Mai Chau

Dear Nancy

I actually think someone had a worst time in Mai Chau than we did.

There must be others out there like us.

Too Queued For Words

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good passport must be in want of a wait.”

Or put simply:

“Never stand behind a black man when queuing for Customs".

Yes this is racist, but like most (if not all) racism it is also a handy guideline for the oppressed.

Racism, snobbery, and bigotry are bad in life (— AND IMMA LET YOU FINISH —) but they work wonders in queues.

After September 11 I removed black men from the list and added all Muslims. Since then I have included anyone with a winter tan.

Ageism is particularly useful at supermarkets, or indeed anywhere where money changes hands. It is not uncommon to see a queue being are held hostage by an old lady struggling with her change.“Fools,” I think to myself, “I could have spotted that old bitch from Frozen Goods”.

No minute is more precious than the one saved in a fast queue. I usually try to establish which line will be moving the fastest and will use any methods at my disposal. 

Customs in Jakarta is known for its long, disorganised queues. After disembarking the flight and boarding a couple of escalators you soon find yourself descending down a wide staircase and into a huge pen of over 500 people. There are roughly 15 queues in this filthy, sweaty pen and each one has about 25-50 pigs lining up in it.

3 of the 15 queues are dedicated to Indonesians. These ones seem to move quickly.

Another is for diplomats. Stand beside this one and you can feel the breeze as ugly families sailing past you with ease. I stare at them bitterly, wishing cancer and car accidents on them.

As for the rest of us, we gormlessly inch our way along, scrambling evidence of a return journey and double-checking our arrival cards for errors as we get closer. Anything to pass the time.

Today: my welcome to Jakarta

As for me, I stand there listening to ABC Radio National podcasts, looking vacantly bored and plotting my escape like Papillon. Papillon with a laptop. And a passport. And a sulky look on his face.

The whole process is long and slow and boring and seemingly endless. Today in Jakarta I looked back from the front of my queue and counted 53 people still in my queue, give or take a pig.

Sometimes my disobedient mind starts wandering. I imagine I'm a holocaust victim, lining up for a shower. Then I catch myself of course. What a silly thing to imagine ... it's obvious I'm not thin enough ... I would still be in the soap factory, working off those last 43 pounds. so I look around, wondering who might be thin enough. Then I catch myself again, this time more seriously. "You're being completely ridiculous," I tell myself "... you're in Indonesia ... no one here is that skinny". I look around again, trying to make eye contact with other victims and all I get is blank stares, a docile smile at best. I wonder why I'm the only agitated one in the queues. Perhaps they don't know. Perhaps they still think they're off for a wash. I smile as the passing diplomats, gliding into an early shower. Finally I stop myself. I realise I'm being silly and reflect back back to the real holocaust and what really happened. Against my will, I start myself up again and wonder whether the plump arrivals got any joy out of hitting their target weight - if only for a fleeting, disobedient moment - on their freefall to size zero. 


This sounds - no is - quite immoral of course. I’m not saying it’s right at all. I’m just saying it happens. It happens to me. Perhaps I'm Queue Hitler.

Needless to say, picking the fastest line is quite a challenge with no time to dilly-dally.

The selection process starts from the top of the stairs. I quickly scope the entire pig pen for any obvious obstructions. Jakarta is dominated by Muslims and/or tanned folk so the skin guidelines don't apply. Indeed, potatoes are in the minority so I avoid them at all costs.

After weeding out the potatoes I look for old people or young families. These are the groups who finally reach the counter only to realise - surprise surprise - that they must have been in a queue for something because now they are at the front and someone is asking them for things. This results in them flustering through cluttered hand luggage for documents that could have been prepared 30 minutes ago.

They are even worse at the x-ray machine where, if I’m stuck behind one of them, I start mumbling “come on, get yourself ready” ... often within earshot. They rarely take heed and I hate them like diplomats.

Once the oldies and families are removed from the list, I'm down to about 7 remaining queues. The next step is to filter out the short, the frail and the thin ... these people, who are treated as equal citizens, make a queue look deceptively smaller. A headcount can quickly identify any clusters

The final step is to select a customs officer. Preferably someone young-but-not-too-young (well trained and efficient but not yet jaded by life), not trendy (won’t be distracted by fashion or mirrors), female (usually efficient, especially in relaxed muslim countries where they’re not allowed to flirt) and preferably someone in glasses (they are short-sighted and must focus on their work as they can’t see the rest of the pen).

I also avoid the book ends. Those officers have allocated themselves to the sides for a reason.

By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs, I've selected my queue.

Once committed, I start pegging myself against rivals ... noticing others who started with me and periodically charting my progress against theirs. This sometimes alerts me to an early disaster wherein I abandon my queue for theirs. But mostly it’s a learning exercise. If I’m doing slowly, I compare their queue with mine, their comrades and customs officer with mine, and hone my skills for next time. This is how I came up with the trendy filter and the potato filter. A watched pot indeed.

What else is there to do in a queue while listening to linguistic podcasts and wondering when the armpit sweat is going to start being visible to the other pigs. Did I mention it isn't air conditioned?

On a somewhat related note, an unusual thing happened to me a few weeks ago when I went through Chinese Immigration.

There is another universal truth: “Any airline or customs counter will take 4½ minutes to process the people before you, and 45 seconds to process you.

I was patiently standing in the "Foreigners" lane. Those before me seemed to take ages getting processed. Probably answering all their stupid foreigner questions and fumbling through their stupid foreigner documents. Fucking foreigners.

There are a lot of stamps in my passport and when it got to my turn he seemed to be interested in all of them. By the way his head was tilted, I suspected a serenade was coming and looked for a kissing motion in his lips.

Then I noticed something sitting on the counter beside me. It was a small white box and looked amateurish, like a prop from Doctor Who or a 4th grade woodwork disaster.

The top of the box had a weather-beaten sticker on it which said “Please Rate Your Server!”. Underneath this were green, yellow and red buttons which were labeled “Perfect”, “Satisfactory” and “Unsatisfactory” respectively.

I did a double take – quite literally (I looked up at the customs officer in shock, then back at the prop, then back again). I couldn’t quite believe that I was being asked to rate my service experience from Customs? Isn’t this putting a bit of pressure on them to let you through?

At this time I felt that my experience very Unsatisfactory. But I had a train to catch. So the next time he looked up I hit the “Perfect” button in full view. He noticed and smiled, then immediately stamped my passport and let me through with a smile. How Perfect is that?

On reflection, I wonder whether Customs people need to consistently rate Unsatisfactory in order to do their job well? Perhaps they are measured by how much of a hard arse they can be? Either way, my guy seemed pretty pleased with me. See? I really am a good person.