Today’s reflection before going to bed…
If you want to go back to Indonesia for good, make sure you don’t find a job. You create a job.
— Mas Oki
This quote by a friend has stick to my mind ever since. And I’m still figuring it out how I’m going to do it. Too many things I want to do. Too little resources.
There were many things I missed out during my stay in Jeddah. One of them was to play angklung at our first ever cultural event, Made in Indonesia, held at our campus.
I always loved cultural events! Besides having to promote our beautiful culture to others, it’s a great way to learn my country’s culture too! When I was in Brisbane, I had a chance to learn Acehnese Saman Dance and perform it for a number of times at different events around the city. I was proud of it. The reaction was incredibly great. People were amazed by us and we became more famous hahaha. It was a great success. So I really wanted to be part of something like this again… but it turned out, I couldn’t.
Suddenly, I was told that the angklung group was going to perform again next November and they were recruiting new members! So I immediately joined the group. Hehehe. Today was my first day of practicing. It was yeaaaaaaars ago that I saw and "read" the numbered musical notation. Phew. It was fun though! Finally I could play angklung! Hahaha.
* Photo courtesy of Windi, taken at Made in Indonesia event.
Wasior, a town in West Papua, has been devastated by flash floods due to heavy rain. The official death toll as of Friday was 101, with an estimated 76 others still missing.
It took our beloved President, who used to be good in being prihatin (concerned), three days to speak on the matter and to request on providing special attention on the disaster. He was even defeated by Hillary Clinton, who expressed concern about flooding in Wasior a day after the disaster struck.
Meanwhile, illegal logging in Papua was blamed for floods in Wasior :(.
My prayers for the victims and those who lost their loved ones.
My friends asked me one day, why I was only interested in foreign news — Dutch, Saudi, Middle East, etc. Anything but Indonesian news.
You want to know why?
Well. I found Indonesian news to be too much. And it only centers on one similar topic! Corruption. The coward president. Violence. It keeps on going on and on like that. It usually starts small. Slowly. Then it gets really heavy, over the top… Just too much. My head just can’t handle it. I need something different, for God sake!
I admit that at one time, I kept myself out of Indonesian news for one year. I just refused to know anything about it. Except the good ones, of course. Those things that informed about the improvement that we made. Or about our prospect. Or about our achievements. I felt much better to read those things.
And seriously, if I keep on reading the "bad" Indonesian news, my urge to go back for good will eventually disappear! I won’t let that happens.
A friend of mine tagged me on Facebook a few days ago. She went to Berlin and found this book which apparently had ME on it. LOL.
So, yes, as you can see, I’m on a cover (and back cover) of a German book, titled Indonesisch Slang: Bahasa Gaul by Bettina David. Published on 2007, this book is all about Indonesian slang. I found it very informative and useful as I learnt quite a lot of new words from this book hahaha. It’s a good book!!! The downside is that it’s only available in German.
Bettina and I used to comment on each other’s blogs back in the days. Since she hid her real name, I used to think that she was an Indonesian. Her blog was written in Indonesian, sometimes using our informal language. Usually, if a foreigner writes or speaks in Indonesian, you can spot it very easily that he/she isn’t a native Indonesian. But Bettina speaks (both formal and informal)Indonesian, just like any Indonesians do! So that’s why I was surprised when I discovered that she’s a native German!!!
One day, she contacted me, asking me for a permission to use some of my photos published on my online photo gallery. I was honored to be one of the people contacted for this purpose. The picture itself wasn’t THAT good. After all, it was taken with my high school friends… long before she contacted me. But this was my first time to be on a cover of a book!!! So it was so cool!
AMAZING!
Tanah airku tidak kulupakan
Kan terkenang selama hidupku
Biarpun saya pergi jauh
Tidak kan hilang dari kalbu
Tanah ku yang kucintai
Engkau kuhargaiWalaupun banyak negri kujalani
Yang masyhur permai dikata orang
Tetapi kampung dan rumahku
Di sanalah kurasa senang
Tanahku tak kulupakan
Engkau kubanggakan
One day, I gave a gift to my friend when I was in Indonesia. It was wrapped and that was quite rare because I just couldn’t bother to wrap any gifts that I wanted to give. Anyway, so I gave it to her, she said thank you, and she immediately put the gift in her bag!
At that point, I was offended. Was she a person who didn’t like to receive gifts? Was she too busy to open it? Or didn’t she appreciate it at all? Or what?!
Then I was told that in Indonesia, gifts were not supposed to be opened in front of the giver! It’s not actually polite! I seriously didn’t know that! I really hope I didn’t offend anyone 😐
But then I’m thinking, why can’t we open it in front of the person who gives the gift?! Hmm, let’s see…
From the point of view of the giver, the reason can be that we’re not confident about the present that we give for others. We don’t know if he/she will like it and we choose to be ignorant about it (not wanting to know whether or not he/she likes it).
From the point of view of the receiver, perhaps we don’t know how to react if we don’t like the gift that is given. Indonesians are polite people, we try not to hurt other people’s feelings. Of course, most people would rather pretend that they like the gift. But still, not many people are good with it.
I admit that I’m quite terrible at gift-giving. I call myself an ignorant; I barely notice many details surrounding me, including the things that others are interested in. And I’m extremely forgetful person. Somehow my brain doesn’t allow any details to be kept. It’s a waste of memory, my brain once complained.
So most of the time the gifts that I presented to my friends were not that special. I did feel embarrassed — not to the fact that I gave a lousy gift, but because I didn’t pay attention to these important details about my friends. If these people were part of my life, how could I be unaware about the things that concerned them the most?
But whatever the outcome would be, I’d appreciate if the person opens the gift in front of me. Somehow it feels better that way. And I don’t mind if they tell me that they don’t like the gift. Choosing something for someone else is not an easy job. Everyone has their own preference; when I buy gifts, although I’d picture the person first before choosing the things… in the end, it’s based on my own liking. So I don’t actually blame them not to like my gift. Perhaps, the way they tell me matters the most. At least, I’d expect a little appreciation 🙂
Anyway… now that I know the difference between the two culture, I try to be more understanding. The next time I give/receive a present, I need to remind myself: the Indonesian way or Western way? 🙂 Either way is eventually fine.
I remember I borrowed the book Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia when I was in Australia 3 or 4 years ago. I couldn’t follow it for some reasons. After few pages, I dropped to sleep. I borrowed the book because it was the best-selling one and it had Indonesia in it! Perhaps, I should just watch the movie! 😀
One thing that disturbed me when I watched the trailer of the movie was when Julia Roberts said:
I’m going to Italy, India, and I’m going to end the year in Bali
Why Bali, I wonder, instead of INDONESIA?!? Arghhh. People always think Bali is a country by itself. I’ve met some people in Australia who didn’t know where Indonesia was (Oh yeah, talk about ignorance!), but knew where Bali actually was! How ironic! Let’s learn geography, shall we?
I went to Pesta Rakyat (literally: People’s Party), organized by the Indonesian embassy in Den Haag to celebrate our beloved country’s independence day from the Netherlands 65 years ago. The event was held in Sekolah Indonesia Nederland (SIN) in Wassenaar (near Den Haag) — closed to the house of the Indonesian ambassador. It was my first time going to the school. I went there with my lovely friend Jessie and her family.
There were a loooot of Indonesians! There were music performances and food stalls which sold many types of Indonesian foods. I spent quite a lot that day! I just wanted to treat myself nice Indonesian foods, although yes, I was in Indonesia less than a month ago! The foods were of course very expensive compared to the ones in Indonesia, but oh well… If you compared everything in Euro then you would end up not buying anything! I bought some sate for 5 Euro and I was surprised that I only got 3 sticks (tusuk) for that many lontong! Talk about suicide, eh?! Then I also had a cup of delicious cendol and nasi rames for dinner. We were there almost the whole day! When we were too bored, Jessie and I went to Scheveningen beach, but we found ourselves not doing anything over there because it was raining!
The weather was indeed terrible. It was raining the whole freakin day! It was an unusual Dutch weather, to be honest. Usually the rain was quite light and there were some pauses in between the rain. But it just didn’t stop until late in the afternoon. As a result, many people went back home really early. There were not many people dancing too in front of the stage. They were dancing and holding the umbrella, so you could imagine how ribet it was. The poco-poco seemed fun, but I didn’t want to join in because of the rain :(.
But I met my friend Putri today! I was surprised myself but it was a spontaneous meet up! I haven’t seen her for months already and it was great to meet her although yes, we needed another meet up to catch up! I also saw an Indonesian singer Delon, whom I had no idea who he was until Jessie’s mom told me that he was the winner of Indonesian Idol or something LOL. I took a picture with him, as a proof that I met somebody famous :P. Hehehe. To be honest, he’s just okay. Nothing special about him. Not handsome or anything like that. No offence hahaha.
Oh! One thing I forgot to mention is that, there were some people from the RMS (Republik Maluku Selatan) demonstrating in front of the gate of the school, demanding the political prisoner, Johan Teterissa who waved the flag of RMS in front of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to be released.
After spending our time there for quite a long time, we eventually headed to the house of Jessie’s mother’s friend. While the elders did some catching up, Jessie and I went to the McDonald’s nearby and we had some really nice conversation about the future, Indonesia, the Netherlands’ society, and many more! 🙂
We reached home around 12am and I had decided to stay over at Jessie’s place. It was a good day. I’m thankful ya Allah 🙂
