Saturday, July 14, 2007
Please Bribe Me... Pleaaaseeeee... Puhleeezeeee?!?!?!?
Help me God for I am still a very weak human being, far from the perfection like that of the Father in Heaven....
Being in a challenging environment has a potential to bring out the worst in you. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to be in one by being in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Needless to say, traffic was very bad. Not only one suddenly become egomaniac once he/she is on the road, but the law was also inconsistent at best. The law enforcement agents are easily bribed, and the mentality has been fostered in years, that now, most of them invite bribery. They often intentionally make strange gestures, planting hard-to-understand road signs, allowing us to blatantly break the common-sense traffic law (such as crossing the red light), and then whenever they feel like it, they then stop us saying that we are in violation of anything....
Today, I got into this unfortunate situation.
Against common sense, I argued with the police, I know he was the one who invited all the cars to cross the red light. I know it is common to do so. Every time I passed this intersection, there is always one or two police waving their arms telling the cars to disregard the traffic light and follow their gestures instead. I know this was the case also today because I am not the only one who crossed the traffic light.. there are many other cars as well, and he somehow plucked me.
Needless to say, he was pissed that such miscreant as myself dared to argue with him, the gods of the road. After all, he is above the law isn't he? So he took away my license and wrote me a ticket. At that point, I decided that I don't care...
However, it was very odd that on the first chance he offered me to settle it with him, I took that offer. Good job fugu. Why don't you just take your self-worth, and flush it down the toilet before you drive this morning? That would have felt better.
Help me God that next time, I would never ever take such offer anymore. I definitely do not want to contribute in this country's "please-bribe-me-sir" mentality.
I remembered hearing a presentation from a homeschooling expert that one of the toughest job of being a homeschooling parent is to be consistent between your beliefs, words, and actions.
I could not agree more.
Being in a challenging environment has a potential to bring out the worst in you. I have been blessed to have the opportunity to be in one by being in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Needless to say, traffic was very bad. Not only one suddenly become egomaniac once he/she is on the road, but the law was also inconsistent at best. The law enforcement agents are easily bribed, and the mentality has been fostered in years, that now, most of them invite bribery. They often intentionally make strange gestures, planting hard-to-understand road signs, allowing us to blatantly break the common-sense traffic law (such as crossing the red light), and then whenever they feel like it, they then stop us saying that we are in violation of anything....
Today, I got into this unfortunate situation.
Against common sense, I argued with the police, I know he was the one who invited all the cars to cross the red light. I know it is common to do so. Every time I passed this intersection, there is always one or two police waving their arms telling the cars to disregard the traffic light and follow their gestures instead. I know this was the case also today because I am not the only one who crossed the traffic light.. there are many other cars as well, and he somehow plucked me.
Needless to say, he was pissed that such miscreant as myself dared to argue with him, the gods of the road. After all, he is above the law isn't he? So he took away my license and wrote me a ticket. At that point, I decided that I don't care...
However, it was very odd that on the first chance he offered me to settle it with him, I took that offer. Good job fugu. Why don't you just take your self-worth, and flush it down the toilet before you drive this morning? That would have felt better.
Help me God that next time, I would never ever take such offer anymore. I definitely do not want to contribute in this country's "please-bribe-me-sir" mentality.
I remembered hearing a presentation from a homeschooling expert that one of the toughest job of being a homeschooling parent is to be consistent between your beliefs, words, and actions.
I could not agree more.
# posted by indra : 2:20 AM
