Did You Hear About The Church That Burnt Down?

Holy Smoke!   

Ah, that line never gets old.  You know what does get old, though?  Trash fires that smell like barbecue.  I drive through these almost every day.  Most evenings, if I drive down the gravel road that leads to SMK Farming Pati and hit Jalan Tlogowungu-Bapoh (my Queen’s Highway), smoke fills the air.  People are burning trash.  As I drive, I inhale as often and as deeply as possible.  This sounds counter-intuitive, no?  Well, I want to do my part for the ozone layer by acting as an organic air purifier.  Also, let me repeat, the SMOKE smells like BARBECUE.  The smell isn’t spot on, though.  It’s like an oddly tangy BBQ sauce, as if someone added a lot of cayenne and a dash or two of honey.  Regardless, it makes me think of football season and pork.  If I lose 5 years on the end of my life because I am inhaling carcinogenic American nostalgia and saving the world one O₃ molecule at a time, so be it.

Inspiration strikes

New invention idea: cigarettes that smell like BBQ when smoked.  We (you, inevitably, see the profit to be made in such an idea, and thus have begged to be my business partner) can call them Little Smokees™ .  They will come in Honey, Hickory, and Super Smokey flavors.  They will be packaged with Little Smokies to enjoy whilst smoking.  Who hasn’t been enjoying a tobacco product when their joy is sidelined by an urge to eat a sausage?  No one, that’s who.

But, I digress.

More often than not, a different kind of smoke fills the air in Indonesia.  It is the smell of kretek, unfiltered clove cigarettes.  I have visited two kretek museums to date.  If there are more out there, it seems that I will hit those, too, at the rate I am going.  None of these visits were preconceived, but they were each enjoyable.  Also, in each location, you were not allowed to smoke in the museum.  Apparently cigarette docents are highly ironic people.

L-R, 1st Row: Me, Leif, Eric, Jack.  L-R, 2nd Row: Mrs. Sampoerna, Mr. Sampoerna

The first museum I visited was in Surabaya.  The House of Sampoerna was great, and I can thank Jack for this visit.  A crew of men (because MEN smoke CIGARETTES), Jack, Eric, Leif, and I descended upon The House of Sampoerna like the kretek enthusiasts we are.  However, when Leif asked our guide how much tar content was in each Dji Sam Soe cigarette, and he replied with an automatic and deadpan “31 grams,” even we were impressed.  In the museum, we enjoyed the different packaging throughout the years, the artwork dedicated to smoking, some great WARNING messages (cigarettes can cause sexual malfunction in men.  Who knew?), and a host of well conceived exhibits.  No doubt, there were two highlights.

First, the rolling room.  All Dji Sam Soe cigarettes, made by Sampoerna, are hand-rolled.  We were able to catch some of this rolling in action.  It was like the workers were in fast forward.  I have never seen hands move so fast.  Also, the matching uniforms and unrelenting concentration gave the entire place a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory like quality.  I suspected the Oompa-Loompas were three-pack-a-day smokers.  The House of Sampoerna only strengthened this theory.  

The second highlight was FINALLY enjoying a cigarette. . .outside the museum.  We went to the associated restaurant and had some good ol’ fashioned fish and chips (wot, wot?), a beer, and a smoke.  It felt so right, how could it be wrong?

The second kretek museum I visited was in Kudus.  After visiting my friend Christian, Finda and I went to check out the Djarum cigarette museum.  Kudus is known for kretek, and despite the Kudus museum lacking when compared to the Surabaya edition, I support this potentially misplaced pride.  It puts a city reasonably close to me on the map . . . kind of.  Anyway, I learned that corn-husk kretek are no longer in production.  Bummer.  I also learned that in the ornately carved, traditional houses in Kudus, everyone used to enter through the kitchen.  Thank you, tour guide.  Next time you are in Kudus, and you are going to your friends dinner party, make sure you enter through the kitchen and praise the ornate woodwork.  You will be Mrs. or Mr. Popularity in no time, you local, you.

Smoke:  It’s not so bad, you know?   I don’t know why we vilify it in the U.S.  I mean, sure, smoking kills, but so cars, sharks, lightening, and chainsaw wielding psychopaths.  I haven’t seen the Surgeon General putting warnings on any of those dangers.  Do you know why?  The Surgeon General is a wimp.  He is too scared to get close to the aforementioned, much less stamp a warning on charging bulls, active volcanoes, and anvils hurtling from on high.  Instead, he bullies the poor, very enjoyable, cigarette.  Until all risks are labeled equally, until the Surgeon General gets up and warns me properly, I am going to believe what I want to believe:

Little Smokees™ cure illness, increase virility/fertility, and make you more beautiful.  If you need me or my green-haired, gruff-voiced, short-of-stature compatriot, we'll be taking our Little Smokees: Hickory ™ break.

No, he didn't bring the Oompa Loompas back up?

Yeah, he Oompa-Loompa-Doopity-DID.