The darkness of the street nightlife in sexy-town Surabaya

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As I was in Surabaya on my fieldwork trip, I could hardly avoid taking another look around Dolly – the infamous largest spot of sex industry in the whole South-East Asia. And it also includes a dark corner for the waria.

A pimp in Dolly main street took some viagra out of his pocket for sale

The area of Dolly can be divided into four areas. And the division is hierarchic. First, there’s a highly commercialized area where you can find young pretty women sitting behind glass windows, all organized in brothels. In front of the windows there’s couple of pimps warmly welcoming you to join the offered pleasure. A lot more cozy area lies behind these streets, where you might find the ladies bit older and maybe not-so-girly-beautiful. But here are also those women who simply prefer to work in a lot more a relaxed atmosphere than the commercialized area. Here, she receives 70% of the customer’s pay, while in the popular area it’s rather the opposite.

But somewhere in the darkest corners of Dolly, bit further from the mainland, the free-lance prostitutes are earning their daily bread right there between the old Chinese cemetery tombstones. At the other end of the graveyard there’s also the location for the sex worker waria.

I guess I was there already for the fourth time, but today everything was different. The street was empty, there was no waria. I remember a picture of Jihan in our movie, where she shows that all the ladies working here are warias, “Here from the bottom up until there, they are all warias,” she said. When I met Jihan here last time, she limped slightly and showed me her leg – there was a huge cicatrix running along her leg for about 20 cm.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Razia! There are constant police raids here in Kembang Kuning (the Chinese cemetery). I ran away to hide myself, but I fell and broke my leg, “Jihan told her story, as she reached out her cicatrized leg on high heels.

Under the very same tree where I last talked to the boss of Kembang Kuning was emptiness, only a very few guys were hanging around. There were some lonely motorbikes passing by, which is by far not comparable with the situation when I was here last time. And this is after all, malam minggu – Saturday night, the party highlight of the week in Indonesia.

Lonely in Kembang Kuning, seeking for some soto

Finally I meet only a few warias hiding in the dark behind the tombs, afraid of the possible raid by the municipal police. A waria with round belly tells me that they come on motorbikes, dressed in private clothes. What do they want?

“Money!”

What do they ask?

Apparently they still ask for ID-card. This is one of the major causes of trouble for large number of warias. Most typically, warias run away from their family to bigger cities, but without a permission letter from their parents they can’t get a new local ID-card, which is needed in Indonesia, and the absence of which gives a great excuse for the municipal police to arrest (and/or harass) them. And to make some extra cash.

With every motorbike passing, the waria took a step back to hide in the dark. There’s a slow police car passing. She said that’s no problem, but I should still get out of here fast, because the infamous municipal police might find a single foreign woman hanging out here suspicious. Oh, well…

It’s clear that street sex workers are in many ways the most vulnerable group of sex workers. There’s no organization, nor pimp behind them to protect them. They are all out there alone, trying to sell their services to anyone interested. To feed themselves.

When this intersects with non-confirming gender identity as with the waria, things get even more complicated. I remember when me and Kiwa were shooting our film one year ago in Yogyakarta, warias used to go out around midnight. This year there was nothing before 2am! Because of the police, who is still sneaking around at midnight. No wonder my nights of observations lasting til morning.

Fresh vegetables at the night market in Surabaya

We take a becak ride back home together with my friend, an Estonian artist Minna Hint who came to give Indonesia and me a spontaneous visit. I was talking to the happy driver, who was pointing at all the hotels we were passing.

“Karaoke, karaoke!” he sais, showing me his twisting tongue, referring to the hotels which offer the roof for those in need of some privacy in this sexy-town Surabaya. “Karaoke, karaoke!” he laughs, pulls his tongue out again, also mentioning how much he likes the waria. And I just can’t believe how freely he talks about those things, although never even mentioning the word “sex”, but talking about it in all other possible ways!

Then again, I have always been aware of it being around – have been seeing it on the stages of dangdut parties or while wondering around Dolly: Indonesians are passionate, sensual people! After all, this is birthplace of tantric Budism and tantric Hinduism. Oh, well, life in Indonesia, contradictions…

“Karaoke, karaoke!” he pulls his tongue out again, as if imagining himself giving head, and suddenly there’s a huge crash…………………………………………………

The world is in turbulence, blackout, light, blackout, flight, omnium-gatherum of colours, pain, crash, and finally – the ground. My legs are twisted around the neck of Minna, my back is in pain.

Looks like we just had an accident!

There’s a man lying on the road next to us, and a motorbike besides him. He pulls himself together and quickly tries to escape from the location. The becak driver, whose becak is now in pieces, tries to stop him. He runs after him, catches his shirt and pulls him over, so eventually the motorbike crashes again badly. The driver is completely drunk.

Both, me and Minna are in a mild shock. We pay our becak driver half of the negotiated sum (still having the flashback of his twisting tongue in front of my eyes) and try to get away before the police get involved. We just want to get home.

Ludruk across generations

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As a follow-up from our last post about this amazing traditional theatre from East-Jawa, that I previously and provocatively even referred as the Indonesian version of theatrical genderfuck (huge question marks here),  I share some photos of our backstage session with two marvelous Ludruk actor/actresses: the youngest and the eldest ones, meet Arry and Santo.

And I just have to mark how much I love the feeling of the backstage of any theatre, probably as much as I would love to deconstruct the fabrics of our daily theatre of life.  But Ludruk is a phenomena to praise and remember. 

Men and warias on the stage, only

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Who would have thought that Surabaya – Indonesian second largest city in East-Jawa with eight huge malls, wide roads and largest sex industry in Southeast Asia – has a truly amazing traditional variant for theatrical genderfuck! Due to the screening of Wariazone I went for an extended weekend in Surabaya. As soon as I got off the train there were three lovely city-girls to meet me – Edit, Reni and Diana – and to drove us on their macho-motorbikes to the hub of some traditional cultural heritage of the waria in East-Jawa. This is the traditional theater where all the female parts are played by warias. It’s almost as if the distinction is drawn on the basis of our genitals – only penises allowed on the stage, and no vagina, no-no. Ludruk gives regular performances every Saturday night. Big hall of blue leatherette seats is filled with perhaps only a quarter section. Someone puffs the smoke with pleasure, others are laughing uproariously, some sleep jaws apart.

Powerful proud warias are standing in their shiny Javanese outfit and gorgeous make-ups on the stage, singing their songs in their slightly broken voice, gamelan orchestra holding the lazy line in the background. They are dancing gracefully in slow motion, trying to pour all their soul into the hands of their feminine beauty. And it can be observed, it can be followed with passion. Now and then a tiny man joins the ladies, dancing and singing along with waria, throwing some jokes to the audience – all the text is, of course in jawanese.

Ludruk backstage

Reni  a young waria herself, has never been here, but she has heard of Ludruk before. In about an hour she and Diana started to fidget restlessly, and not even a few minutes had passed when they were already typing some BlackBerry messages. For me, however, Ludruk affects with charm -  something authentic is radiating here. It’s a living theater to the simple lower class circles of the city, and they all (at least those who are not sleeping) seem to be very heated up. Shame that I don’t speak Jawanese. However, it is also well-perceived that Ludruk can be a phenomenon about to dye out, if not huge crowds of tourists will fall in love with it in near future, just like I did.

There was a man in the audience who pulled a rose jilbab on his head and danced in front of the stage – it’s a drag a’la Indonesia, happily mocking the existing gender attributes and division. However Edit thought he was trying to identify with the waria.

Senior waria Santo at the backstage

I also took a look inside of the tiny Ludruk cafe, where I was poured some tea by already familiar actress Santo, who’s also one of the charismatic characters in Wariazone. That night Santo was busy, but during my next visit we had a longer talk. Apparently for many of the Ludruk actors and actresses, theater is their whole life – it is also their home. They have their mandi (shower) right here behind the scenes next to the costumes stock. They have their tea and order the fried fast noodles in the theater café.

Narrow, almost invisible door leads to their tiny bedrooms, inhabited by many Ludruk actors. Among them, 70-year-old Santo, who has worked for Ludruk her entire life, it’s been more than 50 years! Her room consists of a small bed and space for exactly one person to stand. There are number of pictures hanging on the walls, of Santo wearing strong make-up and a large haircut – it’s Ludruk’s makeup. Not prostitute’s, she remarks. Between neatly folded piles of clothes some golden, bright, sparkling costumes attract my eye. This is the most decadent, most controversial of glamour that I have seen. This is the glamour of the poorest, the glamour of folk.

In her tiny room behind the scenes of the theatre

Today she was wearing faded pink shirt, no bra and worn-out breeches. Her eyes seem sound and sparkling with temperament. Sometimes when she speaks, she moves her huge lips widely and bulging out her eyes dangerously. Every ten minutes, she lights up another strong cigarette. Santo got involved with Ludruk at the age of 17, when she was forced to run away from home, because her conservative-religious family could not cope with her queer gender identity. This was back in 1955. And her first steps into Ludruk theater changed her life completely, as theater became her life. She tells some stories of the golden age of Ludruk in the 1970s, when all her lovers and adorers had to queue up for her. Now things have become more difficult, mainly financially. She claims to earn somewhat 10 000 rp (1 EUR!) with each show…

Diana, Reni and Edit paying homage to their sisters in front of Ludruk theatre

“Capcus” Reni cried outside in front of the theater later, catching smartphone images of Edit, me and Diana and the proud poster of Ludruk. Only then I learned that in the language of the waria, capcus means  “hurry up, c’mon, uh”. No wonder this is one of the most popularly used waria slang I’ve heard in use by the waria. Good old “live fast, die young, leave a nice corpse,” gets another twist and a layered meaning when hanging out with the waria.

In the breath of Buddhism, in the light of full moon

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Every year on the night of the full moon, the Weisak ceremony is held at the largest Buddhist temple of the world. 
 Some music for the athmosphere, play in next window.

In the world’s largest Muslim country, there is also the world’s largest Buddhist temple of Borobudur. Ten-storey stone building, whose structure is inspired by the human body and which forms a visual symbol of the Buddhist cosmology, is charged with blocks that have never been attached to each other by anything else than the power of history. 



Colours of the Weisak.

Only the conscious one can find meditating Buddhas under the bell-shaped domes, peeping out over the landscapes from behind heavy stone blocks. Between two giant mountains, one of which has poured the temple over with its ashes several times; between the earthquakes, while which the temple has still been standing stoically, the home of steadfast Borobuduri has lied over the last thousand years. The only scar the  temple hasn’t healed from is the memory of malicious Muslim bombers, to which the stone Buddhas had to admin their mortality. 

Every year on the fifth full moon day and night the pilgrims water the Borobudur energies with their deep honoring. The monks all over the world come here to wander from one holy building to another and celebrate Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. Affectionately we call it Buddha’s birthday here.


A sky of flying lanterns.

The monks had been meditating in silence on the foot of the temple for hours. Anxcious motion among the viewers gradually alternated with silence when the curious audience sank on the ground into bodiless state. So did we, the survivors of Vipassana, become nostalgic once listening to the recommendations of feeling the air passing into our noses. Eyes closed we enjoyed the breeze quietly touching our facial nerves.

Thus, when the monks began singing the full moon song, the dark sky strained from downpour cleared out and threw her moonshine on the meditating site. We took candles as the monks did and slowly span around the temple. As the monks ended their ritual by sending greetings to the moon, we just stayed to follow the lanterns flying to the enigmatic sky with our gazes of amaze.

Commodities you can’t enjoy in the West

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Somehow here’s an understanding as if West was the best place to live. I don’t know where this myths originates from, because my life has never been as spoilt as I have here in Indonesia, with a scholarship and just a bit more.

Somehow I ended up renting two homes. One just close to the university campus for travellers, friends or myself to crash in. The other one in the centre of the town, not more than a 5-minute walk away from the main street – a 2 bedroom private house with a rent of 320 euros a year. Yes, a year.

While in the campus room, I reach for my phone from bed each morning to send a text message to a fruit lady. Fifteen minutes later my freshly pressed mango, strawberry-tomato, avocado-chocolate or banana juice is waiting to be picked up.

The other house has no fruits around, instead a morning iced coffee rests on the living room table, delivered by the neighboring stall. Together with service – 17 cents.

When hungry, all you need to do, is to keep your ears open, as once in a while some music passes the house. Every Indonesian knows by heart what’s the rhythm of the barrow selling ice cream, soup or a bit more decent meal. When you hear, let’s say, Lambada, you better get up and stop the man with the barrow to enjoy a delicious dessert – no need to even leave the house.

Cooking at home in everyday life is as exclusive as a multi-course night at a restaurant in Estonia. Of course local street restaurants aren’t fancy places where one should walk in wearing high heels, on the contrary these are cozy little huts with no queues, homemade food and casual forms of etiquette. Menus are hanging on the streets, so just ride through the town and stop at a preferred rice with coconut sauce.

I also have my own laundry lady who washes my clothes, irons them, folds them neatly and brings them back to me. I study djembe under personal supervision and could afford a massage a few times a week. Things that were so far out of reach in my hometown.

To keep the post in balance I need to tell that here are things you can’t afford that often. A 2 euro bottle of beer and a 25 euro bottle of wine bring along a long moment of thought before I consider opening my wallet.

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What’s your religion?

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The question “What’s your religion?” always strucks as a lightening and paralyzes the answerer for a moment. 

“What’s your name, where are you from,” the children are one by one pulling our shirts just after we’ve moved into our new home. There’s seven of us living here and everyone has to answer the obligatory questions. We laugh with the children when we’re trying to explain where our countries are on a map, in the noisy yard we’re explaining about Brasil, Russia, New York, Singapour and Estonia. The sun is shining, the mood is cheerful, the children coquet and we giggle. Until a really little brat with his eyes innocent and big like saucers asks: “But what’s your religion?”

Suddenly the yard becomes absolutely quiet. The children are excited to get the answer, but the weird bules (white people) stare at each other with dismay. No one said a word and it seemed that the seemingly innocent question had rather brought along an existential crisis in the answerers than helped to position them in the eyes of the ones interested.
All the thoughts that at least I have in connection with religion are complicated and actually, I haven’t fully decoded them, and when I’d start explaining them the children would become bored and run away, and when surrounded by friends we usually avoid the topic of religion, as it’s impossible to analyse, as much as we avoid politics. But here the question is put right into my face – deal with it!
In Indonesia it’s easy: your fixed religion is the religion that’s marked on your ID card, next to your occupation: “Accountant. Muslim.” As all this religion system has to fit into a little box then the words full of meaning can either mark those who fasted the whole September and who wake in the middle of the night to pray, or those who enjoy eating pork and have seen a mosque only from the distance. Soon the marking is only nominal and stated by the government. Our friend Agus, whose one parent is a Buddhist and the other Confucianist, has tried to get rid of the Christian status for years, but with no results – the government does not approve. He also hasn’t found a word that could explain his situation, but he believes that Buddhism has the closest vibration to it.
But to tell that I don’t believe at all – they really don’t understand it here. What do you mean you don’t go to any temple, what do you mean you don’t know how to pray, how do you live your life? “You’ll find it, you’ll find it,” an old man with a compassionate look pats my shoulder and shows me a colourful book explaining how the Bible had foreseen the flight of Boeing 707 and Obama coming to power.
Then I need to explain that no one put religion as an everyday matter into me when I was a child, and thus it hasn’t become a habit without any doubts, and now when travelling I’ve seen into how many supra and natural objects it is possible to believe in, thus my critical mind has grown and I cannot support institutionalized religion. But still I’m happy there are so many religions in the world, because there’s nothing more interesting for a hobby anthropologist to discover than the invisible inner world of a person with its ritual manifestations.
Usually the conversations don’t reach the analysis and while the children from across the street are still waiting for their answer, while Jana is philosophizing about postmodern cosmopolites, we quickly need to invent a “word” that would fill in the empty slot. Suddenly Publio looks at Jana’s T-shirt and tells convincingly: “I believe in yellow orange.”

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Peace. Silence. Solitude. As much as it’s possible in Indonesia

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Hidden in the faraway lagoons on a deserted island in a blissful naked solitude everything is just perfect – between the nature and us. But then religion comes in and our nakedness suddenly becomes a shameful act. 

Two and a half hours stumbling on muddy forest paths covered with sinuous roots move the contracts of a modern day Robinson into distant memories and help get into the swing of the fantasy of the wild life. Every time I try to grab another winding liana to avoid falling I give it a sharpened look and try to make sure the convoulted withe around it is definitely a plant. Mud is suppressing between my toes and I feel my feet sinking deeper and deeper into the mud floor. We’ve been walking up and down the hills forever and it’s only now when I hear the waves splashing against the rocks, which means we’re getting to the other side of the island.

The guide cuts us a few longer sticks and says good bye. Alone on a deserted island. On yellow sand. In blue water. Under the golden sun. In the shade of green trees. With a red saucepan in orange flames. Symbolically we throw our clothes off and delve into our bliss. Oh the freedom it is to be in the nude on a secret beach of an overcrowded Muslim state. Our days pass in constant activity, like it’s common to a Robinson.

It’s difficult not to do anything even in a total solitude. Once we have to find branches and then light the fire. Then we need to bathe in the sea or wash ourselves. As soon as we’ve boiled coffee water in our red saucepan we fill it with sea water to cook food. And when the food has cooked we can start thinking about the next meal time.  

The nights here are even more beautiful. The flaming heat has turned into mysterious silence. The sea rises and thus swimming in the moon light is especially wonderful. We open our arak bottle and let our senses rise high while we philosophize about the world orders or decode the myths of the Javanese souls. Finally, overblown we land in our “shelter”, thinking the day in silence had been one of the most glorious we’ve spent on Java.

This idyll is going through my head in slow motion, Bambies are hopping in the forest, butterflies are flapping their colourful wings, stars are falling from the sky, I’d never want to come out of this bliss, until on one day…

Bule! Ada bule! (White people!) At the same moment I hear noise and laughter from the forest. About ten teenage Indonesians rush out from the forest, being like unwanted cannibals who destroy our idyll with a second and eat us with their eyes. I’m just taking my afternoon bathe in the nood, me and the nature, when girls with covered hair conquer the beach. Marie brings me a towel so I could cover my naked body, because the moment a human arrives, religion overpowers nature, and the thing I’d thought as being part of the nature has now become a shameful behaviour against God’s will. 

Hours pass and there’s not only one group of Indonesians at the beach, but at least four or five who all have become to enjoy the wild life, having seen that there are some Robinsons living at the beach already they don’t go to the next beach but sit down next to you and hiss Dari mana? (From where?) It still remains a mystery why should one hike 2.5 hours along impossible paths on a deserted island and then continue socializing as intensively as before. 

We leave the island the next morning and I have the memory of the little blue lagoon where I experienced my social isolation in a bliss.

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