Christmas has certainly hit Starbucks Indonesia in a big way.
They are selling a special Christmas Mix coffee. There are special Christmas concoctions and some other strange offer of a calendar once you achieve 24 stamps (stocks are limited). There is also a Christmas CD mix, on continuous loop since mid November.
I am writing this from a comfortable chair, nestled against a speaker at a less than comfortable volume. Today is a Muslim holiday. I think it's Lunar New Year or something similar that sounds like a hoot.
Currently playing in the cafe? A jazzed up version of RTRNR. Boom cha boom cha style.
Its antecedent? The little drummer boy, drawn out as a slow dirge.
I am sharing this Christmas CD with 2 women in the outdoor seating area. They would be my neighbours, but for the window. Both of them are wearing stylish glasses and a hijab (one yellow, one green). As is the custom here, each has ordered a tall, fluffy, stylised drink. If coffee was gay, this is what it would wear. // a drag version of food/coffee
One of the drinks seems to be a chocolate avocado creamy type thing (nicer in the mouth than on the eye). The other looks like one of the Christmas specials, with raspberry sauce drizzled over the whipped cream. It's supposed to look festive, but hers looks more like a grizzly murder in the alps.
They are both banging away furiously on their Blackberries and not paying attention to each other - another Indonesian social norm. Maybe they're even chatting with each other. Green is chain smoking, effortlessly incorporating quick drags into her Blackberry frenzy and occasionally flicking her glasses back up her nose. Call me a sentimentalist, but there's something about seeing Muslim women chain smoking that makes me feel confident about the future of our planet.
This is a strange country.
