"Hey, they're playing that song."
And you say that, and there is no follow-up "what song?" because there is only one: THE song. You know, THE song. The only song that exists in marketplaces, in taxis, in the Sip (mall) outside of pirated-CD stores, that is in Indonesian. The rest is '90's music from America, and my 13 year old ears learned to tune that shit out a decade ago, so all I hear is THE song, which most people are playing the majority of the time anyway, maybe to show cultural pride, which is admirable, but still weird, because it sounds shitty-90's-American-producer produced even if it is in Indonesian. I can almost sing it, and if I were to, out loud, it would probably sound just as bizarre as the teenagers in my class who can rap along with MC Hammer, but have no idea what they're talking about, because all they can say in English is 'Ma'am can I go to toilet', 'Reverse', 'Draw 2', 'Draw 4', 'Skip', 'Bye', and 'Britney Spears'. I told a 14-year-old student in one of my higher-level classes that Britney Spears was married, with two children, and she had also gotten really ugly, and he refused to believe it.

There's an exercise I do in all my classes where the students have to come up with classroom rules and punishments for them. By far the best ones have come from my tiny Waystage 2 class: 'You mustn't activate your handphone in class. If you do, you must dance to your handphone music!' 'You are not allowed to speak Indonesian in class. If you do, you must buy KFC for the whole class!'

KFC is the only Western chain restaurant here, and it's really popular and elusive. High-society dining. To have to buy KFC for the whole class would be a major undertaking, and would probably cost me, on my salary, about 6 hours of work. I guess I'd better not speak Indonesian in class. To ensure that I don't, maybe I should just continue not to know how to speak it.