THE THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

One's school years are supposed to prepare you for the rest of your life. Which almost certainly explains why I know more about tropical diseases and pests afflicting food crops than about, as an example, central heating (which is essential to civilized life).

As well as how to talk to the locals. Elsewhere.

Hingga hari ini saya bercakap-cakap bahasa melayu Betawi lebih baik daripada bahasa Latin atawa bahasa Yunani klassik. Admittedly, none of my neighbors that I know of speak Latin or Greek, and three people in this neighborhood actually do speak Batavia Malay.
I feel that Latin and classical Greek might have been more useful.
"Malaeorum-Betawi loquor meliore ...... "

Part of that was the stimulating educational environment in an area where there were, in fact, a large number of ex-colonials and their children. The Dutch left Indonesia in 1949, those people who had chosen to stay and become citizens of the 'republik' (warga negara) were increasingly persuaded out during the fifties and sixties, and the last remnants left Irian Jaya (the western part of New Guinea) in 1963. Because the overpopulated seaboard provinces of Holland were still rebuilding after WWII, returnees found Brabant a more hospitable environment. Eindhoven had become an industrial hub, engineers and doctors were needed in the undeveloped south, there was more housing available .....

The food was better too.

An  academic and perfectly standard illustration of the countryside in Java, such as
many people hung on the living room wall to remind them of their past somewhere
much warmer and sunnier, where it wasn't frigid for six months of the year.
And they weren't living in cramped quarters situated in a bog.

That probably explains why, in addition to frikandel and other unidentified fried objects, I tend toward curry (guleh), soto (a soup with meat, vegetables, and a starch component, plus yellow curry spices), rendang (coconut and chili meat stew), lalap (raw vegetables with chili paste), rudjak (blanched vegetables with a sauce comprised of fish paste, chili paste, lime juice, sugar), bami goreng, and nasi goreng (fried noodles and fried rice respectively).

And herring, of course. Herring is soul food.
But you already understood that.

A  colder and wetter place

Even decades after returning to the Bay Area, this place still seems 'exotic'. There's no herring, sambal is still a rarity (bless Huy Fong Foods and Sriracha, without them living here would be very burdensome indeed), many essential food stuffs are only available in Chinese shops, plus other than sourdough and batard the bread is somewhat lousy at best, most of the commonly available sandwich meats are crap, good cheese is a specialty store item, ideas about coffee and tea are absurd, and nobody, NOBODY, takes malaria seriously.

Well. Neither do I. It isn't really an issue here. California is a desert.
And other than for my apartment mate, mosquitoes are rare.
Her, they unerringly find and torment.


One should always have a mosquito net, just in case.
Hers is hung over her bed year round.
Mine, hardly ever.


I really should have learned more Latin.



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