Driving us ‘round the bend: Road signs, like other signs in Jakarta and across Indonesia, often use interpretations of or misspelled English words such as this one on Jl. Pesanggrahan Raya in West Jakarta (“ply. oper” refers to a “flyover”). The photo was taken Sunday. JP/Wendra Ajistyatama
The city's signs hold many linguistic mistakes that can make people laugh. Try reading the big banner in Soekarno-Hatta International Airport. Supposedly written in the English language, it says "Under Contraction: We Appologize For The Inconvenince". Or an advertisement for a waiter's job in a Chinese restaurant in Mangga Besar, West Jakarta using a mix of Indonesian and bad English: "Dicari wheathers" (possibly meant to be *Looking for waiters').
For blogger Regina Kencana these signs were both funny and intriguing and led to the creation of serasasekali.blogspot.com.
"SERASA is a blog that unravels the mysteries behind funny stuff that doesn't make sense and odd things that happens in daily life," the blog says. Regina started to collect humorous signs and post them on a blog two years ago.
"My cell phone memory was full of photos and I was wondering how to keep a record of them, when a friend suggested making a blog," she said recently.
So began her obsession to hunt for humorous signs. The signs include modified brand names, from rip-offs such as Topshot from the Topshop brand and the female version of Burger King, Burger Queen, to the creative fusion of brand names such as BossWay from Hugo Boss and the popular TransJakarta busway.
The blog became popular and in May this year, she released a book of her blog called Kepleset (Tripped).
The July issue of online magazine Karbonjournal.org, focused on humor in the city and featured Farid Rakun who deconstructed SERASA, attempting to analyze whether the blog derides or is only poking fun at its subjects.
"Presenting simple photos stamped with a huge watermark on a pink background, which clashes with the primary-color letters, it seems that SERASA was simply born absurd," Farid wrote in his essay.
Farid said SERASA separated its visual jokes into four categories: "Fake Merk" (fake brands), ridiculing copiers of well-known brands; Wrong tulisan (incorrect text) that tries to laugh at people's honest mistakes such as "Sepagetti", Hot Dok, or a stall named Kave Yayang; Cool Kampanye (Cool Campaigns) that focuses on advertisements with dubious connections, such as a supermarket that gives its customers a gift of five packets of noodles for every purchase of Rp 150.000 (US$13), and others.
Farid argued that the difference between people who could understand the humor behind the misspelling and the person that made the mistake, created a distance that made it possible for the former to laugh at the latter.
Karbonjournal editor and cultural observer Ardi Yunanto said the misspelling of English words could be exotic for people who understand and write English properly.
"We need to see beyond the actual signs. We can't just say the people who wrote them are stupid, we have to consider their access to education. In many ways, they are very creative," Ardi said.
Ardi said modification of brand names meant brands were so influential that their producers rode on their fame. "Some producers are not so confident with their own brands," he said.
For her blog, Regina used stuff her parents bought near her house. "They don't really know about brand names, so they buy them without knowing they are knockoffs," she said.
Regina said the blog was a personal outlet of things she thought funny. "There is stuff that can surprise you and make you laugh uncontrollably," she said.
Ardi said although laughing at other people's naivety was not very nice, the blog would at least serve as a record of the times.
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