A Little Piece of Indonesia in Hong Kong

Jakarta Globe, Antony Sutton, Feb 15, 2015

Hong Kong’s Victoria Park has become the go-to hot spot for Indonesian
domestic workers on their one day off in the week.  (JG Photos/Antony Sutton)

There are an estimated 100,000 Indonesians living and working in Hong Kong; about 80 percent are female, with many working as domestics for local families.

Their work can be varied. For some, it is taking care of children. Others find themselves taking care of older family members who need constant supervision.

Stories like Erwiana, the maid who was beaten and tortured so severely she could hardly make it to the airplane that returned her home, are not the norm but they are the ones that make the headlines.

For many, Hong Kong is a place of work; an alien landscape with an alien language. But as is the way of expatriates the world over, Indonesians find their own way of keeping close to their roots.

Hong Kong plays host to its famous Rugby 7s tournament every year. Fans come from around the world, paint their faces, wear funny costumes and do their best to drink Wanchai dry for a few days’ festivities. The fans bring a little bit of their countries with them and identify themselves by their chants and clothes.

The Indonesian community is no different. Except they express themselves on a weekly basis. Hong Kong Island becomes a little Jakarta for a day. The famous double-decker trams are filled to overflowing with the chattering mob and their one day off the leash.

Victoria Park is the de facto center of the Indonesian community on Sundays. In the same way that English football fans are notorious for taking over town centers around the world, drinking and dancing in fountains, the Indonesians, nearly all of them women, gather in the park to catch up on the latest gossip from home with their friends.

It is certainly a sight to behold. The brave ones sit out on the grass on their makeshift mats, digging into their picnic baskets and braving the heat. Others, perhaps early arrivals, find the positions with the best shade and they too dig into their food. Amid the tai chi practitioners and joggers, vendors make their way among the small pockets, flogging further little tastes of home.

On the roads surrounding the park, other women set up stalls selling favorite dishes from the home country while still more people take up residence on footbridges for their picnics and natters.

They are everywhere: under the overpass, on the road side, under the trees. Hundreds of Indonesian women turning downtown Hong Kong in to their own turf for a few short hours. And if they run out of supplies, this being Hong Kong, the island of the entrepreneur, there is an Indonesian market of course!

For some, the day begins even earlier. It’s Sunday — a party day in Wanchai. As many drunks are winding their home from their own exertions, some of the girls are about to start their own partying and they dress to kill.

I was sat in one of the pubs fairly early on and there was already one group of girls taking over one corner of the bar, laying into the beers and food. Another group came and sat at my table as I was nursing a beer and watching a rerun of English football on one of the screens.

The girls came and joined me, calling out familiarly to the lone, harried barman, “Hello my darling,” ordering their food and drinks without a glance at the menu.

More friends would arrive (“Hello sexy lady!”) and soon the table was creaking with food, smartphones and handbags. I could hardly see the game which was just as well: my team was losing.

One girl, all legs and cleavage, ordered a soup only to return it, saying it contained pork, and ordered something else.

One of the girls was Skyping her son back in Indonesia. She would hug one of her friends asking which one he would choose for a girlfriend. It was good old-fashioned banter; the kind you find in bars around the world.

It was approaching Sunday lunch time, they were half-way through their party and they were determined to make the most of the few free hours they had to be together. It was a similar tale in other bars. One had a handful of girls and they were singing along to Abba songs while a couple of nonplussed old-timers sat by the door watching the world go by.

Apparently, things get wilder in other venues. The girls I saw were rowdy but polite and respectful, although the one who offered me some of her chips did say perhaps I was correct not to take one because “you are already fat enough!”

Monday was hours away yet early evening saw many of the girls start to make their journeys home. You couldn’t help but wonder: What would their employers think if they new what the quiet, demure child minder got up to on her day off?

Like generations of expats before them, and that could mean anyone from those hoary old sea dogs who settled in Indonesia back in the 17th century to penny pinching English teachers and high-flying oil and gas types, the Indonesian in Hong Kong seeks out the familiar in their alien environment. And far from the dulling societal norms of patriarchal home, these women cut loose in any number of ways.

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