Living life as a business developer

A few weeks ago I was on a business trip in one of the busiest Asian metropolitans, the capital of the biggest Muslim nation in the world, a giant city that I proudly call my first hometown. Welcome to Jakarta. If you think KL is crowded or jammed, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

In Jakarta traffic jams are as normal as the air you breathe. Whereas in KL jams are defined by rush hours in the morning and late afternoon, in Jakarta they are a constant phenomenon. From Tuesday to Thursday jams are horrendous, from Friday to Monday they make you want to pull out all the hair on your head. One by one. Most drivers lack a proper driving mentality and have huge moral issues. Traffic rules are nothing but a law book eating dust somewhere in the government archives. Policemen take bribes, the good ones that try to earnestly control traffic run away from sheer despair. Obviously, the infrastructure development can’t keep up with the explosive growth in circulating vehicles. Here, patience is truly a virtue.

Gigantic malls and sky scrapers decorate the city, in harmonious contrast with the poor urban slums that make Kampung Kerinchi look like a five star housing area. People are everywhere, so is garbage. And the city keeps expanding: high-rise buildings are popping up like hotcakes, making Jakarta more and more crowded and jammed.

Nevertheless, I love the city, where the language is my mother tongue, where hospitality is still a high-held value, where food comes in countless flavours and styles. I often hear Malaysians boast about theirs, but I’m sorry to say, nothing beats the Indonesian kitchen. Here, food is truly a delight. Once it hits my taste buds, they go wild from excitement.

Now I’m in Macau, again for business. A buzzing country - or should I say city? - with not even half a million inhabitants. Most people appear like they could all be an extended family and keep speaking to me as if I look like I could understand them. The most appropriate response is “Huh?” Upon hearing this, they stare back at me and start babbling in ten other Chinese dialects before finally switching to English. Note to self: learn Mandarin.

Macau means two things: gambling and gambling. There are 24-hour casinos at every corner of the street, some more massive than the other, with screaming neons and huge statues, incorporating malls with shops selling unaffordable goods, fancy hotels and restaurants. It’s like Las Vegas in Chinese, truly impressive.

The casino that I just came back from, Venetia, is probably the most un-Asian thing I've ever seen in my life (see photo). The whole design is inspired by Venice (and copied from the version in Vegas), complete with European looking houses and bridges and even gondolas with Caucasian drivers that sing to passengers as they guide their boats through the perfectly fake canals. And you can hear Italian opera music from the loudspeakers hanging all over the place. I'd say the whole of it is a bit over the top, but the folks seem to love it.

Tomorrow I’m off to Hong Kong for three days. Looking forward to it, although perhaps I should wear a sign on my forehead saying “No speak Chinese”. I believe the Honkies speak better English though; Hong Kong was ruled by the British whereas Macau was a Portuguese settlement. Hopefully I’ll have enough time off to do some proper sightseeing and of course shopping. A girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Bangkok is next in the agenda. I’ve never been there either so that should be fun. And cheap, that's quite pleasant as well. All in all, being a business developer is not too bad. I’ve always wanted to do some travelling for work and here I am now fulfilling my dreams. It surely is tiring but at least I get to see places and I’m getting paid for it. Good fun.