General Living

From Isabel and Simone
1. What kind of pets do they have?
2. How are the houses different?

From Natalie and Demoray
1. What was the difference between Jakarta and Khaula Lampur?
2. Are their more houses or apartments?

ANSWER: My husband and I own 2 dogs and we brought them here so I was very interested in the types of services provided for pets. Most in the Muslim religion are not allowed to touch dogs without a special ritual washing of their hands and face after they touch the animal especially if the dog licks them. This makes Muslims especially scared of dogs. Even in Kuala Lumpur, people would cross the street if I was walking my dogs. So I was surprised to find numerous pet shops, I counted 5 of them one day all within one block of each other. I don't think exotic pets are the norm for people, they stick to the regular domestic variety like cats, dogs, birds, and fish with cats being in abundance since there are so many strays. We have to be careful though, I've read stories on the Animal Rescue Shelter website where volunteers have saved many animals from people intending on having them for dinner so I make sure I know where my dogs are at all times.

As far as houses go, I recently was house hunting and I can't see much differences between the houses here and the ones in the U.S. except that I looked a lot of places that we would consider mansions and decorated very ornately. There is an exception however and they are called kampungs which means village (see photo). The housing compound that I stay in now is in the middle of a kampung and it's very interesting everytime I leave the security gates. A kampung is where most people live-small houses, low-rise, red roofs, thin walls, village dwellings, narrow alleys and rundown shanty-land. They are not apparent, more hidden behind the bigger newer buildings and big roads. You will know when you're in a kampung, it feels different, most would say Third World shock horrors, I admit when we first got here and we were driving down the narrow road to the housing compound I was frightened. There are people and children everywhere, laundry hanging on lines between houses, numerous street peddlars, small shack like shops selling anything imaginable, car and motorbike washes, mini-marts, chickens, and of course traffic...it can be overwhelming sometimes. It's hard to imagine that once you leave the main road of the kampung there is huge city outside but ironically it's very quiet within the walls of the compound. I'm not sure of the number of houses versus apartments but since there a lot of people living in Jakarta I would say they are probably even. Everyone has to live somewhere right?

At first glance the differences between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta are obvious. KL is very modern looking while still maintaining a lot of trees and parks whereas Jakarta seems like a concrete jungle trying to appear as a modern city. Since Indonesia is the 4th largest populated country on the planet there is overcrowding and air pollution...lots of pollution. I remember flying into Jakarta and I had the visor open on the plane and one minute it was bright and sunny, I had my sunglasses on, and then it the sky just turned brownish-gray. The literacy of the people also seems to be lacking in comparison to KL (we'll discuss this more in education), there are fewer English speaking people here than KL which may be because KL schools teach English. The streets of KL are laid in a grid pattern no matter which suburb you're in so it's a lot easier to wander and explore areas you normally would not be in whereas in Jakarta there seems to be no ryhme or reason the the way the streets are laid out and if you want to explore an area, you have to have a specific place in mind. The development of both cities is different too. For instance in KL if an area is being redeveloped, they change the entire area here in Jakarta a new building will go up next door to a building that looks like it needs to be torn down, there just isn't any clear line between commercial and residential areas or the rich from the poor. These are my early observations of the differences between Jakarta and KL and I'm sure I'll think of some more.