IT’S WEDDING TIME AGAIN!

ITS WEDDING TIME AGAIN!

HOW NOT TO GET INTO X2

On Sunday morning I woke up covered in bruises. There was a big black shocker in the centre of my delicate back in the shape of a foot. Covering the rest of my lazy morning body was a galaxy of blue, mustard, and swamp green other little buggers dotted all over my loamy limbs. I looked to the left, I looked to the right, and I studied my weary being looking back at me in the filthy mirror of my inner-city hovel. Something was missing from that usually sultry structure. I studied myself more closely and realized that what appeared to be missing, was not gone but rather had shrunk. That shrunken piece was the part of me that held my head high, put a strut in my swagger, and my nose turned up to the clouds, and now, it was cowering in the most useless part of my body, appearing to have from the night before shrivelled to the size of a puny speck of a pea. We all know that I am a girl, so I’m not talking about the one eyed trouser snake that also changes size and shape. I’m talking about the other massive part of a human that navigates success and failure, conquest and loss. On close inspection I realized that the wonderful, staunch, always dependent ego that had been shoved up my round behind from the moment my gawky teenage features bloomed into a moving masterpiece, had not only been severely bruised from the night before but had also quickly deflated. As I reflected on my shrunken ego the puzzle of the night before had come into place. Ladies and gentlemen of the scathing jury of blog trolls and curious readers, I was indeed kicked off my high horse on Saturday night. It hurt, the pain cut deep, and the bruises were a rainbow of shame. And not only was it a painful landing flat on my ass in a metaphorical pile of shit, but the fall was accompanied by a looting of the huge booty of ego that I had been lugging around from club to club across Jakarta.

So how did this all happen? How did a young, vibrant, upstanding woman of society fall victim to such a heinous bravado battery and ego pillage?

For those novices to the Princess Jakarta guide to life, with even the slightest familiarity with Princess Jakarta and her psychotic outbursts, you will not be surprised to hear that the Princess likes to play Swarovski-encrusted, haute-couture hardball. She likes to keep things high-end, exclusive, excessive, and out of reach of those who don’t make the cut. Princess Jakarta says “Jump!”. As her minions, we are compelled to say nothing more than “how high?” and pull out the credit cards. On that fateful Saturday night, Yours Truly fell victim to the consequences of not complying with Princess Jakarta’s orders. She said jump, and I stepped up to the plate without the requisite Nike Air Max de jour. And without the essential equipment to make that glittering jump through the hoops of social decadence, I fell off my high horse and hit the ground hard.

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty of that brutal Saturday night beating I was so heinously subjected to. Our group, as diverse as a Benneton advertisement and as educated as the Oxford dictionary swaggered up to the doors of one of Princess Jakarta’s most popular nightclubs. The glittering, gaudy, and epically huge X2. “Ex Two” is how you pronounce it. “To the max” is how you handle it. And “black out” is how you remember it. Your’s Truly missed the memo on how to dress for it. And that was the chink in my ghetto-gold-dolla-swinging chain that night. I wore these jeans:

Obviously I’ve watched too much Jenny from the Block and thought that slashed jeans would pass for “sophisticated, laid-back cool” in a “boho-chic-rocker-I’m-so-awesome-I-don’t-need-to-dress-up-EVER” kind of way. I must not have watched enough Fashion TV in my life because I couldn’t have been more wrong or inappropriately dressed as I discovered.

My comrades and I rocked up to the velvet ropes of entrance, laughing, joking, loving life and gagging for the pulsating experience of glorious X2 that awaited us. We stepped onto the red carpet. We sauntered past the security guards, half the group smoothly walked past the guest list. I was singled out and stopped (a first!). I was mortified. I was denied entry because I was wearing torn denim. The skinny little door woman  smugly pointed to the left. A new sign had been erected at the entrance showing that torn denim was not allowed to enter the complex. The dress code of X2 had been updated and I shockingly did not comply with it. The door (whom I am politically correctly referring to as) woman (and not typically as “bitch” despite very much wanting to so refer to her as) sneered as the words came out. I’m sure she was being very diplomatic in enforcing the policy of X2 and the legitimate dress code, but all I was hearing was “NO ENTRY”, “REJECTED”, “DENIED” and “SOCIAL FAUX PAS!!!”. My anger rose and the ego crept out of my fiery loins. My ego was clutching and pulling for dear life at whatever strings she could grab, but no efforts were working and nothing was getting me in. The white horse that carried me up the red carpet was beginning to buck. I was losing my grip of the reigns, and the final denial of entry was the kick to my back and I felt myself falling hard off my high horse. Once I hit the ground, I could feel pieces of my precious ego being stripped away by the savage sassy patrons who walked past me in their appropriate dress code-friendly attire. What followed was a walk of shame to Red Square, the place where the less you wear, the more likely you are to get in. I got in.

The lesson learnt was not only that looks are everything in Princess Jakarta, but also that just because you’re a snotty nosed expat doesn’t mean you can get in anywhere your heart desires. The “horse” was in reality a pair of 10 inch high shiny black Guess stilettos. The “kick” was actually the irritating smile of a pretty little door (here we go again) “lady” through which the words of “ENTRY DENIED” were spat out into my face through broken-yet-just-as-aggravating-as-proper-entry-rejecting-like-sounding-English. The dress codes of clubs in Princess Jakarta are not (only) made to keep out those whom Princess Jakarta regards as “commoners”. They’re made to keep the clubs in line with the ideal standard of Princess Jakarta – high-end, exclusive, excessive, and out of reach of those who don’t make the cut. And if you want to be a part of that glittering scene, you have no choice but to deal with it. Here are some common standards that you would be hard pressed to find in Australia and in certain circumstances would probably be considered discrimination, but are common entry requirements and dress codes in Jakarta:
High heels only
No shorts on men
No torn denim
No singlets (wife beaters) on men
Not indigenous looking (denial of entry based on racial appearance, which is sad but true)

It’s the high heels thing that has upset a lot of tree-hugging feminist mates of mine.  Well, not really actually.  Even the misogynistic tree-chopping fashionista mates of mine disagree with the onerous dress-codes of this city.

Now ladies and gentlemen it is evident that to compensate for the loss of my treasured ego, since that horrible night I’ve been over loading on the superlatives. But it hasn’t helped much because nobody understands my superfluous use of proper English. However that’s not really the point of this post. The point I want to make should rather help those of you reading to navigate your way around the social discrimination of Princess Jakarta and hopefully as a result nobody else will fall victim to the ego battery and swagger-theft that I experienced. If you want to go out and get white girl wasted with the nocturnal heavyweights of Princess Jakarta the rules are simple: heels high, skirts short, and more make up than a drag queen. With that ammunition and a killer rack, you’re guaranteed to get through the door and if you’re lucky you might even snap up a big fat sugar daddy to pay for the cocktails and the morning after cab fare! And that’s a night out according to Princess Jakarta.

(yes, I know this is Choi Min-sik. Let us all agree that he makes a great sugar daddy kind of looking chap)