Ruteng is the city (part 2)

The comments from those people that listened to ‘Ruteng is the City’ (the song that I mentioned on my blog last week) made me realise that I hadn’t really explained about the youth culture here. Well the simple answer is that there isn’t one – there are no bars or cafes, bowling alleys or cinemas, the list of what there isn’t is infinite: there is no where to meet and there’s nothing to do. This, in my opinion, is something that could do with changing!

However, the more complex answer is that of course there is a youth culture, it is just enacted in a very different (and somewhat less visual) way. This was brought sharply into focus last week when I attended a hip-hop concert. Yes really, I went to a hip-hop concert in Ruteng. I didn’t know how to approach this on the blog, what is really important to understand is how unusual this is (not just me going listening to hip-hop… not really my cup of tea, but beggars can’t be choosers)… Go back and read the first paragraph again – there is NO ENTERTAINMENT IN RUTENG – so the advent of a concert, & a hip-hop concert at that, was a surreal event.

The concert was organised to promote HIV/Aids awareness (remember the group with the synthetic penises?) It included break-dancing, beat-box, the winner of Indonesian Idol, and the act everyone was waiting for, Lipooz & The Ruteng Clan singing ‘Ruteng is the City’. This was all pleasant enough for a while… everyone sat nicely wearing their hoodies & sporting a fair amount of bling. But then the inevitable happened – the two bule were identified as the ‘most beautiful women in da house’ & dragged up on stage to dance with Lipooz.

By 10pm other people were dancing, but the atmosphere was slowly turning sour, a couple of small fights started, a few people were chucked out for being drunk, the ‘hello mistering’ was getting intense – I decided to leave. Maybe the same would have happened in the UK, but I couldn't help thinking that people had just got over excited. Entertainment is such a rarity here that people couldn’t contain themselves; didn’t know how to behave. This leads to a viscous circle of further events or venues being refused permission. Having thought on this for a while, my conclusion is that Ruteng needs a pub (for the good of the community obviously, not just me!)… maybe I’ll start a petition!