects, and dozed off.

“Doktor Aris! Kenet doktor Aris! What kind of kenet are you? Sleepy kenet? How do I expect you to watch the traffic for me?”

“Huh? Huh? I could not understand Chinese. I can only understand Indoneian so I went to sleep.” Appologized the “doktor“ with heavy Javanese accent and dialect, sounded like those Indonesian TV opera characters that I saw in Bali.

“I have inferior crew! Oh, now I am not sure which direction to go; but I have a GPS in the trunk. Let us stop and get it out.” Said the captain.

“Good idea!” I said. I have been a no brainer driver for sometimes and know GPS can really help.

The young fish buyer guy turned on the device and said he knew how to use it. It is in Chinese and he could speak Chinese but could not read Chinese. I fumbled around with the GPS and changed it into English, which the young guy said he could operate it if it was in English. I tried to hand it to him with the English text on the screen. He was already snoring.

I became the official navigator.
The GPS also could speak Cantonese but I was afraid to fool around with it some more; so I stayed with the English mode that I set that was already on the screen. Lucky! We had the GPS. The captain liked the clear enunciation of the English of the GPS.

Finally we arrived at the suburb of Subang where Surya could remember the way to the Hotel.

We were booked into a Holiday Villa Suite and Hotel by a friend of Surya.

“Berapa bintang? (How many stars?)” Ask the doctor in Indonesian with heavy Javanese accent.

“Satu.” meaning one, replied an employee. Apparently he misunderstood the question.

“How many stars has this hotel?” I asked the doctor.

“Satu bintang, loh!” He replied, meaning one star. I guess “Loh!” must be an expression of some what disappointment.

I walked around the giant swimming pool, tennis court, hand ball court, the fancy gym with all kind of equipments, spa, pool tables, movie halls, night club, beautiful garden, beautiful performances, beautiful ponds, luxurious dinner halls, extra loud karaoke etc and then I got lost in the maze, like a pre-Alzheimer’s D patient.

One star? My foot! It is a five star hotel! Eventually I found out.

It is nice that my rich cousin paid for the airfares to Batam, boat fares, hotel, meals and miscellaneous items for all of us, 10 people. His secretary ordered my ticket back to JKT to go to Singapore because SQ said my IT couldn’t be changed. What a waste of time and money, since I was already in Singapore.

All the invited friends are extra rich entrepreneurs. He asked his secretary to pay for all the expenses so that not to inconvenient them.

Went to town the next day to see a house for sale. He wanted a house to house a soy factory. The house was rented to some shaky characters that are owing rent money.

The owner came and called his tenants on his “hand phone” (not cell phone. No cells there, only satellite). For a long time no one came to answer the door.

Eventually we went inside. The young fish guy immediately saw someone sweeping money into the underside of the sofas. Young people have good eyesight.  Must be an illegal gambling place operated by the tenants.

“How much do u want?” Surya asked the owner.

“530 K.”

“480!” Countered Surya.

“520”

“490”

“No! I will be losing money even with 520.” Said the owner.

“OK, 500. No more. Take it now. I have another offer over there!” jumping forward and pointing his finger to a random direction as if it is where the other offer was coming and then shaking his finger to the owner.

The seller consulted his wife in private.

“OK. Sold.” Said the couple.

Shook hands; shook hands; shook hands.

“Wait. You should put down some deposit money.” Said the broker's son whose father was not there. The son of the broker was afraid that the deal might fall apart.

“OK. Old Ng, give him 5K.” Surya told Mr. Ng, his friend who found the house for Surya. He was the one who drove us there.  “Old” means honorable,  a Chinese expression.

“Huh Huh, I do not have any money with me.” Hesitated Mr. Ng.

“I will write u a check on Monday. I do not have my checkbook with me. Give him a check.” Said Surya.

“OK la!” Said Mr. Ng answered in the unique Malaysian-Singaporean accent English.

What a child play! Paying a deposit before drafting a contract and before knowing what the detail of the transaction, like any lease that still in effect, any existing loan to be paid off on closing, any taxes owed, if any loan is available in case not wanting to pay cash etc.

I do not know if I should call him to express my concern. Did Surya want my opinion or just wanted me to see how he operates?

I better call him when I arrive at home; oh, better not. He does not need my opinion. He has been doing extra fine financially without the advice from a poor cousin.