The suburb of Jakarta that we live in, Lippo Karawaci, has now changed its name to “Lippo Village”…. Ironically enough, the town we moved from I believe is changing to the name “Rehoboth Village”. There must be a joke in there about the village idiots who have inhabited both places.
As for Lippo, it originally wanted to have the name Lippo Village but in 1993, when it was founded, names of towns could not use “foreign” words so the name Lippo Karawaci was used instead. That restriction seems to have faded as housing developments today (which are springing up all over the place) almost always use foreign words. Names such as “Serenade Lake” and “Country Woods” abound and often have big billboards advertising advantages to living there. The billboards often have pictures of white people engaging in blissfully suburban activities (playing golf or riding bikes for example). These planned communities aren’t quite planned enough and actually have a negative effect on the city of Jakarta. The link below describes the effect of these housing developments on the metro area of Jakarta (and is a great example of market failure for IB Economics students at SPH):
http://www.rics.org/Knowledgezone/Researchandreports/jakarta_141108_research.html
Just over a week ago, we gathered for our 1st annual Lippo Village Thanksgiving dinner (organized by Janet and her friend Delenea Meyers). We had a great dinner and over 60 expats showed up, as you can see below in the picture.
Maybe some developer here will use it on a billboard :).
sweeda 
2 comments:
test--rp
It worked--so good to get into your blog--I read much of it yesterday. Will look forward to your comments from time to time about the quality of education you are engaged in--what you are learning in a new system about school climate and culture, standards, expectations, Christian perspective,etc.
Wishing the best for the tropicalweedas. :)
Ron Polinder
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