Quarter Year

I don’t know what I thought Mul would be like in real life. The only times I had met him were sitting at the table in Mike’s parent’s kitchen, grinning and happily eating Susan’s pea salad or some chicken. He was one of a handful of exchange students the Goldsteins hosted, but Mul stayed the longest (by far) and was Mike’s favorite of “the boys.”

A friendly grind by a close pal. A good night!

When Mul picked us up from the airport in the family version of a limousine, I can’t say I was totally shocked. We had suspected that Mul had this sort of lifestyle when Mike mentioned in an email that he wanted to learn how to make sambal, and Mul replied, “I can have our cook show you.”

We eased through the pre-New Year’s Jakarta traffic with ease, the driver making the ride effortless and extremely comfortable. Mul and Mike caught up and I alternated between paying attention and staring at Taylor Swift’s music video that was playing on the television. My mind would wander into the realm of why did this kid want to live in Mike’s parents basement for two and a half years. This was the first time that I would think about Asia in a completely different way. The ride took about 30 minutes, and Mul explained where we were coming from and where we were headed.

Mul lives in one of three high rise apartment buildings in the very north of Jakarta. They overlook his parents neighborhood, which is the Jakarta equivalent of Beverly Hills. We stopped in at his place to check out the view and meet his family. The maid met us at the elevator and we rode the 16 stories to his apartment. It had stunning views to the north and east that gave glimpses of the city, but mostly the ocean and the fishing port that bordered his parents’ neighborhood.

Papa Mul and Sebastian, the new addition.

We sat down and one of the nanny/maids brought us some water. His kids were just waking up from a nap and came out to say some shy hellos and went back into their room. His wife Michelle wasn’t feeling well that day and in preparation for NYE, she was taking a nap. Mul sat across from us on a chair facing the sofa, “You know Ho Song?” he’d say. Ho Song is another one of the boys who lived in the basement. “He’s getting married in a month. To the president of Korea’s niece.” He would go on to say that Ho Song’s dad was a senator and had run for president in Korea, you know, like if John Kerry‘s son had lived in your basement. “And Charles, you know Charles, right?” Mike would nod. “Charles and I did business for years after living with Susan and Arnie. Charles once went through ten million dollars in two days gambling.” We weren’t sure what that meant, if he has won or lost, but 10 million dollars went through the kid’s hands. These were all people who had found themselves in Somerset, a suburb in Bellevue, Washington, eating Susan‘s cooking and listening to Arnie‘s fishing stories. There were more names and more figures being thrown around. This person’s dad owns this or his uncle is that, he does this now and I became increasingly aware that I had been wearing the same clothes for a week.

Mul went on to say that in Asia, it’s not about how good you are at what you do, but who you know. It seemed quite obvious that Mul knew a good many people, but went on to say that he knew a lot of people, but he wasn’t rich. He was the ideas person, having started over 10 businesses with other people’s money. He seemed to be doing alright to me, but I’m sure that when you are staring down at houses the size of good sized hotels, many of which go unlived in because the owners just bought them to say they had a house there, you feel a little dwarfed.

In the sauna of a five star hotel, Mul would tell Mike a Chinese proverb — Above every sky there is another sky.