Magical Jakarta: one city with two worlds and a huge gap between the rich and the poor

Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is a magical city. Even someone like me who grew up in a village in the city has never felt such a huge gap between the rich and the poor in a city. Across the street, there are slums on one side and rich areas on the other.

🏠Walking into the poorest corner of the city, there are houses that are even more broken than my old village in the countryside, dirty and smelly river water, and the whole family is crowded in a narrow space. The children here don't go to school and run around barefoot. Seeing this, everyone may think they are very bitter, but Indonesians are very simple and it is also easy to please themselves. A graffiti wall can bloom at the street corner, children run freely at the door of the mosque, and the homeless uncle who sleeps on the bench on the roadside to deliver takeout also smiles when he sees me. It seems that anything, as long as you smile, is no big deal.

🛍️On the other side of the street, it is the most advanced shopping mall in the whole country. The latest Lamborghini sports car is parked at the door, and the mall has top luxury brands such as Hermes, Chanel and LV. Indonesia is a resource-exporting country. The entire country mainly relies on the export of nickel iron, coal, oil and other products to drive its economy. Those who control resources control a large amount of wealth. This is the gap between the rich and the poor in Indonesia. A very small number of rich people control most of the country's wealth. They can do whatever they want, while the poor can only struggle to make ends meet.