Sidewalk Drinking in Jogjakarta

Mas Noto—not his real name, of course—is becoming quite famous in Jogjakarta as a vendor of lapen: a potent, palm sugar-based alcoholic brew that’s popular in Central Java. His roadside stall (warung), in a relatively strategic position in the busy city centre, is always full of customers—ranging from university students, musicians and pedicab drivers to thugs (preman) and other nocturnal wanderers—all looking for a cheap way to get drunk. Come the weekend, the clientele spill out onto the sidewalk in front of the warung, queuing up to get their drinks and jostling for a place to sit. “It gets to the point that I just run out of mat space for them,” says Mas Noto.

The increasing popularity of his warung makes Mas Noto happy. His profits are undeniably on the up; but the scale of his profit is not just determined by the keenness of his clientele—it also depends on how many police officers come to ask for money at the warung. This is called ‘security money’ (uang keamanan): money that owners of unlicensed drink stalls have to pay the police to avoid being shut down. This cash is not paid to the police on an institutional basis, but to the individual police officers who regularly drop by.

According to Mas Noto, his place receives visits from no less than ten police officers every night; this number may rise to as many as fifteen on the weekends. The amount of the money given varies, depending on whether the collectors come by car or by motorbike. If they arrive by motorbike, they are usually paid Rp 10.000. But if they turn up in a kijang (sports utility vehicle), Mas Noto pays Rp 50.000 to each carload, even though there may be only three officers inside. “The ones who travel by car are of higher ranks, you know—so they ask for more,” he explains.

In a single night, he may shell out from Rp 100.000 to Rp 150.000 in security fees. The amount keeps escalating from year to year, along with the popularity of his warung.



Mas Anton (also a pseudonym) is in a slightly different situation to Mas Noto. He also sells liquor ‘under the table’ at his cigarette kiosk (warung rokok). He usually pays his security money in cigarettes, so he calls it ‘cigarette money’ (uang rokok) instead.

You won’t hear the din of drunken chatter here, or the sounds of clinking glasses and coarse, drunken laughter; the alcohol sold here is taken home. At a glance, this place looks just like an ordinary cigarette-vending stall. There are no chairs or tables, not even a mat. The only obvious difference is the boisterous intensity of business because of the take-out alcohol sales.

“If I only sell cigarettes, there’s not much profit; but if I also sell alcoholic drinks, it’s much better. Usually, from a person who buys a pack of cigarettes, I only make a profit of Rp 500 at most. When someone buys a bottle of vodka, I get between Rp 2.000 and 3.000; from Topi Miring or McDonald [both local brands of liquor], I get Rp 1.000 to 2.000 per bottle. And this doesn’t include the money I make when they buy mixers, like Coca Cola or Sprite, at the same time. Then the profit is even higher, right? So that’s why I sell alcohol,” says Mas Anton.

But surely his profits must be limited by the quantity of free cigarettes he doles out every day: “I can use five packs of cigarettes a day for ‘security’. On a Saturday night, it’s more—around ten packs,” he explains with a grimace.

Mas Noto and Mas Anton both acknowledge what a big headache this police conduct gives them. They are glad that their places are so well-known and that they are inundated with customers from all over the city. But increasing popularity and larger crowds mean that there are more and more police coming to collect security or cigarette money as well.

And this is not to mention the stigma they incur in Islamic Java—being branded as immoral people, as sellers of forbidden (haram) goods and purveyors of social malaise, forces them to live in semi-isolation. “Selling hard drinks is a line of work you can’t take much pride in. My family and I have never had the courage to be honest with people when they ask about my job. It would be very different if I were a doctor or an engineer; we’d be sure to tell everybody about it then, even if they didn’t ask,” says Mas Anton, laughing with a hint of bitterness.

Mas Noto holds a similar opinion: “Please don’t write my real name or the address of my place in your article,” he whispers. “It’s not that I’m afraid of being known or afraid the police will arrest me. But I am scared that even more officers will come around to ask [for money], if I become known on account of your writing. Besides that, if too many of my family in the village found out, I’d be really embarrassed.”

But even though Mas Noto prefers to go incognito, he is not entirely ashamed of his illicit trade: “Although many may think my business is deviant, it enables me to support my family and employees. I don’t mean to be arrogant, but my house in the village has more than one storey these days.”

It is clear that the business of selling illicit alcohol in Java is fraught with ambivalence, but that somehow the underground drinking culture remains strong. I decide to ask some friends from campus about how they feel about drinking one evening, while we’re hanging out eating chicken saté by the mobile night stall near my boarding house.

“I can say ‘no’ when I’ve been drinking,” says Herman, a student from Jogjakarta. “My parents always taught me to be well-behaved and friendly towards other people. That’s why I find it hard to say ‘no’ about all kinds of things: in Java, we call that pekewuh (shame). If I have friends playing computer games in my room for hours and I’m tired, for example, I don’t feel good asking them to stop—even though I really, really want them to. I don’t say what I mean. But once I’ve had a drink, I feel courageous and able to refuse things—even I can be like that.”

My friend Ari, a nightclub DJ, says that a having a few drinks helps him do his job with more flair: “I really enjoy DJ-ing. I’m not hung up on what people think and feel more confident to play the tunes I like best. If I’m happier, the audience is happier too. It’d be hard to make the audience happy, if I wasn’t, wouldn’t it?”

Deni, another fellow student, takes a different attitude. He feels valued when he drinks: “I’m a quiet guy and skinny too. People used to take advantage of me because of that; at my boarding-house they’d ask me to go get them cigarettes or drinks or whatever. I didn’t mind at first, but when it happens so often, it gets boring. But after they found out how well I can hold my drink, that all changed. My friends at the boarding-house, with their big bodies and big mouths, often threw up before me when we drank together. They started to respect me. They figured I was hanging around with lots of preman, so they got scared and stopped ordering me around,” he says.

Ketut, who is very religious and whose father is a lecturer at one of the private universities in Bali, also feels that he gets something positive out of drinking alcohol. He says it helps him make friends: “Conversation flows better when we’ve been drinking. You don’t have to be polite and formal—it’s ‘Vodka Connecting People’, isn’t it?” he says, pointing to the same slogan on the t-shirt he’s just bought. Besides all these good points, they are all aware of the health consequences of binge drinking. “Ya, drinking too much is bad for your liver, isn’t it?” says Deni, who has just lost a friend to drink-related liver disease. “He was a good footballer too,” he says, “strong on the field, strong at drinking. It got to his liver and he died young.”

Ketut, who is sitting next to him, interjects: “Death is in the hands of God, who doesn’t care whether you can handle your drink or not. There are lots of old people in my village who have been drinking since they were young and they’re still fit and drinking.”
Ari has been quiet for a while now, obviously thinking things over. “In my view,” he says, “the health issue only affects certain people. What worries me is when people associate drinkers with preman, criminals and brawlers—that’s what they say on the TV too. I’m bored and fed up of hearing it. It also influences how people view my job. Just imagine—my parents could ban me from DJ-ing if they watched some TV programme that says all DJs are drunks. They’ve already threatened to stop paying my university fees if I keep DJ-ing.”

Herman tells a similar story of parental concern: “One of our neighbours went as far as to stop his son from hanging out with me because people were saying I drank too much. My own father took me to the healer (dukun) to get a blessing. I’ve been forced to pray in the mosque every day since then. I don’t socialise in the village much these days, and I’ve told my father that I don’t drink when I’m in Jogja.”

Deni, on the other hand, comes from Flores, where drinking is less illicit. “Both my parents know I like to drink—in Flores, all the kids drink sopi [a strong local alcoholic concoction]. Since I’ve been studying here, though, I’ve told them that I’ve cut down. I’m embarrassed; and I think they’d reduce my monthly allowance if they thought I was spending it on alcohol. I’m scared of that,” he explains.

The conversation takes a new turn as my friends start weighing up what has been said. They start thinking of the morning after, about feeling lousy with a headache and a churning stomach. This is what they call “pusing habis mabuk”—hangover.

At this point, Ahmad, the Madurese saté vendor—who has been quietly eavesdropping—joins the banter: “You have to drink one tablespoon of coconut oil if your head is still spinning and pounding. Then your unpleasant feelings are guaranteed to vanish,” he says. He got the recipe for this hangover cure from his father. He tells us that he really liked drinking alcohol before he married; he used to go drinking with his friends in Madura nearly every night. Once, he admits, he drank a huge amount of liquor on a friend’s birthday. “I drank about ten bottles of Topi Miring and McDonald with four of my buddies. Next day, my drunkenness just wouldn’t go away. My father recognized the symptoms and forced me to drink a spoon of coconut oil. It was a miracle, mas—in no time my symptoms disappeared and I came to. But my father was furious with me. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house for a week. Every time I go drinking at a friend’s place, I always keep a supply of coconut oil on hand,” he explains, laughing at this memory of his youth.

According to Deni, at every party in Flores—be it a wedding, a birthday or a party for no reason in particular—there is always plenty of sopi. All the guys get smashed on sopi, so it’s not uncommon for them to wake up with a hangover the following day: “We have a tradition by the name of balas (revenge): if sopi makes us hung-over on the morning after, we retaliate by drinking one more glass of sopi to cure it. Its effectiveness is proven!” he explains.

He and his friends from Flores continue this tradition now that they are studying in Jogja. They carry out the balas tradition whenever they are suffering after a party: “The difference is that here, when we balas, the revenge we take is usually excessive. We don’t just balas with one small shot glass, but by drinking several more bottles. So that’s how it is—we’re continuously drunk until the money runs out. Usually when a binge like this happens, we stay drunk for three days and three nights straight,” says Deni, laughing.

“I often receive invitations to attend parties because I can really hold my drink. They’d all like to outdo me. It’s not bad—I can get drinks for free and there are plenty of people who look up to me,” he says with pride.

Ketut has a slightly different strategy. According to him, fresh cow’s milk is the most effective medicine: “It’s like… the evil drink must be opposed by a good drink. Alcohol is an evil drink, isn’t it?—so you have to fight it with milk, a drink that’s good for your health. It does the trick—just try it. I often do this when I have a hangover after drinking arak (a highly potent distillate of coconut palm or rice wine) or vodka at my boarding house,” he explains.

Herman interjects sagely: “If we’re already addicted to coffee and we don’t drink it for one full day, we’ll surely get a headache; and we can get rid of it immediately by drinking a cupful. A headache caused by not drinking coffee has the same character as a headache from a hangover. So coffee too can be used to cure a hangover.”

Ari claims that the best cure for a hangover is simply iced water. “Drinking excessive amounts of alcohol makes us dehydrated, doesn’t it? So just drink as much water as possible. It’s refreshing and can make the sick feeling disappear. If you don’t want to get hung over in the first place, it’s better if you use ice-cubes every time you drink strong drinks; or while you’re drinking alcohol, balance it by drinking water, too,” he advises with confidence.

“Just last night, I went to a Jack Daniels party. My boss had a birthday, and treated the whole staff where I work. My head is still pounding a bit now, but it’s cooled down from how it was a few hours ago. Umm… look—the iced water in the fridge is all finished and I’m standing upright. That’s proof, isn’t it—iced water is powerful,” he adds.

A similar note is echoed by Pak Senen, a neighbourhood pedicab driver who has just pulled up to the sidewalk, when I ask him about his favourite hangover cure. He says that he often has a hangover after drinking lapen and that water is the most effective medicine for him: “It’s cheap,” he says, “But the water cure takes a longish time. If you want it to be quick, just take Panadol [a headache tablet containing acetaminophen and a dash of caffeine]. You’ll get well quickly, and it’s still not expensive.”

“In the village, I often used young coconut juice—that’s also quick and cheap. And why are you asking about hangover cures, anyway? Have you just spent the night getting drunk?” he asks, scrutinising me more closely now.

When I explain that I’m working on a magazine article about drinking, he quickly interrupts: “Don’t write my name, OK? If someone finds out and reports it to my wife, she might go amok. She’ll think I’m always drunk,” he says in a whisper.

It isn’t only Pak Senen and the warung owners who don’t want their names mentioned; Deni, Ketut and Ari join the chorus.

“Don’t write my full name, ya? If someone from my family reads it, it could be risky. They’ll think that I’ve become a drunkard here and haven’t been studying,” says Deni.

“What? You want to write this for Latitudes? Don’t mention my name! My father often reads Latitudes; he’ll get the wrong idea,” says Ketut.

Ari is more bombastic: “Just disguise my name, right—because I’m afraid if someone finds out I’m often drunk while I’m DJ-ing, I could get fired. And it wouldn’t be nice for my professional image either, if I become known as a drunkard,” he adds, quite soberly.

The attitude of semi-denial shown by these vendors and drinkers distorts what is really going on. Their stance is a way to justify their place in the world, even though it is at odds with the dominant norms of both traditional Javanese and Islamic cultures. Despite the fact that they have no real urge to quit drinking, they respond to my questions with embarrassment or awkwardness, out of fear of intervention. But they temper this with a confident humour, a kind of pride in their courage as drinkers. Their embarrassment doesn’t mean that they will submit to these norms; they aren’t willing to bend down and adhere to them.

A hangover is not just the condition of an aching head and a churning stomach; neither is conventional medicine always the most appropriate way to overcome it. There is an internal conflict within this drinking culture that can not be cured by a spoonful of coconut oil or fresh cow’s milk; by coffee, iced water, or Panadol, or even young coconut—neither can it be treated by following the tradition of balas. It is a hangover perpetuated through denial: “Psst, remember not to write my real name, ya?”