To be perfectly honest the cost of cards and postal charge here also kill me, but I do it anyway because I love my friends. And (unfortunately), beside yearly Christmas & Ied, there’s always someone’s birthday or someone’s baby was just born. And on top of the card and gift, I still have to buy the packaging and pay for the postal charge, which now doesn’t only measure the cost by weight but also by size. So the bigger the more expensive. And to talk about wasting money for fuel, you know how expensive the petrol here ( GBP 0.90/litre), and the parking fee is expensive too (GBP 2.50/2 hours). So to save some penny, I either have to walk or to take the bus. It takes extra will to do it, especially when it was pouring rain or windy cold.

When I was in Indonesia, even though it was expensive for me, I still did send cards and gifts to my friends abroad or outside Jakarta. Those are the friends whom I cannot see in person. Those who were around me would have gotten their gift when I saw them, of course. Just like when you said you give, not send. If I was too busy I thankfully could ask my company driver or courier to help me posting the cards or packages (with extra tip). If it’s valuable I usually went to RPX (national courier for DHL) or DHL in Kuningan. However, when I now live in a different place from my friends, those who receive the cards and gifts do not do the same thing with millions of reasons which I think are lame as there’s a will, there’s a way. And I get SMS and e-cards, as a return of cards and gifts

Unfortunately, the recycled paper thingy are pricy here and not too easy to find, same for those that are sponsored by UN. Add up queuing and gasoline plus the mail system here just doesn’t work out like in the west, e-card and sms is the safest and quickest, efficient way of showing that we care. With the sms and e-mail, those who don’t have the luxury of time and space communicate more during the festives. It’s just the matter of different ways of doing things.

ps: you know how costly it is for average Indonesians to send cards abroad, right? I mean, if one uses the economic logic, e-cards versus conventional card…for me, it’s the thought that counts

parvitas last blog post..Aging: When do we just accept it? (I’m 40, single and living in Jakarta part 10)

To GIVE a birthday present is only practical if you live in the same city, right? I don’t have such luxury anymore so I have to SEND it, which is quite costly as well – but never mind, as long as my friends can receive their gift on their birthdays.

Exception for birthdays, for those who are in my inner circle, I give them birthday presents WITH a card. Note: GIVE, not SEND.

On top of that, with email, SMS and phone calls, don’t you think we save the forests? Isn’t it a bit ironic, when people from the west promote “save energy, save the planet, save the forest etc”, yet there are tons of papers wasted during Christmas for the card-sending tradition, which, I sense, is still a big deal in the west? And where do those paper come from? Where are the trees chopped from? Isn’t Borneo forests one of those that Indonesians and other environment activists around the world trying to save?

I guess I’m just a practical gal.

parvitas last blog post..Aging: When do we just accept it? (I’m 40, single and living in Jakarta part 10)

Dinys last blog post..Drama of the Year (Vacation Gone Wild) – Part 1