Talking about new trends in Jakarta (see my post about taxi drivers), here is another one: “meneketehe” (pronounce it with al the e’s short – like in ‘the’, putting only a slight intonation on the last two syllables). I first bumped into it a few days ago. At my office, my Indonesian colleagues always start laughing when I say “nggak tahu” (“(I) don’t know”), because they think I have a funny accent–I can imagine that. Last week, when one of my colleagues asked me about something I didn’t know, I said it again – triggering a laughing explosion in the room. One of my colleagues said: “Next time you must say: meneketehe!” Again everybody started laughing. My first reaction was to repeat the word, increasing the laughing volume, so I wondered if I pronounced it wrong. “No, no! You said it the right way!” My second reaction was: asking what the meaning of the word was. “The same as nggak tahu.” I did not get any further explanation at that point.

Later that day, someone explained to me it was a part of a famous TV show called “Extravaganza” (this is a ‘funny’ show that runs on TRANS-TV). “It is actually ‘mana ku tahu’ – ‘how should I know’! Just replace the consonants with ‘e’. ” she explained. I never heard anyone using the word before, and I am sure it is not because I didn’t know it; I would definitely have been aroused when I heard someone say it, because the first part is the same as the Flemish word ‘meneke’ (little man) and is pronounced almost the same. Since I learned this word, I already heard it many times, not only at work. Yesterday, for instance, I came home from the office and stepped into the lift, together with 3 college students. One of them was telling a story (I did not understand all, but it was about one of the classes he followed) and used the word five times in the 40 seconds it takes the lift to go from ground level to the 17^th floor…

I think this trend is catching on, but if someone would ask me about it… I would say “meneketehe”!