Worlds Apart

Jakarta is a throbbing mass of juxtapositions. Protesters burn the American flag in front of the U.S. embassy while the city pulses with the hopes and desires of a burgeoning consumerist society. I was photographing a group of five middle-aged men who were wading in a stagnant stream of opaque water, sorting out recyclable bottles and cans. As the men had begun to warm to me and were discussing their wages – three dollars per day – a ten year-old schoolboy dressed in his crisp white shirt and khaki shorts walked by, and after staring down at the men, spat a glob of mucous over the railing of the bridge onto their heads.
Fast-forward fifteen years. That same little boy is now sharing the sauna at the Hyatt with a group of university-age bule (foreigners). The boy, now in his mid-twenties, is breathing heavily, the sweat shimmering on his flaccid stomach and arms. He wears a sterling silver necklace, a Rolex on his wrist, and matching tattoos on his shoulders. He describes his recent education in finance at university in Melbourne, and how he now works in Jakarta for his father’s import-export textiles business.
Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it’s the same world. That’s because it’s not.