Seymour Totti’s Foreign Policy

Everywhere you go in Asia you’ll find bars and discos that play the latest western pop and disco hits. It’s easy to forget that most places have their own indigenous pop music. Watch a group of Thai bar girls when the music suddenly changes from western pop to luuk thung or mor lam. Music that grew out of the folk styles of the Isaan district. Suddenly they dance and sing along with considerably more passion. The lyrics often tell of treacherous love or hardship in the fields, subjects to which they can all relate.

Probably the most licentious is an Indonesian style called Dangdut. These days the word dangdut is applied to almost any locally produced pop but it was born in the seedy working class areas of north Jakarta in the mid-1970s. It sounded like a cross between Indian, Arabic belly dance music and reggae and was always played live by a band comprising 4 or 5 musicians, usually male.

By the mid eighties, when I first caught up with it, the style was already well on its way into the mainstream but there were still a few clubs along Jalan Mangga Besar. One that I found was ‘rustic’ to say the least. But the band was pumping and the waitresses, when not fetching beers, would perform a hypnotic dance.

It was obviously rooted in classical dance styles but adapted for modern rhythms. It seemed as if the girls were almost in a trance. There was no pelvis thrusting or hip wiggling, they were not dancing for any audience. They seemed to be dancing for the sensuality of the moves themselves. It was one of the most erotic dances I have ever witnessed. And, of course, there was a facility out the back where the waitresses could serve you more fully.

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That old style of dancing may have passed into history now but in 2003 dangdut star Inul Daratista scandalised the nation by taking the hip thrusting style to entirely new heights prompting calls for a ban on her concerts and the drafting of a new anti-pornography bill.

But the hip thrusting caught on and continues unabated, as singer Mela Anjana admirably demonstrates

I mentioned the concept of part-time hookers back in the Gotham East post . Since then I’ve had a couple of e-mails from readers wanting to know more.

I’m sure the practice happens in most places but I first noticed it in Hong Kong. Back in the days when they weren’t so busy US Navy ships used to frequently stop off in Hong Kong for r&r. When they did all the bars on Lockhart Road would open earlier and the number of hookers would increase exponentially.

A good number of them were were just maids and contract workers making hay while the sun shone. In other places I’ve met students who have merely wanted to “practice their English” and at the same time rack up a few dollars to help pay for their course.

One of the more extreme examples of these phenomena happened simultaneously in Bandung. Bandung is a small town Java, Indonesia. A pleasant place and an important university town, though there is little to attract the casual visitor other than the delightful art deco Savoy Homan Hotel.

I’d gone out in search of a beer and ran into a handful of Australian military men. They told me they had just completed some secret joint maneuvers and asked me if I was going to the disco. Disco? I looked out at the dark and deserted street and tried to figure out what was the most improbable; a disco or maneuvers that were secret.

I had nothing better to do so I agreed. There was indeed a disco. It was a discreet affair, you could easily walk past and not notice it. But inside it was heaving.

“Usually this place only opens on a Friday,” they told me “but they knew we’d be here.”

“How come?” I asked, “I thought your mission was secret.”

I didn’t get an answer, they’d already hit the dance floor and were enveloped in a sea of women. I sucked back another beer and organised an intense English language workshop at the Savoy Homan.

The Australians had gone by the following evening and the disco was closed, I left the following morning and my part-time hookers went back to being diligent students.

Click on Arti’s skirt to see underneath

It was a hot sticky evening and I was in a taxi, barreling down Jalan Thamrin in Jakarta, on my way into town from the airport. The driver, in lieu of conversation, had already listed the current Manchester United squad and had started on Liverpool when he remembered something.

“New American Restaurant.” he suddenly blurted and, in his excitement, swerved and nearly knocked over a newspaper vendor. “Look, look”, he said, grabbing my arm with one hand and pointing with the other, leaving me to wonder who was doing the steering.

I caught a brief glimpse of the golden arches flickering between the trees then they were gone. We continued our breakneck journey as the Monas monument, referred to by some wags as President Soekarno’s last erection, hove into view.

We seemed to go around the monument several times before doubling back and turning into the little residential street where I was staying. “American restaurant”, he said again as if to reassure himself. He tapped his meter to see if he could get it to click over one more time before finally coming to a halt. (continues here.., more pics too…)

She reminds me so much of a delicious girl I once had the pleasure of knowing.

I was hanging out in a favourite haunt of mine, the Top Gun bar in Jakarta, Indonesia and had got sidetracked from my mission by one of the older gals. She was well past her sell by date and no amount of alcohol was going to convince me to give her one. We both knew this of course, but I’d actually known her for more than a year so there was no pressure.

But she did have a heart of gold and a fabulous repetoire hilarious and salacious stories, largely about former customers.

Anyway the night wore on and it began to dawn on me that there was little point in me looking for something to cuddle because the only thing I was going to be pushing up, when I hit the pillow, would be a line of zzzzz’s. I remarked on this as I paid for the drinks and wobbled towards the door.

“Come earlier tomorrow,” she yelled behind me, “I’ll look after you.” A promise that was met with wild and enthusiastic shrieks of laughter from her friends.

Well fate took me to that end of Jakarta the following day anyway and, whilst I was in no mood for another session, I figured a hair of the dog before dinner and then an early night would be in order. I walked in and the old gal was propped on the end of the bar in her accustomed position. Next to her was a vision.

“Hi,” she said, “I brought you a present.” The vision smiled and looked down, as if trying to bury her chin in her collar bone but as she did so her eyes lifted and looked straight into mine. I got a stiffy.

“Now buy me a beer and take her away,” said the old gal. I didn’t need telling twice. We went to the movies then we went to dinner. She was nineteen, from the island of Madura at the eastern end of Java. She’d been in town just two days and, like many girls, she’d come to Jakarta to “improve her English” and earn money so she could finish college.

We eventually wound up back at my hotel, she was drop dead gorgeous and I was stone cold sober. This present was going to be unwrapped slowly.