My Observations in Business Trip to Jakarta

Here I am on my first business trip flight to Jakarta, the country with the highest revenue earner for our company. So ironic for a country that is so poor to have so much money to spend on mobile communications. But it is trivial things like sms that they can afford to spend on, just like Philippines. Perhaps cost plays an amazing part in ‘The Tipping Point’ besides its ease of use.

It has always been my dream to go on business trips for projects but now tat I am able to do it, my emotions is of mixed trepidation. It could be due to the fact tat it is not a safe country I’m heading to after getting used to sheltered safe Singapore or it could be due to the case tat when u finally have something, you won’t value it as much anymore.

Nonetheless, I am excited and slightly nervous, imagining myself getting into the flight like a scene I watched in ‘Lost’ season 1 where unbeknownst to the passengers, the flight is going to crash into a forlorn island in the middle of nowhere where some turned to heros and some turn to death martyrs.

Walking along the aisle of the plane crossing business class, I absorbed the insinuating aura of privilege and class adorned by those sitting in business class. Diamonds shimmering blindly on the wife’s fingers and ears while the men were in black suit and black sunglasses with their nose high up in the air. The disparity in lifestyle and possession between the filthy rich and the filthy poor in Indonesia is so vast it can be felt the moment I stepped on their plane. How pitiful that they can’t do anything about it with the tantamount corruption and political unrest there. How I wish I could just take just 5% of their assets to feed 50% of the poor there and even all over the world.

Just like countries tat have a pyramid shaped wealth distribution that is so polarized tat only 5% of the people in this country own 95% of the wealth in the country. This is still happening in China and India. Indonesia is controlled by a small minority of people who gets their wealth through corruption and cheats (ooppsss, did I type that loudly?), while the rest suffers in silence knowing that the only thing they can do is work and beg for the rich. It does not surprise me to see Indonesians hiring their own people to be drivers and maids to the point that maids have specialized tasks and one toilet to clean compared if they come to Malaysia and find they are the only maid to clean the whole bungalow. That is how it is. I know I might not have the power to change much, but I will have the power to make an impact. That is what is important now.