Sunday, December 8, 2013

Slighted on Malioboro



Just gone 10pm yesterday's buskers again for the first time. The previous night a number of them made a couple of calls with not much spacing between. A pair of heavily made-up Trannies with home-made stringed box and maracas were striking. These now were grunge street kids that would fit like a charm into Glasgow and Manchester: ragged dark threads, tattoos and piercings. The boys infused with a touch of Young Romantics looking away from the eye of the imaginary camera. Late teens and up. A brief chorus with harmonies, rising lilt with the night, the night recurring in the lyric. Pitching it out front of the entry-way one and one half minutes, the collector entering and approaching the tables and quickly away. Beggars cannot be treated with disdain in an Islamic community, much less street musicians. Odd they thought better of approaching the white guy.... One of the others came back with the packet of Crisps, the inverted foil making a nice purse. Too Joe-cool for his own good the tall lanky Collector. Last night another lass did the rounds for this crew. The bule, the white tourists, are more of a younger, hipper crowd in this cultural market of Jogja, perhaps less liberal with their coin, interested in the high-colour printed tees, jewelry and batiks. Shortly Hong Kong Cha Lit. Journal will publish the piece titled The Ang Moh from these pages of travel, where a grossly crippled beggar in Geylang Serai assumed the chap in the panama, quintessential Englishman such as peddled the opium to his people so many years, was not worth the effort, nothing to be expected from the likes of him.


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