181–190 of 398 posts
I'm always surprised how big the population of Indonesia is yet it seems culturally underrepresented in the world compared to a lot of smaller countries Almost 300 million people but it rarely comes up in the news or pop media
Like how many of you can name a Chinese movie or pop star or TV show?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Other than Singapore. I am not sure why SE Asian cities aren't going as all in on mass transit like China. Jakarta has a single subway line for 42 million people. They have some light rail line and buses. If you compare this with Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing its really night and day.
The water table surely has something to do with it, but they could put much of it above ground like Bangkok does (erm, Bangkok should be listed as doing ok, even if they aren't doing as well as Singapore). China built A LOT in the last 15 years. Beijing before 2008 had line 1, 2, a couple of suburban lines (13 and another one out east), and that was it. I don't think any other country has ever built infrastructure so…
I'm always surprised how big the population of Indonesia is yet it seems culturally underrepresented in the world compared to a lot of smaller countries Almost 300 million people but it rarely comes up in the news or pop media
I also did a double take when I learned that they were Muslim-majority too. It flies in the face of a lot of assumptions.
I always find discussion of the world biggest city a bit of a pointless exercise considering it’s entirely dependent on how administrative lines are drawn. Highly fragmented metro areas are regarded as smaller than consolidated metro areas, whereas they might be the same size overall.
These rankings always consider city to be a contiguous metro area, regardless of how internal lines are drawn. Otherwise most of them wouldn't show up on the list at all. "Los Angeles" for example has close to 200 indiviudal cities.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same as Vietnam: No dominate written language at the time of European Colonialization.
Sort of. Indonesian had Jawi, based on the Arabic script. People in today's Vietnam mostly wrote in Chinese AFAIK. Those methods of writing were dominant among the people who could write. But the populations were mostly illiterate, so it was easy for colonial administrators to supplant the existing writing systems with Latin as they introduced European-style schooling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These rankings always consider city to be a contiguous metro area, regardless of how internal lines are drawn. Otherwise most of them wouldn't show up on the list at all. "Los Angeles" for example has close to 200 indiviudal cities.
and Los Angeles City would still be on the list
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Jakarta has a noise problem. I offer a practical template: has a noise problem. When you say "temples", do you mean masjid (mosque)? It is pretty normal anywhere in the Islamic-majority world to sing prayers over a loud speaker a few times a day.
U.S. cities have noise laws. I don’t think Tokyo is considered loud. Yes, temples blasting prayers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Putting Indonesian below Filipino food is quite something.
I'll see anything you get in Indonesia, and raise you Balut... Or Betamax... or Helmet. Their national dish was designed to hide the aroma of rotten meat, FFS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Jakarta has a noise problem. I offer a practical template: has a noise problem. When you say "temples", do you mean masjid (mosque)? It is pretty normal anywhere in the Islamic-majority world to sing prayers over a loud speaker a few times a day.
U.S. cities have noise laws. I don’t think Tokyo is considered loud. Yes, temples blasting prayers.
I used to spend a lot of time in Jakarta for work, and it's an underrated city. Yes, it's hot, congested, polluted and largely poor, but so is Bangkok. Public transport remains not great, but it's improved a lot with the airport link, the metro, LRT, Transjakarta BRT. SE Asia's only legit high speed train now connects to Bandung in minutes. Grab/Gojek (Uber equivalents) make getting around cheap and bypass the langua…
I spent a month in Jakarta earlier this year and wasn't impressed. Traffic was terrible. I almost missed my flight due to taking a bike over a car, but then it started pouring rain and I had to huddle under a bridge while I waited for a car. Jakarta has a noise problem. The temples blasting the prayers is disruptive to sleep and inner peace. The traffic does not make anything either. Also, Indonesian food IMHO is at…
- Indonesia is a tropical country, and Jakarta is in the vicinity of the sea, so depending on the month of year, it can rain anytime on the day. So, if you are not comfortable with rain, always use a taxi/grab/gocar to go around.
- If you are pressed for time, I suggest you use airport train to go to the airport. At least you won't get stuck on traffic.
- About the noise problem, I think it won't be a problem if you sleep in a tall building. The last time I go there, I sleep in a relatively good hotel and deliberately choose the higher floor. And the noise doesn't become a problem for me.
Hope this help and you can get a nicer experience on your next visit