When I was a kid there were only three people in the my neighborhood that had land line phone, my parents were one of them. It was when I was about 9 years old. Then more and more people had land line phone but still in my neighborhood I think 3 in 20 houses have land line phone. The government put many phone booth along the street. Did they use properly? Definitely not. This is what I want to say in this posting.
This afternoon I went to a mall, the oldest mall in Surabaya, Tunjungan Plaza. I went home by bemo, si walked few meters away from the mall since the bemo cannot take passenger in front of the mall. To my notice I passed a phone booth just next to the east entrance way. There was a lady, I think she works at the mall - I could see it by her uniform, talking to someone at the phone booth. I said to myself,” Wow the phone works! Amazing!”
Years ago, when I was at elementary school in 1995 there were many vandalism on phone booth. People tried to get money from the phone box, they also wrote on the phone box using paint brush. If only the phone could scream they would scream in pain. Many of the phone booths didn’t work properly. Some booths even phone-empty.
But the new way of communication changed drastically when mobile phone became cheaper. Nowadays almost everybody has a mobile phone, though it’s the old one. Even people who just earn less than $3 a day have mobile phones.
Less and less phone booths can be found nowadays. And they’re in a good condition. Why? Because there’s almost no one using phone booth. People use their mobile phones and for most Indonesian you’ll be so outmoded. And mobile phone is a lifestyle here. Even children in kindergarten blabbers about their mobile phone. Many of my students have better and more expensive mobile phone than me. Instead of considering the need, they focus on the pride.
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