I guess this always seems to happen, right? Here I've gone another three or four weeks without posting anything. This past stretch of time has been different though. I've genuinely been suffering from writer's block. While I've no doubt been busy, I've also already sat down on numerous occasions to write a blog entry, but I hadn't gotten past the first paragraph, until today. And I guess I'm not to the second one yet, so maybe I shouldn't make any assumptions, but today I actually have an idea for where this entry might go. Recently, I've had no idea what I've wanted to write about at the time I sat down with my laptop, and that's been precisely the problem. As I mentioned in the last entry, my life is getting to be very normal – not in the sense that you might deem as normal, but at least my life is semi-standard on an Indonesian scale. Because of that, (from my perspective) fewer profound things have been occurring. This might just be a sign that I'll never be a journalist, columnist, or novelist; or maybe it's a sign that I should think more critically about what's going on around me, but nevertheless, as things have begun to fall into place (even if that means shoving a square block into a circle hole), it's become more difficult for me to express my feelings and recount my experiences in ways that I believe would be interesting for you. Even though I can acknowledge that many recent events here would be totally entertaining and unbelievable for you, to the point of being almost unconvincing, writing about them now has become a chore. I see odd things go down literally every day, and on top of this, I've already been seeing them for a year and a half.
Not just my daily life, but also my thinking has become inarguably more Indonesian, and I can illustrate that fact pretty easily. First, I have developed an inescapable urge to always acquire bags full of seemingly meaningless gifts for people when I travel. And second, I've gotten to the point where no matter what horrible things are happening around me, I tend to either not give it much thought (assuming it's something that's out of my hands) or just not be affected by the thoughts that I'm having. When practiced by Indonesians, both of these cultural aspects never stopped infuriating me last year. The endless requests for gifts from 30 or 40 villagers each time I traveled away from Guyangan drove me up the wall; but now, if I haven't supported various local economies through buying trinkets or fabrics from family owned shops or from vendors, I feel a deeply seated guilt that my trip has been almost wasted. I also hated it last year when I would find myself in situations where I had become irreversibly displeased by an outside event, and no one around me seemed to be at all bothered. The fact of the matter is that misery loves company, and I can't tell you how many times I wanted to complain to someone last year and have them at least relate to my frustration or hey, maybe even receive some moral support. You might remember my post last February about the flood in Juwana. People here handle their problems differently, and empathy is not real big on the list; if you're visibly upset about something, the first thing people wonder is, “what could possibly be that bad?” The only thing that seems to merit on overt display of negative emotion is when relationships with friends, family members, or significant others go wrong. However, that's a-whole-nother discussion.
For the sake of effective transitions, rather than getting into the topic for which this blog entry was named, let's go ahead and continue with our thoughts of uncontrollable events and of the displaying of negative emotions.
If I'm feeling particularly under-stimulated and have absolutely nothing to do at night, one of my favorite activities is to walk about 100 yards to the entrance of my complex and hang out with the security guards, who will inevitably be getting drunk on the local alcoholic beverage, tuak. One night last week, however, was a particularly eventful evening. I was chatting with the merry gang of rent-a-cops, when suddenly a band of motorcyclists stopped in front of my neighborhood and proceeded to beat the hell out of one another. It was happening uncomfortably close to where I was sitting, and immediately all the security guards ran to break up the fight. I slowly sat up, drink in hand, watching the events unfold from about ten yards. My local security force managed to calm them down substantially, but I think the turning point happened only when one of the belligerently drunk members of the motorcycle gang caught my eye. He stood out amongst the crowd for about 10 seconds because he was (other than me) the only stationary participant, standing confused with an ambiguous and possibly irritated or offended expression on his face. My false state of security and exclusion from this brawl was immediately broken with, “HEY! Mister!” At which point, most attention was placed on me. There were a couple smiles, and since the unfortunate fellow toward whom most of the aggression had been directed was already out of the picture (not dead, but he had jumped into a taxi), I wasn't as nervous as I should have been when two of the guys began to approach me with unclear intentions. Until that point, my experiences with strangers in nearly every situation imaginable had been positive, and so I planned on handling this situation just as I had handled every other situation in this country – with a huge and genuine, but totally unwarranted smile.
As I am still capable of writing this e-mail, you might have guessed that everything turned out fine. They weren't as friendly as sober Indonesians, but possibly much more so than a mob of thugs in the US, who had only recently tracked down a rouge member of their crew, forced him to pull over at roadside in the middle of the night, and then drunkenly beat him down until outside forces made them stop. They were a little put off by my dismissal of their invitation to come continue drinking with them, but when they asked if I had been scared during the incident, my response made the whole group laugh, and everyone went home. I just told the guy that if he had come one step closer to me, then I would have smeared the bodies of everyone involved all over the street.
So you see, if a group like that in this country can get passed their violently drunken rage in a matter of seconds, after having instigated a clearly premeditated and savage motorcycle assault, only to joke around with a foreigner, as if nothing had ever happened, it shouldn't be too hard to understand how I might have changed a bit over the last year and a half. With those kinds of constant influences, if I had ever worn my emotions on my sleeve, then they're not even hanging on by a thread anymore.
Emotions on my sleeve really only applies to negative ones though because I've definitely made up for it by adding even more cheer to the heavier side of an already unbalanced scale. I'm sure that most people in the US would find me unnecessarily and obnoxiously, maybe even threateningly, upbeat. Of course I exaggerate, but the pleasant aspects of this culture are the ones that I have always clung to, and I've put real effort into making the negatives become positive. Expected and thankless gift-giving is something that I have actually begun to embrace.
Before I travel away from my home, for any number of days, I always refer to an ever-growing list that I've made with the “Notes” application of the “Office” program on my cell phone. It includes such things as: towel, power adapter, sunscreen, hand sanitizer, swimsuit, and dictionary, among many other items that I wouldn't want to forget based on the length of my trip. The most recent necessity I've added to the list, though, is not actually for me. “Gifts for locals” has become a must-bring. Of course, I had already been in the habit of buying memorabilia and other small presents for people back in Medan, but my style of travel these days has changed dramatically from how I had been traveling in the past. My new confidence and trust in a travel system that most might consider to be relying on random events, or simply a laziness to plan, has been working seamlessly and unprecedentedly successfully for about three months straight. I've been having more fun than ever, and this new addition to my travel list has become downright essential.
Here's the deal, no one has ever known me to be anything but shameless, so I guess I'll just tell you my travel arrangements like they are.
1) Choose an area, landmark, or city of interest in North Sumatra
2) Pack bags and ride there by motorcycle
3) Arrive at destination and ask villagers about local color and particularly interesting destinations
4) Wait to be approached by a group of girls
5) Explain to them why I chose to come here and my tentative plans
6) Take their suggestions, invite them along, or hone in on their plans
7) Spend the day making friends
8) Be invited to spend the night with one of their families
9) Meet the parents, grandparents, brothers, sisters, and cousins (that's where the gifts come in)
10) Spend time in the kitchen, help to cook dinner, and depending on the age of the parents, fall in love with the oldest or youngest daughter
11) Somehow end up getting a massage from the grandmother, mother, or one of the daughters with traditional oils in the living room, while chatting with the family
12) Be offered a place to sleep in one of the brothers' rooms
13) Talk about European soccer clubs until we fall asleep
14) Wake up, eat breakfast, sometimes go to church, and spend time with the family until I have to leave
15) Head back home to Medan, having made friends for life
I don't mean to downplay or exaggerate any part of that list. It's just the truth.
Probably the most interesting occurrence of this rarely deviating pattern was on the island of Samosir. I had rented a bicycle, and had wanted to pedal along on a famous stretch of the island, which is lined with beautifully arranged rice fields, bordered by a wall of mountains that reach across the land and out of sight. Within 30 minutes, I was coaxed by a group of women, who were working in one of the rice patties, to come and join them. It would have been an unforgivable oversight to have shrugged off the opportunity to spend the day, joking around, knee deep in mud with a group of women aged 10 to 60, and I'm glad that my senses were with me that day. Granted, five hours of bending over, trudging through saturated earth, planting seeds was nothing less than grueling, but spirits were quite high, and I helped them finish the days work earlier than what they would have normally been able to do. After completing the task, we all walked about four miles back to their home, which was right on the water. Next we all went out onto the dock with soap and shampoo to take a bath in the lake. From there, you can just read from step 9, and the only difference was that I don't think I talked any soccer, nor did I go to church the next morning.
Yesterday for Christmas eve (by the way, MERRY CHRISTMAS!), I went through the same process because I wanted to see what a traditional Christmas celebration would be like in one of the more predominantly Christian areas of the country. I went to an elaborate Catholic mass, where everyone was sitting on the floor, cross-legged on mats, and a priest from The Netherlands, who was fluent in Bahasa Indonesia, gave the sermon. Of course, there was a nativity play by Indonesian children and singing performances by many members of the congregation. At that point, steps 1 through 9 had already been accomplished, but step 11 was omitted, and step 10 was moved in between 14 and 15.
Are you still taking me seriously? Maybe this is why I haven't been writing as much.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Saturday, November 29, 2008
English Club: a Work in Progress
I've been singing the same song for a while now, and that's the main reason why I haven't written as much in recent weeks. There's been one overwhelming and reoccurring thought on my mind for the better part of two months – how could things get any better? I'm completely ducking the financial crisis because of the fact that, while the U.S. economy is falling, the U.S. dollar is in extremely high demand, so our currency is quite strong around the world. In Indonesia, the dollar is worth 33% more than it was last year at this time. So while I haven't been doing as much inter-island traveling, I've been making up for it with many day trips on my motorcycle and just living it up in Indonesia's 3rd largest city. My teaching is going phenomenally well because I have been spending much more time on preparation. Last year when I was living on my school's campus, it might seem as if I should have been more productive. However, I've found that I can separate myself from my school any time I want this year, and consequently, I'm more motivated to make a difference while I'm there. I spent a lot of time with people in my village last year, but I also spent a lot more time in my room, trying to escape in the only place where privacy was possible. When I was in my house, the last thing I wanted to think about was lesson planning. I wasn't unhappy, but I needed more time to unwind.
I've now gotten over most of the hurdles that bothered me in my first year; I've reached the top of the mountain, and with a much broader perspective, I'm looking down at all I've accomplished thus far. I can Also see what is possible for me to achieve within the next 6 or 7 months with a clarity of vision I could have never hoped for this time last year, even when trying to plan a weekend vacation. The vast majority of cultural differences that bothered me last year don't even phase me anymore, and I know how to avoid situations that still make me cringe. The remainder of my time here is not even going to be a down-hill-battle, so much as rolling down a clover-covered hillside. There will inevitably be a few pebbles and bumps, but I just bought some band-aids at a local pharmacy. I've never felt more prepared to deal with the unpredictable and the unknown. There's no reason for me to feel overconfident about this either. This is currently my home; I speak the language, I have tons of friends my age, and I know the street names. When I was in college, I never found myself looking at the upcoming semester with skepticism or apprehension. I see no reason to be any more cautious than I was during my sophomore year of college.
The fact of the matter is that if I approach people in this culture in the way that they prefer (not the way that I would want to be treated... If there's anything I've learned, it's that in a global era, the Golden Rule is simply obsolete and quite frankly alienating), then I've basically got the key to people's hearts and ultimately the city. I'm not saying this to be funny, and I'm not saying it because I've been insincerely taking advantage of anyone, but the fact of the matter is that racism takes a different form in every culture, and the role I play in this country could never escape from the reality of how people see foreigners within their own borders. I don't use my status to get lower prices at the market or to get people to cancel their plans to do things for me, but I do use it to make connections everywhere I go and to create unique situations, where I know I will get an experience that would have never otherwise been possible.
Bule is the slang term for a westerner, and Bules are known for being rich, handsome, intelligent, successful, motivated, and arrogant (probably in that order). They are usually very high-profile, living in exclusive neighborhoods, driving (or being driven in) expensive cars, and shopping at costly grocery stores that most Indonesians would never enter. I'm a different kind of high-profile though, and arguably, I'm probably considerably more high-profile than the businessmen pulling tens of thousands of dollars a year. I go riding around on my motorcycle (which is low-end even by Indonesian standards) waving and stopping at street vendors, and yelling back “I love you too!” when a middle-aged man feels compelled to shout from his front porch the only thing he knows in English. Usually, I feel like I stand out more because I try to fit in. It's easy to ignore someone who you assume is probably going to ignore you. I often felt cornered by all the attention I got in Central Java, and although I tended to be one of the Fulbrighters who enjoyed playing up the constant flattery, I'm not ashamed to admit that this year has reached a whole new level.
I can see how many people from back home would scoff at my daily interactions with people, and if I were put into an American context, then yeah, I would probably look like a creep, or at least annoying. But, what is important to mention is that my primary concentration (and it will remain my number one focus as long as I'm living in another country) is to mirror everything from attitudes to tones of voice. I would never be the ham that I am in this country if people weren't begging for it. Women and men from North Sumatra are inconceivably flirtatious performers (and I thought Java was something). I like to see people smile, and when I show them that I am just as happy to be talking with them as they are to be talking with the only westerner they've ever met who can speak their language, and when I take the microphone at the karaoke shed across the street from my complex, there's really no where to go but up. I mean seriously, the other day a police officer asked me for my phone number as he pulled beside me while we were both driving on a busy street, and the armed guards at a military base close to my house almost drop their machine guns every time I pass by trying to wave at me.
See, this is why it's hard to write about my experiences here. I don't know how to express this stuff without giving off a blatant air of narcissism. You'll have to come and see for yourself, so you can get some perspective if you ever want me to get into the 75% of stories that I'm withholding!
All that being said, I'm not just going to stop being careful. This past week I had a painful reminder of why I should not let myself get too comfortable.
Monday's session of English club was, overall, the most successful meeting I'd had had to date with my students outside of class. I facilitated an activity where all students had to rank criteria and priorities that came from different topics and categories. For example, one category was “leisure activities,” which including swimming, dancing, reading, drinking, etc. They then had to rate each option based on criteria such as “educational,” “healthy,” “sociable,” etc. The students were engaged, speaking English without thinking, and laughing about their explanations. But, in the midst of all the fun, I misspoke – big.
One negative aspect of this culture that I don't want to pick up is the tendency people have here to generally lack what westerners would consider to be “tact.” Empathy isn't real big in this part of the world, and with all the strife, I can understand why. The fact of the matter is that people say what they think and don't see much of a reason to sensor their thoughts. Consequently, they normally have tremendous amounts of fun because, within a group of friends, no one is worrying about what other people think. They aren't easily offended. However, they are not immune, and I often see quarrels.
Let's say that, in Medan, the ratio of snide comments made to persons who get offended is 10:1. Let's say that it's 10:5 in the U.S. (I don't think this is an exaggeration. Imagine you had just met your high school sweetheart for the first time in 6 years and the first thing he or she said to you was, “Wow, you look so fat now,” would you not be offended? This kind of greeting is not only typical here; a comment about how your physical appearance has changed for the worse would be totally expected.) Anyway, the sheer volume of snide comments made here is mind-boggling, so even if people are five times more likely to be offended in America, I bet that there are still more arguments in Medan.
To tell you the truth, that sort of mindset has already begun to rub off on me, and I find myself rattling off just about anything that comes to mind on a pretty regular basis. It's received very well though, because not only do people appreciate honesty more than flattery, they have pretty dark senses of humor (and I guess you'd have to). What happened on Monday though was still an overt cultural blunder. And really, what am i saying? This was a blunder that would surely transcend cultural barriers. Nevertheless, I'll blame it on being in the habit of not thinking as critically about the things I say before I say them.
The category was “Ways of getting money.” Some of the included options were practices such as “hard work,””tax evasion,” “bank robbery,” and “marrying a rich wife/husband.” Students had to rank these things based on criteria such as “efficient,” “ethical,” “difficult,” and “reliable.” We had some entertaining conversation especially concerning which was most and least ethical. Some of the girls in the room had no problem saying blatantly that they planned on marrying rich, and a few of the guys laughed at the idea of actually paying their required taxes after they graduate.
It wasn't until the very last criterion of “reliability,” that the problem arose. The students' answers had been varying all afternoon on each subject, so it was common for them to seek my opinion. But, when they asked, “Mr. Ken, what do you think is the most reliable way of getting money in Indonesia,” I should have prefaced my answer with an explanation of the duties of the IRS before I said “tax evasion.” In my mind, I had already thought about the fact that, while tax evasion here doesn't ensure you a large sum of much money, it is a sure bet to get at least a little extra because there's virtually no government effort to regulate it, and almost everyone does it. Nearly all transactions are made with cash, and nobody has registered businesses. Neglecting your duties to pay taxes to the government is easy, common, and doesn't have any real consequences. The actual unemployment rate in indonesia is probably miles higher than the percentage of people who pay their taxes.
Nevertheless, my comment was a conversation wrecking-ball, and I immediately realized it. I had to work very hard to recover because it was not at all the answer any of them were expecting (and I shouldn't have said it). The students ended up not caring, and they were laughing in a couple minutes after I tried to explain what I meant. The teacher who was accompanying me, however, was not so easily persuaded that I had only misspoke. She had interpreted my comment as a product of the tendencies of westerners to project their superiority onto people in struggling countries. Any teacher should have answered “hard work” to a group of students, and my analysis of the situation should have been restricted to a time of established discussion – not during a light-hearted game. Thankfully my students, just being teenagers, didn't think twice, and I apologized personally to a couple of the really thoughtful ones, but Ms. Siregar later told me that my comment had brought her to tears later that day. I didn't even know it, but the next day was a huge nationalistic holiday for Indonesia. Tuesday was Hari Guru or Teacher's Day, and the celebrations at schools that accompany this holiday are massive. I hadn't realized that the extra after-school meetings and extracurriculars, which had been going on for weeks, were all in preparation for Teacher's Day, a holiday I saw on the calendar but never gave a second thought. Indonesians have a different kind of pride in their country than Americans, and because they show their love for their country in different ways (like with huge, frequent, lengthy, and organized ceremonies), Americans would probably consider them to be more nationalistic. The spirit of patriotism in Indonesia was high, and Ms. Siregar was quite disappointed in me that I had, in effect, told a group of students that stealing from your government is more promising than following your dreams.
The situation is neither here nor there at this point because I honestly felt terrible for saying it, and Ms. Siregar knew it, plus I made every effort to apologize and to make up for it. I had overstepped my bounds, so without being defensive, I silently endured some pretty pointed and harsh text messages. It's nice to be an adult and to know that when problems arise, most people are actually willing to work at making the situation better, as long as the offending party makes the first attempt to genuinely reconcile. I'm so happy that the days of high school grudges are over because I was losing sleep about this. All I could think about for a few days was an Eddie Izzard comedy sketch that mocked a British ambassador who gave an embarrassing speech in China a few years ago.
“Hello, I'm not too happy to be on the job, and I think you're all a bunch of bastards. I hate you personally. Bye...
“...did I do something wrong –
“what? Ohhh... the whole thing...”
I've now gotten over most of the hurdles that bothered me in my first year; I've reached the top of the mountain, and with a much broader perspective, I'm looking down at all I've accomplished thus far. I can Also see what is possible for me to achieve within the next 6 or 7 months with a clarity of vision I could have never hoped for this time last year, even when trying to plan a weekend vacation. The vast majority of cultural differences that bothered me last year don't even phase me anymore, and I know how to avoid situations that still make me cringe. The remainder of my time here is not even going to be a down-hill-battle, so much as rolling down a clover-covered hillside. There will inevitably be a few pebbles and bumps, but I just bought some band-aids at a local pharmacy. I've never felt more prepared to deal with the unpredictable and the unknown. There's no reason for me to feel overconfident about this either. This is currently my home; I speak the language, I have tons of friends my age, and I know the street names. When I was in college, I never found myself looking at the upcoming semester with skepticism or apprehension. I see no reason to be any more cautious than I was during my sophomore year of college.
The fact of the matter is that if I approach people in this culture in the way that they prefer (not the way that I would want to be treated... If there's anything I've learned, it's that in a global era, the Golden Rule is simply obsolete and quite frankly alienating), then I've basically got the key to people's hearts and ultimately the city. I'm not saying this to be funny, and I'm not saying it because I've been insincerely taking advantage of anyone, but the fact of the matter is that racism takes a different form in every culture, and the role I play in this country could never escape from the reality of how people see foreigners within their own borders. I don't use my status to get lower prices at the market or to get people to cancel their plans to do things for me, but I do use it to make connections everywhere I go and to create unique situations, where I know I will get an experience that would have never otherwise been possible.
Bule is the slang term for a westerner, and Bules are known for being rich, handsome, intelligent, successful, motivated, and arrogant (probably in that order). They are usually very high-profile, living in exclusive neighborhoods, driving (or being driven in) expensive cars, and shopping at costly grocery stores that most Indonesians would never enter. I'm a different kind of high-profile though, and arguably, I'm probably considerably more high-profile than the businessmen pulling tens of thousands of dollars a year. I go riding around on my motorcycle (which is low-end even by Indonesian standards) waving and stopping at street vendors, and yelling back “I love you too!” when a middle-aged man feels compelled to shout from his front porch the only thing he knows in English. Usually, I feel like I stand out more because I try to fit in. It's easy to ignore someone who you assume is probably going to ignore you. I often felt cornered by all the attention I got in Central Java, and although I tended to be one of the Fulbrighters who enjoyed playing up the constant flattery, I'm not ashamed to admit that this year has reached a whole new level.
I can see how many people from back home would scoff at my daily interactions with people, and if I were put into an American context, then yeah, I would probably look like a creep, or at least annoying. But, what is important to mention is that my primary concentration (and it will remain my number one focus as long as I'm living in another country) is to mirror everything from attitudes to tones of voice. I would never be the ham that I am in this country if people weren't begging for it. Women and men from North Sumatra are inconceivably flirtatious performers (and I thought Java was something). I like to see people smile, and when I show them that I am just as happy to be talking with them as they are to be talking with the only westerner they've ever met who can speak their language, and when I take the microphone at the karaoke shed across the street from my complex, there's really no where to go but up. I mean seriously, the other day a police officer asked me for my phone number as he pulled beside me while we were both driving on a busy street, and the armed guards at a military base close to my house almost drop their machine guns every time I pass by trying to wave at me.
See, this is why it's hard to write about my experiences here. I don't know how to express this stuff without giving off a blatant air of narcissism. You'll have to come and see for yourself, so you can get some perspective if you ever want me to get into the 75% of stories that I'm withholding!
All that being said, I'm not just going to stop being careful. This past week I had a painful reminder of why I should not let myself get too comfortable.
Monday's session of English club was, overall, the most successful meeting I'd had had to date with my students outside of class. I facilitated an activity where all students had to rank criteria and priorities that came from different topics and categories. For example, one category was “leisure activities,” which including swimming, dancing, reading, drinking, etc. They then had to rate each option based on criteria such as “educational,” “healthy,” “sociable,” etc. The students were engaged, speaking English without thinking, and laughing about their explanations. But, in the midst of all the fun, I misspoke – big.
One negative aspect of this culture that I don't want to pick up is the tendency people have here to generally lack what westerners would consider to be “tact.” Empathy isn't real big in this part of the world, and with all the strife, I can understand why. The fact of the matter is that people say what they think and don't see much of a reason to sensor their thoughts. Consequently, they normally have tremendous amounts of fun because, within a group of friends, no one is worrying about what other people think. They aren't easily offended. However, they are not immune, and I often see quarrels.
Let's say that, in Medan, the ratio of snide comments made to persons who get offended is 10:1. Let's say that it's 10:5 in the U.S. (I don't think this is an exaggeration. Imagine you had just met your high school sweetheart for the first time in 6 years and the first thing he or she said to you was, “Wow, you look so fat now,” would you not be offended? This kind of greeting is not only typical here; a comment about how your physical appearance has changed for the worse would be totally expected.) Anyway, the sheer volume of snide comments made here is mind-boggling, so even if people are five times more likely to be offended in America, I bet that there are still more arguments in Medan.
To tell you the truth, that sort of mindset has already begun to rub off on me, and I find myself rattling off just about anything that comes to mind on a pretty regular basis. It's received very well though, because not only do people appreciate honesty more than flattery, they have pretty dark senses of humor (and I guess you'd have to). What happened on Monday though was still an overt cultural blunder. And really, what am i saying? This was a blunder that would surely transcend cultural barriers. Nevertheless, I'll blame it on being in the habit of not thinking as critically about the things I say before I say them.
The category was “Ways of getting money.” Some of the included options were practices such as “hard work,””tax evasion,” “bank robbery,” and “marrying a rich wife/husband.” Students had to rank these things based on criteria such as “efficient,” “ethical,” “difficult,” and “reliable.” We had some entertaining conversation especially concerning which was most and least ethical. Some of the girls in the room had no problem saying blatantly that they planned on marrying rich, and a few of the guys laughed at the idea of actually paying their required taxes after they graduate.
It wasn't until the very last criterion of “reliability,” that the problem arose. The students' answers had been varying all afternoon on each subject, so it was common for them to seek my opinion. But, when they asked, “Mr. Ken, what do you think is the most reliable way of getting money in Indonesia,” I should have prefaced my answer with an explanation of the duties of the IRS before I said “tax evasion.” In my mind, I had already thought about the fact that, while tax evasion here doesn't ensure you a large sum of much money, it is a sure bet to get at least a little extra because there's virtually no government effort to regulate it, and almost everyone does it. Nearly all transactions are made with cash, and nobody has registered businesses. Neglecting your duties to pay taxes to the government is easy, common, and doesn't have any real consequences. The actual unemployment rate in indonesia is probably miles higher than the percentage of people who pay their taxes.
Nevertheless, my comment was a conversation wrecking-ball, and I immediately realized it. I had to work very hard to recover because it was not at all the answer any of them were expecting (and I shouldn't have said it). The students ended up not caring, and they were laughing in a couple minutes after I tried to explain what I meant. The teacher who was accompanying me, however, was not so easily persuaded that I had only misspoke. She had interpreted my comment as a product of the tendencies of westerners to project their superiority onto people in struggling countries. Any teacher should have answered “hard work” to a group of students, and my analysis of the situation should have been restricted to a time of established discussion – not during a light-hearted game. Thankfully my students, just being teenagers, didn't think twice, and I apologized personally to a couple of the really thoughtful ones, but Ms. Siregar later told me that my comment had brought her to tears later that day. I didn't even know it, but the next day was a huge nationalistic holiday for Indonesia. Tuesday was Hari Guru or Teacher's Day, and the celebrations at schools that accompany this holiday are massive. I hadn't realized that the extra after-school meetings and extracurriculars, which had been going on for weeks, were all in preparation for Teacher's Day, a holiday I saw on the calendar but never gave a second thought. Indonesians have a different kind of pride in their country than Americans, and because they show their love for their country in different ways (like with huge, frequent, lengthy, and organized ceremonies), Americans would probably consider them to be more nationalistic. The spirit of patriotism in Indonesia was high, and Ms. Siregar was quite disappointed in me that I had, in effect, told a group of students that stealing from your government is more promising than following your dreams.
The situation is neither here nor there at this point because I honestly felt terrible for saying it, and Ms. Siregar knew it, plus I made every effort to apologize and to make up for it. I had overstepped my bounds, so without being defensive, I silently endured some pretty pointed and harsh text messages. It's nice to be an adult and to know that when problems arise, most people are actually willing to work at making the situation better, as long as the offending party makes the first attempt to genuinely reconcile. I'm so happy that the days of high school grudges are over because I was losing sleep about this. All I could think about for a few days was an Eddie Izzard comedy sketch that mocked a British ambassador who gave an embarrassing speech in China a few years ago.
“Hello, I'm not too happy to be on the job, and I think you're all a bunch of bastards. I hate you personally. Bye...
“...did I do something wrong –
“what? Ohhh... the whole thing...”
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Election Time
Every four years, the beginning of November will leave a number of people twinkling with anticipation and just as many soured with disappointment. Many hoped their choices this past week would help to propel our nation in a new direction, and others felt that remaining in cruise-control would ensure better gas milage. Both sides had their arguments; both felt strongly; it was a left vs. right battle. One could maintain that there was, in fact, very little difference between last Tuesday's election and any other recent election (it's clear that an unvoiced but very loud half of our country felt this way). However, despite the lingering political apathy and the disheartened right-wingers, I'm positive the modest minority of our citizens who voted for Barack Obama were onto something.
My November 4th began just like any other day of the week in North Sumatra. I woke up at 6:00 a.m., ate a rice-based breakfast, rode my motorcycle down the palm tree-lined street that leads to my school, and began to teach my 10th graders a lesson on conditional clauses. The only way this morning was different for me was because my friend, Jonthon, another Fulbrighter, had come to visit. There has been a decent amount of buzz going around the school about the US presidential elections and specifically about Obama, but it's been no more intense here than it has anywhere else in Indonesia for the past year. Most have been excitedly watching from a distance, as Obama emerged victorious primary after primary. Jonthon helped to add a new dynamic to my classes and made some fresh new jokes, but everything proceeded very much as normal.
It wasn't until after English Club, at about 5:00 p.m., that things started to heat up. That was, after all, 5:00 a.m. in the U.S. I double-checked with my headmaster to make certain that my plans to miss school the next day were still no problem, and Jon and I went back to my house to begin compiling all of our politically oriented periodicals from the past two months. I studied my map of Medan, and we both set off on my mo-ped. Equipped with a bulging, wobbly, mountain-climbers backpack full of reading material and electronics, we began our trek to the only place I could think of where we could watch CNN International and simultaneously get updates from other sources with free, high-speed, wireless internet – Medan's branch of the international chain of hotels, Novotel.
Lucky for us, it was grill night at the Novotel restaurant. For $5 we had free rain over the buffet, which contained everything from shrimp and squid to steak and pork chops. All we had to do was bring the raw meat to the man with the fire, and he eagerly used whatever spices and sauces we figured might taste good. I was in heaven. Unfortunately, however, Jonthon happens to be a vegetarian. Not to fear though. As we happened to have noticed some bell peppers on display at the salad bar, I urged Jon to insist that they grill him up some veggies. They weren't on the menu, and technically, they weren't even part of the salad bar, but if there's one thing I've found about this country, it's that when it comes to food, people will bend over backwards every time to please you. I would feel guilty to take advantage of something like this on a daily basis, but given the circumstances, and the fact that Jon had come all the way from his small village in West Sulawesi, I wanted to make sure he could fully enjoy some of the splendor that city life offers.
A night of downloading all three presidential debates on Youtube was followed by a morning of watching them on my laptop back in the dinning room. By that time, the polls had begun to close in the US, and results were starting to pour in. Jonthon and I decided that we needed to take a break for breakfast and come back a couple hours later, so we could more greatly appreciate the progress. While enjoying a range of rare dairy products offered at this fine international establishment, we were being constantly accompanied by a rotating group of Novotel staff members. They talked excitedly about the election, as if it were their own, and they attentively watched our internet recordings of the debates, as if they had any idea about what the English-speaking candidates were saying.
As a U.S. citizen working overseas, some of the most powerful footage for me after Obama's victory were the images of entire crowds in other nations celebrating the success our new president elect. Hotel Novotel Medan was no exception. High fives were getting passed around as fast as it took people to make eye-contact with one another, and wait staff, as well as managers, were neglecting the bulk of their duties. How does it make sense that these people, who might seem so far removed from the realm of international politics, could get excited over a president who lives on the complete opposite side of the globe? Do they even know what they're happy about? I've found that most of them do, but it's not so obvious.
As Americans it's easy to get caught up in our own lives, enter and leave work every day, study for our exams, take care of our families, and never realize the impact that our choices, ideals, and beliefs have on the lives of other people (and for that matter, our own). We are constantly shaping the face of democracy without even knowing it. We're proud of our American Dream, but it's clear that few of us understand exactly what that is. For us, our country is our home; it is the place where we grew up and the place where we will likely settle down. We have been brought up with a culturally unique, constant, and ingrained encouragement to strive against all odds and to “be whatever you want to be.” We have the riches and resources to make these dreams a reality, and because of that, there's hardly any reason to give these privileges a thought in our day-to-day lives. This is what we have, and this is what we live; it's comfortable, and it doesn't leave a whole lot to be desired. For most U.S. citizens, the American Dream has unfortunately become an American routine. People in other nations see our success, but they don't fully understand how we've come to achieve it, nor how we sustain it. That, however, doesn't keep them from being impressed. Indonesians want to like America, albeit they have many reasons not to, but they are a struggling new democracy; they want and need an ideological example.
Those whom I've talked to in Indonesia generally don't have any idea about what's going on with foreign policy; their lives demand that they know even less than the average politically naïve westerner. They generally don't have a clue about the global financial crisis, how it was caused, or even about it's implications. They know that there's a problem, and they know it started in the West, but they don't care one way or the other about how McCain or Obama plan to tackle the problem. They do, however, see how poorly things have been handled in the Middle East for the last many years; they know about Guantanamo Bay, and recently they've see white, elderly, political everyman, John McCain juxtaposed with a dark-skinned guy, who's father came from Africa, and who has drastically different opinions about how the U.S. should conduct itself abroad. Many of them see Obama as a symbol for how democracy can work at it's best, and how even though he's a member of a minority, the American people came together, over their differences, and chose the only real option for the presidency.
A constant struggle with corruption, poverty, a rise in religious fundamentalism, unemployment, failed educational reforms, and poor healthcare, has led many Indonesians to become understandably skeptical as to whether or not democracy is any better than Suharto's autocratic and many times cruel regime, which ended only ten years ago. Many remember a sense of security under Suharto that isn't as present today, even though the over-all state of their country has undeniably improved. Indonesians are longing for a boost in patriotic spirit and self belief that could help them realize their own potential as the 4th most populated country on earth. Personally, my spirits have been boosted to have a pragmatic leader who's not afraid to listen to his opponents, but the rest of the world (at least my friends in Indonesia) is excited to see that the American Dream is not a myth and that, while it may take many years, they have every opportunity to continue fighting for the same standards within their own nations.
My November 4th began just like any other day of the week in North Sumatra. I woke up at 6:00 a.m., ate a rice-based breakfast, rode my motorcycle down the palm tree-lined street that leads to my school, and began to teach my 10th graders a lesson on conditional clauses. The only way this morning was different for me was because my friend, Jonthon, another Fulbrighter, had come to visit. There has been a decent amount of buzz going around the school about the US presidential elections and specifically about Obama, but it's been no more intense here than it has anywhere else in Indonesia for the past year. Most have been excitedly watching from a distance, as Obama emerged victorious primary after primary. Jonthon helped to add a new dynamic to my classes and made some fresh new jokes, but everything proceeded very much as normal.
It wasn't until after English Club, at about 5:00 p.m., that things started to heat up. That was, after all, 5:00 a.m. in the U.S. I double-checked with my headmaster to make certain that my plans to miss school the next day were still no problem, and Jon and I went back to my house to begin compiling all of our politically oriented periodicals from the past two months. I studied my map of Medan, and we both set off on my mo-ped. Equipped with a bulging, wobbly, mountain-climbers backpack full of reading material and electronics, we began our trek to the only place I could think of where we could watch CNN International and simultaneously get updates from other sources with free, high-speed, wireless internet – Medan's branch of the international chain of hotels, Novotel.
Lucky for us, it was grill night at the Novotel restaurant. For $5 we had free rain over the buffet, which contained everything from shrimp and squid to steak and pork chops. All we had to do was bring the raw meat to the man with the fire, and he eagerly used whatever spices and sauces we figured might taste good. I was in heaven. Unfortunately, however, Jonthon happens to be a vegetarian. Not to fear though. As we happened to have noticed some bell peppers on display at the salad bar, I urged Jon to insist that they grill him up some veggies. They weren't on the menu, and technically, they weren't even part of the salad bar, but if there's one thing I've found about this country, it's that when it comes to food, people will bend over backwards every time to please you. I would feel guilty to take advantage of something like this on a daily basis, but given the circumstances, and the fact that Jon had come all the way from his small village in West Sulawesi, I wanted to make sure he could fully enjoy some of the splendor that city life offers.
A night of downloading all three presidential debates on Youtube was followed by a morning of watching them on my laptop back in the dinning room. By that time, the polls had begun to close in the US, and results were starting to pour in. Jonthon and I decided that we needed to take a break for breakfast and come back a couple hours later, so we could more greatly appreciate the progress. While enjoying a range of rare dairy products offered at this fine international establishment, we were being constantly accompanied by a rotating group of Novotel staff members. They talked excitedly about the election, as if it were their own, and they attentively watched our internet recordings of the debates, as if they had any idea about what the English-speaking candidates were saying.
As a U.S. citizen working overseas, some of the most powerful footage for me after Obama's victory were the images of entire crowds in other nations celebrating the success our new president elect. Hotel Novotel Medan was no exception. High fives were getting passed around as fast as it took people to make eye-contact with one another, and wait staff, as well as managers, were neglecting the bulk of their duties. How does it make sense that these people, who might seem so far removed from the realm of international politics, could get excited over a president who lives on the complete opposite side of the globe? Do they even know what they're happy about? I've found that most of them do, but it's not so obvious.
As Americans it's easy to get caught up in our own lives, enter and leave work every day, study for our exams, take care of our families, and never realize the impact that our choices, ideals, and beliefs have on the lives of other people (and for that matter, our own). We are constantly shaping the face of democracy without even knowing it. We're proud of our American Dream, but it's clear that few of us understand exactly what that is. For us, our country is our home; it is the place where we grew up and the place where we will likely settle down. We have been brought up with a culturally unique, constant, and ingrained encouragement to strive against all odds and to “be whatever you want to be.” We have the riches and resources to make these dreams a reality, and because of that, there's hardly any reason to give these privileges a thought in our day-to-day lives. This is what we have, and this is what we live; it's comfortable, and it doesn't leave a whole lot to be desired. For most U.S. citizens, the American Dream has unfortunately become an American routine. People in other nations see our success, but they don't fully understand how we've come to achieve it, nor how we sustain it. That, however, doesn't keep them from being impressed. Indonesians want to like America, albeit they have many reasons not to, but they are a struggling new democracy; they want and need an ideological example.
Those whom I've talked to in Indonesia generally don't have any idea about what's going on with foreign policy; their lives demand that they know even less than the average politically naïve westerner. They generally don't have a clue about the global financial crisis, how it was caused, or even about it's implications. They know that there's a problem, and they know it started in the West, but they don't care one way or the other about how McCain or Obama plan to tackle the problem. They do, however, see how poorly things have been handled in the Middle East for the last many years; they know about Guantanamo Bay, and recently they've see white, elderly, political everyman, John McCain juxtaposed with a dark-skinned guy, who's father came from Africa, and who has drastically different opinions about how the U.S. should conduct itself abroad. Many of them see Obama as a symbol for how democracy can work at it's best, and how even though he's a member of a minority, the American people came together, over their differences, and chose the only real option for the presidency.
A constant struggle with corruption, poverty, a rise in religious fundamentalism, unemployment, failed educational reforms, and poor healthcare, has led many Indonesians to become understandably skeptical as to whether or not democracy is any better than Suharto's autocratic and many times cruel regime, which ended only ten years ago. Many remember a sense of security under Suharto that isn't as present today, even though the over-all state of their country has undeniably improved. Indonesians are longing for a boost in patriotic spirit and self belief that could help them realize their own potential as the 4th most populated country on earth. Personally, my spirits have been boosted to have a pragmatic leader who's not afraid to listen to his opponents, but the rest of the world (at least my friends in Indonesia) is excited to see that the American Dream is not a myth and that, while it may take many years, they have every opportunity to continue fighting for the same standards within their own nations.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
I'm Glad I Chose Education
Something I realized this past summer, as I was galavanting around the country with Jon (and i wonder if you've noticed), is the fact that I have unintentionally but, nevertheless, consistently excluded writing about my experiences teaching here. I've relayed some humorous anecdotes from the pesantren, and I've hinted at the character of certain staff members at my current school, but I don't think I've even once mentioned what it's been like for a math major to suddenly change focus, submit the grades of 15 Jefferson Community College algebra finals, and only two days later leave the University environment altogether to begin teaching English in an Indonesian high school. This is my job here. I don't know how, but I guess sometimes I forget about that.
My intentions are not to convey that teaching is an unimportant part of my time hear, but it is apparent that I have chosen to embrace the ultimate goal of the Fulbright Program, rather than thinking of myself exclusively as an English teacher. It's easy to make all my experiences very much my own, especially since AMINEF does very little to monitor my progress or accomplishments. Last year I felt I was put into an almost impossible situation as a conversational English teacher, so I chose to focus on different aspects of the grant. I made life-long friendships with the people in my community and I know almost all the local foods, in which they take so much pride. I could have stressed about planning futile lessons with students who just don't speak English, and I could have taken relieving vacations every weekend; that would have been no problem and likely no less rewarding. My pesantren students very well could have been able to speak better English at the end of 10 months if that was the route I had taken. However, I relaxed, and I used my inherent influence as a foreigner in a village that hasn't seen a white resident since Dutch imperialism (which is very far from a joke). I made impressions in my own way. I coasted through my classes, acting like a clown, relying on my humor and facial expressions, and I passively improved my students' motivation to study English; however, I actively tried to increase their curiosity about life outside a traditional village. Last year, the role I played in Guyangan was very far from “English teacher,” but I felt that I maximized my experience, even though my prescribed title was “English Teaching Assistant.”
That being said, my situation this year is a far cry from what I went through last year. There are plenty of similarities, but I have to deliberately look for them because I'm already used to Indonesian high school norms. There are plenty of defining characteristics that almost all Indonesian schools possess simply because of culture. For example, neither of my schools have a cafeteria; both are built around a courtyard, and they have open-air classrooms, which are consequently subject to an number of regular disturbances. Educators in both environments tend to value quiet mouths, unconditional respect for teachers, and memorization more than they appreciate interactive environments, fostering independent thinking, and problem solving. That's just the culture of secondary education in this country. However, the organization and administration of St. Yoseph is much closer to that of an American high school than Raudlatul Ulum (YPRU), which never pretended to be anything other than a conservative madrasah. There are two assistants to the head master at St. Yoseph, one for curriculum and another who is the dean of students. They both have a significant amount of pull, and their suggestions to Sister Modesta are always taken into consideration. I've seen arguments between administrators arise and then be calmly and diplomatically resolved, leaving no party at any significant loss. At YPRU, I only saw consequences for those who intentionally (or unintentionally) “crossed” Mr. Humam.
Mr. Humam is a brilliant Individual, a moving public speaker, and a convincing politician. I found myself laughing at his speeches before I had any idea what he was saying. The fact of the matter is that he is a highly effective community and religious leader, who just so happens to own and operate a school. And it just so happens that he has some strong opinions on how that should be done. Ultimately, he had total control and no control over the school at the same time. He demanded the obedience of staff, teachers, and students, but he was constantly making presentations in Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya to various ministries of religion and local governments for grant money. His presence was seen only half the time at the pesantren, and when he was gone, problems simply went unresolved until his return. If an administrator or teacher were 95% positive that he could handle a dispute on his own, then that 5% of uncertainty was more than enough to forgo the risk of possibly disappointing the Kyai. Consequently, the curriculum was lacking, teachers' schedules constantly conflicted, and the key to the copy room remained in one man's possession, whether he was present that day or not. My students there were raised with the fear of Allah, and rarely did I have anything resembling a disciplinary issue, but the national examination at the end of the year was a collective and excused cheat-fest that I doubt excluded a single sole.
I don't know yet if rampant cheating is commonplace at my new school or not, as it seems to be pretty normal in most Indonesian high schools, but I can't imagine that it happens to the same degree at St. Yoseph as it does at most others. Of all the schools I've visited in this country, having had the opportunity to travel to other fulbrighters' sites, I've not yet seen a single other institution staffed with a workforce of entirely full-time employees. I've yet to see another school with mandatory time-cards. And I've never seen another teachers' office with personally assigned spaces and desks sporting ornamental name-plates. My fellow teachers all have college degrees and seem to be pretty motivated to plan lessons in advance. This is unfortunately not always (usually?) the case. When teachers put in effort, they are obviously more likely to be disappointed in students who don't take them seriously. But teachers who don't even put in time to plan their own classes don't have the right to be let down by a student's lack of motivation. In most cases, teachers in this country simply don't push their students because they, themselves, were never pushed to excel by their own teachers.
My new colleagues are an entirely different breed from the devout group who sat and lectured endlessly at my old school. I see so much more of a community within the teachers' lounge here. There were over 120 instructors in Guyangan's only high school, and some of them showed their faces just once a week. Few friendships were made in the teachers office at YPRU, only continued.
That's more than a slight contrast to the perpetual “open mic' night”, that is the first door on your right on the ground floor of St. Yoseph Catholic High School. There is always an empty guitar case on top of the history bookshelf, and that's not because the music instructor has stubbornly avoided returning its contents. I can safely say that every single day I will be serenaded in either a tradition Batak tune, Indo-pop, or a common Indonesian rendition of “Hotel California,” which has somehow come to necessitate a three-part harmony. The people of North Sumatra are admired by the entirety of an already musically inclined culture. My counterpart, Mrs. Simbolon, sang a traditional song at our orientation in August, when all the counterparts arrived, and I heard comments circulating the room about this requisite talent of Batak people. I was duly impressed by my students in Guyangan, who could put together an impressive ensemble with virtually no time to practice, but it should tell you something that I no longer even have a reaction when the communal guitar gets passed randomly to the biology teacher (whom I hadn't before even seen whistling to herself), and she breaks out “Bohemian Rhapsody,” while the Chemistry teacher is singing “Unchained Melody” a cappella. People tell me that if I just sang louder, I would impress everyone in the room, including myself – I assure them that my barely audible volume is more than appropriate.
My intentions are not to convey that teaching is an unimportant part of my time hear, but it is apparent that I have chosen to embrace the ultimate goal of the Fulbright Program, rather than thinking of myself exclusively as an English teacher. It's easy to make all my experiences very much my own, especially since AMINEF does very little to monitor my progress or accomplishments. Last year I felt I was put into an almost impossible situation as a conversational English teacher, so I chose to focus on different aspects of the grant. I made life-long friendships with the people in my community and I know almost all the local foods, in which they take so much pride. I could have stressed about planning futile lessons with students who just don't speak English, and I could have taken relieving vacations every weekend; that would have been no problem and likely no less rewarding. My pesantren students very well could have been able to speak better English at the end of 10 months if that was the route I had taken. However, I relaxed, and I used my inherent influence as a foreigner in a village that hasn't seen a white resident since Dutch imperialism (which is very far from a joke). I made impressions in my own way. I coasted through my classes, acting like a clown, relying on my humor and facial expressions, and I passively improved my students' motivation to study English; however, I actively tried to increase their curiosity about life outside a traditional village. Last year, the role I played in Guyangan was very far from “English teacher,” but I felt that I maximized my experience, even though my prescribed title was “English Teaching Assistant.”
That being said, my situation this year is a far cry from what I went through last year. There are plenty of similarities, but I have to deliberately look for them because I'm already used to Indonesian high school norms. There are plenty of defining characteristics that almost all Indonesian schools possess simply because of culture. For example, neither of my schools have a cafeteria; both are built around a courtyard, and they have open-air classrooms, which are consequently subject to an number of regular disturbances. Educators in both environments tend to value quiet mouths, unconditional respect for teachers, and memorization more than they appreciate interactive environments, fostering independent thinking, and problem solving. That's just the culture of secondary education in this country. However, the organization and administration of St. Yoseph is much closer to that of an American high school than Raudlatul Ulum (YPRU), which never pretended to be anything other than a conservative madrasah. There are two assistants to the head master at St. Yoseph, one for curriculum and another who is the dean of students. They both have a significant amount of pull, and their suggestions to Sister Modesta are always taken into consideration. I've seen arguments between administrators arise and then be calmly and diplomatically resolved, leaving no party at any significant loss. At YPRU, I only saw consequences for those who intentionally (or unintentionally) “crossed” Mr. Humam.
Mr. Humam is a brilliant Individual, a moving public speaker, and a convincing politician. I found myself laughing at his speeches before I had any idea what he was saying. The fact of the matter is that he is a highly effective community and religious leader, who just so happens to own and operate a school. And it just so happens that he has some strong opinions on how that should be done. Ultimately, he had total control and no control over the school at the same time. He demanded the obedience of staff, teachers, and students, but he was constantly making presentations in Jakarta, Semarang, and Surabaya to various ministries of religion and local governments for grant money. His presence was seen only half the time at the pesantren, and when he was gone, problems simply went unresolved until his return. If an administrator or teacher were 95% positive that he could handle a dispute on his own, then that 5% of uncertainty was more than enough to forgo the risk of possibly disappointing the Kyai. Consequently, the curriculum was lacking, teachers' schedules constantly conflicted, and the key to the copy room remained in one man's possession, whether he was present that day or not. My students there were raised with the fear of Allah, and rarely did I have anything resembling a disciplinary issue, but the national examination at the end of the year was a collective and excused cheat-fest that I doubt excluded a single sole.
I don't know yet if rampant cheating is commonplace at my new school or not, as it seems to be pretty normal in most Indonesian high schools, but I can't imagine that it happens to the same degree at St. Yoseph as it does at most others. Of all the schools I've visited in this country, having had the opportunity to travel to other fulbrighters' sites, I've not yet seen a single other institution staffed with a workforce of entirely full-time employees. I've yet to see another school with mandatory time-cards. And I've never seen another teachers' office with personally assigned spaces and desks sporting ornamental name-plates. My fellow teachers all have college degrees and seem to be pretty motivated to plan lessons in advance. This is unfortunately not always (usually?) the case. When teachers put in effort, they are obviously more likely to be disappointed in students who don't take them seriously. But teachers who don't even put in time to plan their own classes don't have the right to be let down by a student's lack of motivation. In most cases, teachers in this country simply don't push their students because they, themselves, were never pushed to excel by their own teachers.
My new colleagues are an entirely different breed from the devout group who sat and lectured endlessly at my old school. I see so much more of a community within the teachers' lounge here. There were over 120 instructors in Guyangan's only high school, and some of them showed their faces just once a week. Few friendships were made in the teachers office at YPRU, only continued.
That's more than a slight contrast to the perpetual “open mic' night”, that is the first door on your right on the ground floor of St. Yoseph Catholic High School. There is always an empty guitar case on top of the history bookshelf, and that's not because the music instructor has stubbornly avoided returning its contents. I can safely say that every single day I will be serenaded in either a tradition Batak tune, Indo-pop, or a common Indonesian rendition of “Hotel California,” which has somehow come to necessitate a three-part harmony. The people of North Sumatra are admired by the entirety of an already musically inclined culture. My counterpart, Mrs. Simbolon, sang a traditional song at our orientation in August, when all the counterparts arrived, and I heard comments circulating the room about this requisite talent of Batak people. I was duly impressed by my students in Guyangan, who could put together an impressive ensemble with virtually no time to practice, but it should tell you something that I no longer even have a reaction when the communal guitar gets passed randomly to the biology teacher (whom I hadn't before even seen whistling to herself), and she breaks out “Bohemian Rhapsody,” while the Chemistry teacher is singing “Unchained Melody” a cappella. People tell me that if I just sang louder, I would impress everyone in the room, including myself – I assure them that my barely audible volume is more than appropriate.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Spaghetti Really Takes You Places in this Country
I don't think I ever painted a picture of my life in a madrasah, in a small and conservative town away from all things western, as a grim experience; you already know it was quite the opposite. However, there were aspects of my personality that I had to constantly highlight, alter, or even omit altogether in order to assimilate harmoniously in Guyangan. It was never really easy. I didn't feel that I was ever being dishonest with myself or with the people who lived around me, but I soon realized that to reveal certain aspects of my character would not only be shocking , but it would be downright inappropriate considering the circumstances. If I wanted to convey a self image comparable to the open, friendly and joking person I try to be in the U.S., then there were certain behaviors I would have to change, in order to fit in with the local culture. I wasn't really Kenneth Scott Moore in Guyangan, but while I was there, I at least tried to be the equivalent of Kenneth Scott Moore, if that makes sense.
That being said, I have come to enormously value my experience there, and I've come to value it in a number of ways. Today however, I want to discuss only one aspect in which I now appreciate what was an overtly restricted life in Central Java. That aspect is the extent to which my time there has allowed me to relish in the sweet fruits of my now almost totally unencumbered life in North Sumatra! Don't get me wrong; I'm not running a muck every weekend. If fact, I've so far been to only one bar in this entire city, and by no means could they consider me a regular. However, I have been making up for last year's repression in other ways. When female Fulbrighters came to visit me in Guyangan, we were not allowed to walk from the school to the dining hall side-by-side. And of course, they were highly encouraged to wear head scarves, which all of them did except on one occasion earlier in the year before I had truly realized the intensity of my situation. Nothing about my stay in Medan even remotely compares to the severity of Kiayi Humam's rule over his small kingdom within the regency of Pati. So, for a change, I've been spending a completely different kind of quality time with my new headmaster – headmistress actually.
Sister Modesta is perhaps one of the kindest and most benevolent individuals I have ever known. She has been responsible for such efforts as making sure that Mr. Monang is on hand to keep me company at any time when she has the slightest inkling that I might be lonely; going beyond the owner of my house to have the school's repairman fix the leak in my roof; sending bushels of fruit to my doorstep when I was sick; regularly calling me to her office during my breaks so she can get in as much English practice as possible, and frequently making rounds in the school to make sure it is being run in a proper manner. This is one of the those times when I won't even bother to compare my two principles, head-to-head, as far as their effectiveness as educators. Nevertheless, Sister Modesta has taken a keen liking to me and is always thinking up some reason why I should come visit her. My arm has been burned and braised with twist marks, as I've been relentlessly forced to spend hours of my free time within the confines of the all-female boarding house at St. Thomas Catholic University.
Should I find myself already on her campus when a slight shower begins to drizzle from passing clouds, the harem of 35 women will do anything to keep me from leaving and risking getting a cold. But yesterday afternoon, as I had promised to bring 11 pounds of tomatoes and six boxes of pasta to cook spaghetti for everyone, I was pitilessly urged to just put on my raincoat and ride through a torrential downpour. I arrived 15 minutes later at the university kitchen with Indonesia's acid rain dripping from every inch of my body, and I was greeted by two eager nuns and four smiling girls from the English department. I removed all the ingredients and supplies from my over-sized, mountaineering backpack, and we quickly began to mince onions, peel tomatoes, and boil water. It turned out to be a monumental success, as I just let the enormous pot of sauce simmer, while I repeatedly taste-tested it to make sure the proportions of garlic and Italian seasoning hadn't gotten out of hand through the madness of preparing enough food to feed an army.
As all the students made their way down to the kitchen, I climbed the stairs to eat my meal with the eight or nine sisters who were present (Sister Modesta actually didn't make it because she was visiting a friend in the hospital). We joked around, while making comments about how this would have to become a weekly event, and once again, I felt my arm being squeezed red with friction. I was promised the opportunity next week to dine in the student-canteen with the girls if I came back to learn the traditional cooking methods of a Batak dish with the same crew.
...And now the story of Sir Galahad, the pure.
That being said, I have come to enormously value my experience there, and I've come to value it in a number of ways. Today however, I want to discuss only one aspect in which I now appreciate what was an overtly restricted life in Central Java. That aspect is the extent to which my time there has allowed me to relish in the sweet fruits of my now almost totally unencumbered life in North Sumatra! Don't get me wrong; I'm not running a muck every weekend. If fact, I've so far been to only one bar in this entire city, and by no means could they consider me a regular. However, I have been making up for last year's repression in other ways. When female Fulbrighters came to visit me in Guyangan, we were not allowed to walk from the school to the dining hall side-by-side. And of course, they were highly encouraged to wear head scarves, which all of them did except on one occasion earlier in the year before I had truly realized the intensity of my situation. Nothing about my stay in Medan even remotely compares to the severity of Kiayi Humam's rule over his small kingdom within the regency of Pati. So, for a change, I've been spending a completely different kind of quality time with my new headmaster – headmistress actually.
Sister Modesta is perhaps one of the kindest and most benevolent individuals I have ever known. She has been responsible for such efforts as making sure that Mr. Monang is on hand to keep me company at any time when she has the slightest inkling that I might be lonely; going beyond the owner of my house to have the school's repairman fix the leak in my roof; sending bushels of fruit to my doorstep when I was sick; regularly calling me to her office during my breaks so she can get in as much English practice as possible, and frequently making rounds in the school to make sure it is being run in a proper manner. This is one of the those times when I won't even bother to compare my two principles, head-to-head, as far as their effectiveness as educators. Nevertheless, Sister Modesta has taken a keen liking to me and is always thinking up some reason why I should come visit her. My arm has been burned and braised with twist marks, as I've been relentlessly forced to spend hours of my free time within the confines of the all-female boarding house at St. Thomas Catholic University.
Should I find myself already on her campus when a slight shower begins to drizzle from passing clouds, the harem of 35 women will do anything to keep me from leaving and risking getting a cold. But yesterday afternoon, as I had promised to bring 11 pounds of tomatoes and six boxes of pasta to cook spaghetti for everyone, I was pitilessly urged to just put on my raincoat and ride through a torrential downpour. I arrived 15 minutes later at the university kitchen with Indonesia's acid rain dripping from every inch of my body, and I was greeted by two eager nuns and four smiling girls from the English department. I removed all the ingredients and supplies from my over-sized, mountaineering backpack, and we quickly began to mince onions, peel tomatoes, and boil water. It turned out to be a monumental success, as I just let the enormous pot of sauce simmer, while I repeatedly taste-tested it to make sure the proportions of garlic and Italian seasoning hadn't gotten out of hand through the madness of preparing enough food to feed an army.
As all the students made their way down to the kitchen, I climbed the stairs to eat my meal with the eight or nine sisters who were present (Sister Modesta actually didn't make it because she was visiting a friend in the hospital). We joked around, while making comments about how this would have to become a weekly event, and once again, I felt my arm being squeezed red with friction. I was promised the opportunity next week to dine in the student-canteen with the girls if I came back to learn the traditional cooking methods of a Batak dish with the same crew.
...And now the story of Sir Galahad, the pure.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Motorcycle Madness
I love driving. I don't know what it is, but I whole-heartedly enjoy the activity. Destination is secondary if I am behind the wheel. As a kid, I must have regularly complained about mowing the lawn, but when I look back at all my memories of actually sitting on the riding mower, I don't think I have a single negative one in store. I used to humor myself by trying to mow soccer-field-like stripes in the front lawn; I had strategies to trim our amorphously shaped yard in a path that was as symmetrical as possible, even though it undoubtedly took longer; I was thrilled to mow a walkway in our overgrown field one summer when many relatives planned to visit us; it killed me to share the mower with my cousin when it came time to cut down the cornstalks in my grandfather's garden; I begged incessantly for at least a couple years to have a go-cart. And when I was finally given a golf cart, it took only months for it to be driven to an anticlimactic death of smelly electrical smoke.
It's times like yesterday when individual qualities such as this, which have been engrained and nurtured for years, come in markedly handy. My motorcycle trip to Lake Toba, which started only on Monday and ended promptly on Tuesday consisted of over 12 hours of driving. It was supposedly a 4 hour trip in either direction, but as I've discussed before, estimates of time, distance, and speed are seldom accurate here. Indonesian people will consistently underestimate distance and time, but they will always exaggerate speed. This undoubtedly means that the more questions you ask about any particular destination (concerning the three variables mentioned above), the more your travel plans will differ from the reality of your actual trip.
For example, I'd like to share an excerpt from the pre-travel-coordination conversation I had with my friend Chris the night before we left for Lake Toba. Distances have already been converted to miles for your convenience.
“So, how far would you say we're going to be riding tomorrow?”
“It's right around 60 miles”
“Great, how long do you think that will take?”
“It's usually around five hours, but if we tried to average 60 miles per hour, we could easily do it in four.”
“I'm sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Yeah, if we average 60 miles per hour, then we could make the trip in four hours.”
“...and how far did you say it was again?”
“60 miles”
“So... it's going to take four hours to get there?”
“Sure, but only if we average 60 miles per hour”
“Alrighty then.”
You can see the logic just completely break down right in front of you if you ask too many questions, and I honestly don't know why I still bother. First of all, I'd like to note that we likely traveled over 100 miles in each direction. And secondly, there's no possible way anyone could average 60 miles per hour riding on mo-peds in Indonesian traffic. I've never even gotten my mo-ped up to 50 miles per hour going down hill, and if I could, I wouldn't have any desire to do so. To make a lazy comparison, driving in Indonesian is like a constant game of Frogger – a game of Frogger in which the roles are reversed, and instead of a frog trying to avoid many cars, it's a motorcycle trying to avoid an amalgam of other motorcycles and a plethora of other randomly shifting objects. There are four chief differences, though, that add four new dimensions to the game. The first is that driving here is, in fact, not a game at all, which tends to amplify the gravity of the situation. The second is that actual gravity does, indeed, play a role. Helmets are flying off people's heads, shoes are coming off people's feet, and unsecured furniture is falling off people's trucks. Next is that, contrary to frogger where individual lines of traffic move at constant speeds, people in Indonesia are always accelerating, decelerating, and switching lanes altogether, at totally unpredictable times. And hey, what am I saying? There never really were lanes here to begin with. And lastly, in Frogger, you only have to worry about cars moving perpendicular to your path. In Indonesian traffic, you must avoid drivers who commonly head the wrong way down one-way streets, pedestrians crossing at inopportune times, carrying gigantic, vision-obstructing boxes of tofu, and let's not forget stray farm animals of all sizes, running in all directions.
I can't imagine how naturally adept at games like Need for Speed Indonesian children must be. When driving here, my awareness peaks, and I feel like I've inherited some sort of Spiderman-like super power, where I know exactly what's happening behind me as I follow multiple other simultaneous events in front and on either side of my motorcycle. I've always been one to analyze my soccer game, and even at age 23 and not playing on a team, I still can't help but do it. The last few times I've played pick-up games in Medan, in some aspects, I've been playing better than ever before. This made no sense to me until I started writing this entry, but I'm now pretty sure that even though I hardly played in Pati after Christmas, and though I didn't play when I went home this past summer, I have had numerous grueling practice sessions on Indonesian streets. It's not that I'm running faster or doing any impressive ticks, but my concentration on the ball and on my teammates has jumped to a whole new level over the past six months. I'm sending one-touch passes to people making runs behind me that I would have never been able to do a year a ago.
Amidst all the confusion on the roads here, there is one thing you can always count on though, which adds an undeniable element of safety that does not exist on American streets. You can always take for granted that no other drivers are taking anything for granted. People drive more slowly; they are constantly scanning their surroundings (because they absolutely have to), and road-rage just isn't a factor because, guess what, shit happens, and it happens a lot on Indonesian streets; people just don't get angry about it. The phenomenon of over-correcting because you made a mistake and became panicked doesn't really exist here either. Indonesian drivers cannot afford to drift into a state of complacency and controlled cruise, where being startled is even an option. You can't do anything resembling “cruising” in Indonesia. Truth be told, you're sort of always panicking on the roads here, and while that may seem super dangerous on the surface, I think it actually falls into the category of, “if you emphasize everything, then you emphasize nothing.” What I mean to say by that is if you're always in a state of panic, then after a while, panicking ends up not being so bad.
So even in Indonesia, I still love driving, and again, that served me incredibly well last night when I found my way home against all odds. Chris, who I knew was going to be a fast driver from his personality, ended up totally ditching me only an hour into our drive home from Lake Toba. It was dark and rainy, and I simply wasn't going to step out of my comfort zone to try to keep up with him. There are certain things I am just not willing to do. One of those things happens to be driving entirely too fast in adverse conditions, risking the remaining years of my life, in order to save an hour. So, not paying enough attention, Chris kept the pedal to the medal, and he lost me. When I talked to him later, I found that he had made multiple stops to wait and watch for me, but since it was at night (cloudy and rainy), the only thing that was clear was that I did not see him. It would have been so convenient if we could have just called each other and figured out our respective locations. However, last night happened to be the year's biggest night of celebration in the whole country, the last night of Ramadan. And as to cater to nostalgic families, Telkomsel deemed it appropriate to make all calls free. Consequently, the air-space was completely clogged, and you couldn't make a call if your life depended on it. And so, Telkomsel entered my life in yet another area to inconvenience me again.
The magnitude of this particular holiday in Indonesia is far beyond Christmas Day in the U.S.; it's like comparing President's Day to Easter. The Christmas season as a whole in the U.S., however, is much more of an affair than the Ramadan season in Indonesia. We have decorations that we keep up for over a month; there are tons of Christmas songs and movies, and we even have a season change that adds the image of “a white Christmas.” There's virtually nothing like that in Indonesia. However (and this is a big however), the last night of fasting is the most impressive collective societal event I've ever conceived of, and no other culture on earth has a comparable holiday, even in other Muslim countries. Last year, locked away in the confines of an Islamic boarding school in a small village, I couldn't really appreciate it. This year however, I found myself driving alone, through villages and cities, at prime time (6 pm – 12 am), through some the most intense insanity I'd ever experienced.
Indonesians are very proud of their unique holiday, Lebaran, which marks the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Idul Fitri. It's a nation-wide migration, where nearly every person in the country leaves their home. Traditionally, you go back to your childhood town or village, where your parents are from, but families generally take turns visiting a different prominent family member each year. It transcends religion, so even Christians join in on the madness. I've been told that nearly 80% of the residents of Jakarta's metropolitan area (that's over 16 million people, but don't quote me on that because I just talked about how people exaggerate) leave the city to head home. It's the only time of year when you can drive freely on Jakarta's infamously crammed streets, and every plane and train ticket in the country is booked weeks in advance, and of course, travel agencies jack prices 3-fold. Frankly, it's extremely difficult to find a single person who's not going at least somewhere for Lebaran, even 15 minutes away. Indonesians love to get together to hang out, and no other country can boast a nation-wide migration even remotely close to the world's 4th most populated country.
On any saturday night, at any given city center in Indonesia, you'll find something comparable to the proportions of an annual county fair in America. Tents are set up; people sell produce and food from carts; stands are available where you can buy music and DVDs, and kids have every kind of entertainment they could ask for. So, to put this terms we can all hopefully understand, my journey home last night, during the biggest holiday of the year, was like driving through miles and miles on end of Thunder over Louisville, the Kentucky Derby, or within a half-mile radius of the racetrack parking lot directly after the checkered flag of the Indianapolis 500. Fireworks started as soon as the sun went down yesterday and hadn't stopped by the time I got back to Medan at midnight. Every mosque in the area was sounding it's call to prayer. Trucks everywhere were decorated like floats in a parade with people playing music in their beds. Countless gangs of motorcycles road together, revving their engines in synchronized rhythms. Policemen and other security were directing traffic at every stoplight. Makeshift stands, selling fried goodies lined the streets. Kid's carnival games were at every big intersection, and probably 90% of the population was outside. I've always heard people talk about Lebaran and how many people go out at night to celebrate it, but last year, circumstances prevented me from seeing what really goes on. This year, circumstances allowed me to see Lebaran from farm to village to the 3rd largest city in the country.
All this was admittedly quite nerve-wracking for me, considering that I had no clue where I was (except that the road signs kept saying “to Medan”) and that it was pouring rain the whole time. It is currently the most intense part of the wet season in North Sumatra, and at one point around 10 pm I was riding through six inches of water with a legion of other motorcycles. Despite the chaos though, from the moment I lost sight of Chris, I had already decided that I wasn't going to be angry with him. I know Indonesian people well, and I was positive that the extent to which he was going to be worrying about me, once he realized that he had lost me at night, in a monsoon, hours before arriving in Medan, on the last night of Ramadan, was going to far and away surpass whatever combination of emotions I could possibly be feeling about the situation. I also knew that if he had started to make calls to people at my school about his losing me, then they were going to be so angry with him, that there was no need for me to add any more negative feelings to the equation. In fact, I was hoping in my heart of hearts that he had not already begun to make calls (that is if he could have gotten through to anyone in the first place).
The fact of the matter is that I would have never agreed to go on an epic motorcycle journey if I wasn't already 100% confident that I could have done it by myself. I know how to handle myself here, and I know how to talk to strangers. After more than a year of constantly traveling in this country, I'm also much better equipped to deal with unpredictable circumstances in unfamiliar environments. If something to the degree of losing my only guide in the middle of nowhere had not happened on this trip, truthfully I would have pretty surprised. I may not willingly put myself in positions of needless risk, such as driving like the MotoGP champion on pothole-laden roads; on the other hand, I have come to the point where I seek adventure at virtually every opportunity.
Once I arrived in Medan, I went straight to Chris's house, and despite his having stopped to looked for me (as well as having asked locals if they'd seen a white guy wearing a silver poncho) at every intersection in each subsequent city before Medan, he still managed to get back before me. Truth be told, not too long after I lost sight of him, I decided that since I wasn't going to be mad at him, I would make up for those feelings in another way and just relish in the fact that he should have been more responsible and that he was certainly going to be feeling intense sensations of guilt. Accordingly, I slowed down, pulled over, got my iPod out of my bag, safely secured it under my rain jacket, and fed the headphones into my helmet. I reduced my pace to a speed that would ensure my utmost safety, and I drove happily in the rain for hours, listening to my favorite music, through the craziest bedlam Indonesia has to offer. I then cruelly enjoyed the desperate expression on his face when he burst through his front door to meet the motorcycle pulling into his driveway at 12 am.
Did I mention that Lake Toba happens to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth? Well, it is.
It's times like yesterday when individual qualities such as this, which have been engrained and nurtured for years, come in markedly handy. My motorcycle trip to Lake Toba, which started only on Monday and ended promptly on Tuesday consisted of over 12 hours of driving. It was supposedly a 4 hour trip in either direction, but as I've discussed before, estimates of time, distance, and speed are seldom accurate here. Indonesian people will consistently underestimate distance and time, but they will always exaggerate speed. This undoubtedly means that the more questions you ask about any particular destination (concerning the three variables mentioned above), the more your travel plans will differ from the reality of your actual trip.
For example, I'd like to share an excerpt from the pre-travel-coordination conversation I had with my friend Chris the night before we left for Lake Toba. Distances have already been converted to miles for your convenience.
“So, how far would you say we're going to be riding tomorrow?”
“It's right around 60 miles”
“Great, how long do you think that will take?”
“It's usually around five hours, but if we tried to average 60 miles per hour, we could easily do it in four.”
“I'm sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Yeah, if we average 60 miles per hour, then we could make the trip in four hours.”
“...and how far did you say it was again?”
“60 miles”
“So... it's going to take four hours to get there?”
“Sure, but only if we average 60 miles per hour”
“Alrighty then.”
You can see the logic just completely break down right in front of you if you ask too many questions, and I honestly don't know why I still bother. First of all, I'd like to note that we likely traveled over 100 miles in each direction. And secondly, there's no possible way anyone could average 60 miles per hour riding on mo-peds in Indonesian traffic. I've never even gotten my mo-ped up to 50 miles per hour going down hill, and if I could, I wouldn't have any desire to do so. To make a lazy comparison, driving in Indonesian is like a constant game of Frogger – a game of Frogger in which the roles are reversed, and instead of a frog trying to avoid many cars, it's a motorcycle trying to avoid an amalgam of other motorcycles and a plethora of other randomly shifting objects. There are four chief differences, though, that add four new dimensions to the game. The first is that driving here is, in fact, not a game at all, which tends to amplify the gravity of the situation. The second is that actual gravity does, indeed, play a role. Helmets are flying off people's heads, shoes are coming off people's feet, and unsecured furniture is falling off people's trucks. Next is that, contrary to frogger where individual lines of traffic move at constant speeds, people in Indonesia are always accelerating, decelerating, and switching lanes altogether, at totally unpredictable times. And hey, what am I saying? There never really were lanes here to begin with. And lastly, in Frogger, you only have to worry about cars moving perpendicular to your path. In Indonesian traffic, you must avoid drivers who commonly head the wrong way down one-way streets, pedestrians crossing at inopportune times, carrying gigantic, vision-obstructing boxes of tofu, and let's not forget stray farm animals of all sizes, running in all directions.
I can't imagine how naturally adept at games like Need for Speed Indonesian children must be. When driving here, my awareness peaks, and I feel like I've inherited some sort of Spiderman-like super power, where I know exactly what's happening behind me as I follow multiple other simultaneous events in front and on either side of my motorcycle. I've always been one to analyze my soccer game, and even at age 23 and not playing on a team, I still can't help but do it. The last few times I've played pick-up games in Medan, in some aspects, I've been playing better than ever before. This made no sense to me until I started writing this entry, but I'm now pretty sure that even though I hardly played in Pati after Christmas, and though I didn't play when I went home this past summer, I have had numerous grueling practice sessions on Indonesian streets. It's not that I'm running faster or doing any impressive ticks, but my concentration on the ball and on my teammates has jumped to a whole new level over the past six months. I'm sending one-touch passes to people making runs behind me that I would have never been able to do a year a ago.
Amidst all the confusion on the roads here, there is one thing you can always count on though, which adds an undeniable element of safety that does not exist on American streets. You can always take for granted that no other drivers are taking anything for granted. People drive more slowly; they are constantly scanning their surroundings (because they absolutely have to), and road-rage just isn't a factor because, guess what, shit happens, and it happens a lot on Indonesian streets; people just don't get angry about it. The phenomenon of over-correcting because you made a mistake and became panicked doesn't really exist here either. Indonesian drivers cannot afford to drift into a state of complacency and controlled cruise, where being startled is even an option. You can't do anything resembling “cruising” in Indonesia. Truth be told, you're sort of always panicking on the roads here, and while that may seem super dangerous on the surface, I think it actually falls into the category of, “if you emphasize everything, then you emphasize nothing.” What I mean to say by that is if you're always in a state of panic, then after a while, panicking ends up not being so bad.
So even in Indonesia, I still love driving, and again, that served me incredibly well last night when I found my way home against all odds. Chris, who I knew was going to be a fast driver from his personality, ended up totally ditching me only an hour into our drive home from Lake Toba. It was dark and rainy, and I simply wasn't going to step out of my comfort zone to try to keep up with him. There are certain things I am just not willing to do. One of those things happens to be driving entirely too fast in adverse conditions, risking the remaining years of my life, in order to save an hour. So, not paying enough attention, Chris kept the pedal to the medal, and he lost me. When I talked to him later, I found that he had made multiple stops to wait and watch for me, but since it was at night (cloudy and rainy), the only thing that was clear was that I did not see him. It would have been so convenient if we could have just called each other and figured out our respective locations. However, last night happened to be the year's biggest night of celebration in the whole country, the last night of Ramadan. And as to cater to nostalgic families, Telkomsel deemed it appropriate to make all calls free. Consequently, the air-space was completely clogged, and you couldn't make a call if your life depended on it. And so, Telkomsel entered my life in yet another area to inconvenience me again.
The magnitude of this particular holiday in Indonesia is far beyond Christmas Day in the U.S.; it's like comparing President's Day to Easter. The Christmas season as a whole in the U.S., however, is much more of an affair than the Ramadan season in Indonesia. We have decorations that we keep up for over a month; there are tons of Christmas songs and movies, and we even have a season change that adds the image of “a white Christmas.” There's virtually nothing like that in Indonesia. However (and this is a big however), the last night of fasting is the most impressive collective societal event I've ever conceived of, and no other culture on earth has a comparable holiday, even in other Muslim countries. Last year, locked away in the confines of an Islamic boarding school in a small village, I couldn't really appreciate it. This year however, I found myself driving alone, through villages and cities, at prime time (6 pm – 12 am), through some the most intense insanity I'd ever experienced.
Indonesians are very proud of their unique holiday, Lebaran, which marks the end of Ramadan and the beginning of Idul Fitri. It's a nation-wide migration, where nearly every person in the country leaves their home. Traditionally, you go back to your childhood town or village, where your parents are from, but families generally take turns visiting a different prominent family member each year. It transcends religion, so even Christians join in on the madness. I've been told that nearly 80% of the residents of Jakarta's metropolitan area (that's over 16 million people, but don't quote me on that because I just talked about how people exaggerate) leave the city to head home. It's the only time of year when you can drive freely on Jakarta's infamously crammed streets, and every plane and train ticket in the country is booked weeks in advance, and of course, travel agencies jack prices 3-fold. Frankly, it's extremely difficult to find a single person who's not going at least somewhere for Lebaran, even 15 minutes away. Indonesians love to get together to hang out, and no other country can boast a nation-wide migration even remotely close to the world's 4th most populated country.
On any saturday night, at any given city center in Indonesia, you'll find something comparable to the proportions of an annual county fair in America. Tents are set up; people sell produce and food from carts; stands are available where you can buy music and DVDs, and kids have every kind of entertainment they could ask for. So, to put this terms we can all hopefully understand, my journey home last night, during the biggest holiday of the year, was like driving through miles and miles on end of Thunder over Louisville, the Kentucky Derby, or within a half-mile radius of the racetrack parking lot directly after the checkered flag of the Indianapolis 500. Fireworks started as soon as the sun went down yesterday and hadn't stopped by the time I got back to Medan at midnight. Every mosque in the area was sounding it's call to prayer. Trucks everywhere were decorated like floats in a parade with people playing music in their beds. Countless gangs of motorcycles road together, revving their engines in synchronized rhythms. Policemen and other security were directing traffic at every stoplight. Makeshift stands, selling fried goodies lined the streets. Kid's carnival games were at every big intersection, and probably 90% of the population was outside. I've always heard people talk about Lebaran and how many people go out at night to celebrate it, but last year, circumstances prevented me from seeing what really goes on. This year, circumstances allowed me to see Lebaran from farm to village to the 3rd largest city in the country.
All this was admittedly quite nerve-wracking for me, considering that I had no clue where I was (except that the road signs kept saying “to Medan”) and that it was pouring rain the whole time. It is currently the most intense part of the wet season in North Sumatra, and at one point around 10 pm I was riding through six inches of water with a legion of other motorcycles. Despite the chaos though, from the moment I lost sight of Chris, I had already decided that I wasn't going to be angry with him. I know Indonesian people well, and I was positive that the extent to which he was going to be worrying about me, once he realized that he had lost me at night, in a monsoon, hours before arriving in Medan, on the last night of Ramadan, was going to far and away surpass whatever combination of emotions I could possibly be feeling about the situation. I also knew that if he had started to make calls to people at my school about his losing me, then they were going to be so angry with him, that there was no need for me to add any more negative feelings to the equation. In fact, I was hoping in my heart of hearts that he had not already begun to make calls (that is if he could have gotten through to anyone in the first place).
The fact of the matter is that I would have never agreed to go on an epic motorcycle journey if I wasn't already 100% confident that I could have done it by myself. I know how to handle myself here, and I know how to talk to strangers. After more than a year of constantly traveling in this country, I'm also much better equipped to deal with unpredictable circumstances in unfamiliar environments. If something to the degree of losing my only guide in the middle of nowhere had not happened on this trip, truthfully I would have pretty surprised. I may not willingly put myself in positions of needless risk, such as driving like the MotoGP champion on pothole-laden roads; on the other hand, I have come to the point where I seek adventure at virtually every opportunity.
Once I arrived in Medan, I went straight to Chris's house, and despite his having stopped to looked for me (as well as having asked locals if they'd seen a white guy wearing a silver poncho) at every intersection in each subsequent city before Medan, he still managed to get back before me. Truth be told, not too long after I lost sight of him, I decided that since I wasn't going to be mad at him, I would make up for those feelings in another way and just relish in the fact that he should have been more responsible and that he was certainly going to be feeling intense sensations of guilt. Accordingly, I slowed down, pulled over, got my iPod out of my bag, safely secured it under my rain jacket, and fed the headphones into my helmet. I reduced my pace to a speed that would ensure my utmost safety, and I drove happily in the rain for hours, listening to my favorite music, through the craziest bedlam Indonesia has to offer. I then cruelly enjoyed the desperate expression on his face when he burst through his front door to meet the motorcycle pulling into his driveway at 12 am.
Did I mention that Lake Toba happens to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth? Well, it is.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Why this Language and Culture are so Darn Cute
Part 2: The Culture in General
The welcoming attitudes, the warm gazes, the incessant giggling, the sweet kids, the eager adults, and the effortless smiles are just some of the untouchable qualities that make Indonesian culture what it is. Granted, poor work ethic, rivers of garbage, roads plagued with oil-guzzling trucks, above-ground sewage, and preposterous standards for education also help to define this society. However, from day one, these blaringly obvious pitfalls have never seemed to stack up against the positive qualities I mentioned in my first list. I'm not sure if Indonesian people are so happy because they just ignore all the misfortune around them, if the are able to ignore all their misfortune because they have so much to be happy about, or if they encounter so much misfortune because they tend to happily ignore the root causes of all their problems. Regardless, these people struggle daily but remain unequivocally carefree. That sort of attitude is contagious. So when I talk about my experiences, it's not only difficult, but also culturally abnormal to mention drawbacks. Few people talk to me about Indonesian's problems in all seriousness, so what I end up noticing on a day-to-day basis (or maybe what I fight to stay focused on) is just how cute and enduring everything is.
The substitution of mind for heart in daily expressions, and in general thinking as well, is something I find, not necessarily comforting, but certainly, for lack of a better word, heart-warming. If a person wanted to express, “It's been on my mind for a while,” the common Indonesian equivalent phrase would translate directly as “It's been saved in my heart.” The word from Indonesian for heart is hati, and if you wanted to tell someone to “be careful,” you would say hati-hati. Suggesting that someone “pay attention” or “pay it mind” would be stated as memperhatikan, or “give it your heart.” And it's not common to simply call someone “sincere” or tulus in Indonesia; you would want to tell them that they are tulus hati.
Another reason why this brings a smile to my face, though, is because the Indonesian core of emotions is, in fact, not the heart; it is the liver. So actually, when telling someone to “give it their heart,” you are indeed suggesting to them to “give it their liver!” This may sound silly, but there might actually be more to this.
Let's look at the two vital organs side-by-side. The heart is without a doubt one heck of an important muscle, but let's face it; it's just a muscle. It's a strong muscle, creating enough pressure to circulate blood through the entire body, but it pales in comparison to the complexity of the liver. The liver has it's hands in such important enterprises as managing our metabolism, protein synthesis, decomposition of red blood cells, producing bile to aid in digestion, and as you heavy drinkers know, detoxification. Biologically speaking, the liver simply has a better track record and has proven itself time and time again that it is a more organized, responsible, and trustworthy candidate for taking on another important task, such as regulating our emotions. If a person in the U.S. gets “stabbed in the heart,” they will die instantly. An indonesian person, on the other hand, who takes the same blow to the liver has at worst 24 hours to collect themselves, make some phone calls, and chances are, they'll probably survive. Heart simply falls short.* If nothing else, this is as good an explanation as any for the causality conundrum on which I was commenting in the first paragraph.
If you happen to be quite close to someone's liver in this country, then you will be subject to all sorts of interrogation. In fact, it seems that the mundaneness of the questions someone asks you on a daily basis is a perfect indicator of the degree to which they care about you. The more uninteresting the questions; the more concerned they are.
“Sudah sembuh?” is the entry level question for a person who has entered your life and whom you see regularly. This means “Are you feeling better?” As you might have noticed, climbing “above the weather” and staying there is not the easiest task in this country. Getting sick in some respect (be it a cold, sore throat, or some stomach discomfort) is probably a biweekly occurrence for most Indonesians, and feeling ill is something simple that anyone with whom you have frequent contact would know about you. So basically, anyone who knows that you had, at one time, not been well will, with out fail, ask you if you are doing alright.
“Sudah tidur?” is a step up. Sleeping is something we people do once daily, and asking if you have “gotten enough sleep” shows that you are truly a fixture in that person's life. As it happens, lack of sleep can lead to illness, and we wouldn't want to have to take a step back in our relationship and ask something semi-irregular, like “Have you gotten better yet?” It's more promising to keep tabs incessantly on one's sleep patterns.
“Sudah Mandi?” is a question which shows that you have more or less entered the realm of family. Bathing is something Indonesians do at least twice a day, by culture. Plus, this is, by nature, a bit more personal. If someone has asked you if you've already taken a bath by late afternoon, they are in no way insinuating that you stink; they are simply making sure that you haven't neglected to consider your personal hygiene. Appearance and first impressions are even more important here than in the U.S., and we wouldn't want to find ourselves in a position where we would have to meet someone of a “higher status” without having taken a shower, now would we?
Let me put it this way; if a girl asks me, “Sudah makan?” I can be pretty sure that marrying her is not out of the question – or that she views me as a son (or both). And if this question comes from a male, we are basically siblings. We eat at least three times a day, and when people are checking up on your dining habits, you know that you could not be closer to them. In Indonesia, a question like “How have you been since your sister's death?” withers in the shadow of a question like, “Have you taken your lunch yet?” A true friend would not only already have a firm grasp on any case where your family member has died, but they would have already gone to great lengths to make sure you are coping positively. Conversing about death and serious injury in Indonesia is basically chewin' the fat and could come up as a side conversation in literally any setting. However, if it so happened that I forgot to bring a sandwich to the teacher's lounge, my closest friends would be eager to share half of their fried rice.
As I mentioned above, status is quite important in this country, and it's an Asian phenomenon that just doesn't exists to the same extent in the western world. “Saving face” and “keeping your name” are of utmost importance and are always on people's minds. And what better way to show that you are an upstanding and contributing member of society than to have a boatload of abbreviated titles prefixing your name? These aren't just novelties either that you simply let go of after you switch jobs. In Indonesia, if you were ever manager of a Pizza Hut, then Mgr. is something you could always insert after Mr. and before your name. People often call me “Pak Guru Ken.,” which translates to “Mr. Teacher Ken.” Guru is just another heading I can now save, until the end of my days, within my ever accumulating list of titles. Should I obtain a doctorate and then acquire some sort of religious standing in the upcoming years, if I come back, then I will surely be referred to as Mr. Dr. Preacher Teacher Ken!
*The heart and liver commentary was in no way an endorsement for John McCain
The welcoming attitudes, the warm gazes, the incessant giggling, the sweet kids, the eager adults, and the effortless smiles are just some of the untouchable qualities that make Indonesian culture what it is. Granted, poor work ethic, rivers of garbage, roads plagued with oil-guzzling trucks, above-ground sewage, and preposterous standards for education also help to define this society. However, from day one, these blaringly obvious pitfalls have never seemed to stack up against the positive qualities I mentioned in my first list. I'm not sure if Indonesian people are so happy because they just ignore all the misfortune around them, if the are able to ignore all their misfortune because they have so much to be happy about, or if they encounter so much misfortune because they tend to happily ignore the root causes of all their problems. Regardless, these people struggle daily but remain unequivocally carefree. That sort of attitude is contagious. So when I talk about my experiences, it's not only difficult, but also culturally abnormal to mention drawbacks. Few people talk to me about Indonesian's problems in all seriousness, so what I end up noticing on a day-to-day basis (or maybe what I fight to stay focused on) is just how cute and enduring everything is.
The substitution of mind for heart in daily expressions, and in general thinking as well, is something I find, not necessarily comforting, but certainly, for lack of a better word, heart-warming. If a person wanted to express, “It's been on my mind for a while,” the common Indonesian equivalent phrase would translate directly as “It's been saved in my heart.” The word from Indonesian for heart is hati, and if you wanted to tell someone to “be careful,” you would say hati-hati. Suggesting that someone “pay attention” or “pay it mind” would be stated as memperhatikan, or “give it your heart.” And it's not common to simply call someone “sincere” or tulus in Indonesia; you would want to tell them that they are tulus hati.
Another reason why this brings a smile to my face, though, is because the Indonesian core of emotions is, in fact, not the heart; it is the liver. So actually, when telling someone to “give it their heart,” you are indeed suggesting to them to “give it their liver!” This may sound silly, but there might actually be more to this.
Let's look at the two vital organs side-by-side. The heart is without a doubt one heck of an important muscle, but let's face it; it's just a muscle. It's a strong muscle, creating enough pressure to circulate blood through the entire body, but it pales in comparison to the complexity of the liver. The liver has it's hands in such important enterprises as managing our metabolism, protein synthesis, decomposition of red blood cells, producing bile to aid in digestion, and as you heavy drinkers know, detoxification. Biologically speaking, the liver simply has a better track record and has proven itself time and time again that it is a more organized, responsible, and trustworthy candidate for taking on another important task, such as regulating our emotions. If a person in the U.S. gets “stabbed in the heart,” they will die instantly. An indonesian person, on the other hand, who takes the same blow to the liver has at worst 24 hours to collect themselves, make some phone calls, and chances are, they'll probably survive. Heart simply falls short.* If nothing else, this is as good an explanation as any for the causality conundrum on which I was commenting in the first paragraph.
If you happen to be quite close to someone's liver in this country, then you will be subject to all sorts of interrogation. In fact, it seems that the mundaneness of the questions someone asks you on a daily basis is a perfect indicator of the degree to which they care about you. The more uninteresting the questions; the more concerned they are.
“Sudah sembuh?” is the entry level question for a person who has entered your life and whom you see regularly. This means “Are you feeling better?” As you might have noticed, climbing “above the weather” and staying there is not the easiest task in this country. Getting sick in some respect (be it a cold, sore throat, or some stomach discomfort) is probably a biweekly occurrence for most Indonesians, and feeling ill is something simple that anyone with whom you have frequent contact would know about you. So basically, anyone who knows that you had, at one time, not been well will, with out fail, ask you if you are doing alright.
“Sudah tidur?” is a step up. Sleeping is something we people do once daily, and asking if you have “gotten enough sleep” shows that you are truly a fixture in that person's life. As it happens, lack of sleep can lead to illness, and we wouldn't want to have to take a step back in our relationship and ask something semi-irregular, like “Have you gotten better yet?” It's more promising to keep tabs incessantly on one's sleep patterns.
“Sudah Mandi?” is a question which shows that you have more or less entered the realm of family. Bathing is something Indonesians do at least twice a day, by culture. Plus, this is, by nature, a bit more personal. If someone has asked you if you've already taken a bath by late afternoon, they are in no way insinuating that you stink; they are simply making sure that you haven't neglected to consider your personal hygiene. Appearance and first impressions are even more important here than in the U.S., and we wouldn't want to find ourselves in a position where we would have to meet someone of a “higher status” without having taken a shower, now would we?
Let me put it this way; if a girl asks me, “Sudah makan?” I can be pretty sure that marrying her is not out of the question – or that she views me as a son (or both). And if this question comes from a male, we are basically siblings. We eat at least three times a day, and when people are checking up on your dining habits, you know that you could not be closer to them. In Indonesia, a question like “How have you been since your sister's death?” withers in the shadow of a question like, “Have you taken your lunch yet?” A true friend would not only already have a firm grasp on any case where your family member has died, but they would have already gone to great lengths to make sure you are coping positively. Conversing about death and serious injury in Indonesia is basically chewin' the fat and could come up as a side conversation in literally any setting. However, if it so happened that I forgot to bring a sandwich to the teacher's lounge, my closest friends would be eager to share half of their fried rice.
As I mentioned above, status is quite important in this country, and it's an Asian phenomenon that just doesn't exists to the same extent in the western world. “Saving face” and “keeping your name” are of utmost importance and are always on people's minds. And what better way to show that you are an upstanding and contributing member of society than to have a boatload of abbreviated titles prefixing your name? These aren't just novelties either that you simply let go of after you switch jobs. In Indonesia, if you were ever manager of a Pizza Hut, then Mgr. is something you could always insert after Mr. and before your name. People often call me “Pak Guru Ken.,” which translates to “Mr. Teacher Ken.” Guru is just another heading I can now save, until the end of my days, within my ever accumulating list of titles. Should I obtain a doctorate and then acquire some sort of religious standing in the upcoming years, if I come back, then I will surely be referred to as Mr. Dr. Preacher Teacher Ken!
*The heart and liver commentary was in no way an endorsement for John McCain
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Goat's Eyes and Rat's Tails
You might refer to my blog entries from last January and February to refresh yourself on what it's like to be sick on Java. That experience, however, was quite different from the one I most recently had. Last year, many factors distorted the reality of what being sick in Indonesia really means. In fact, the entire institution of being sick in this country is all together different. By the time I fell ill in the pesantren, I had already established myself in the community; people already knew my personality and had already begun to understand the cultural differences between westerners and indonesians. That being said, while I was in the village, I dealt with being sick much as I would have any other time. Of course, at the hospitals, I was at the mercy of local culture and business, but while in Guyangan, I stayed in my house, and I rested. I watched a lot of TV, and I lied on my bed. People didn't really disturb me because they knew I was sick. Until now though, after having observed people in this culture for six or seven more months, and also after having just moved to a new location with new friends who don't really know me yet, I hadn't consciously recognized how abnormal it must have been for the people in Guyangan to have handled my sickness as they did – that is with relative indifference, as I would have expected from any neighbor in the U.S.
I realize that my being a foreigner and a guest at this school tends to amplify whatever reaction people might have to my being in a state of need; however, that's not actually the biggest factor when looking at all the reasons for the differences in how people here are treated when they are ill. Number one is, with out a doubt, the sense of community that people have here. I've made comments like this before, but it's worth mentioning again. It's just so far beyond “southern comfort” that looking out for your friends and family doesn't only function as an aspect of the culture here; it defines social norms and the way people treat each other everyday, in every situation.
I entered St. Yoseph and my community here in a much different light than I did at the pesantren. I immediately started making friends who don't speak English; I instantly began making cultural jokes and quickly learned new ones; I could sing their songs, and I already had strategies for the classroom. By default, I was also less of a novelty. I'm in a big city with more cultured people who, aside from that, have grown up in a culture where everyone seems to be a little less willing to immediately take things at face value. What I mean to say by telling you all this is that I entered this community much more as a community member than as outsider, as compared to last year. And so, I'm being treated as one. I'm already used to how people act around one another (Medan just isn't that different from Java, from the perspective of a westerner, as far as interactions between friends and family); I expected this and instantly accepted it – rather than both parties starting from ground zero and learning everything from one another. Consequently, people look at me, and instead of trying to figure out what a westerner might want in a particular situation, they just assume that I would want to be treated as they treat each other. This is all you could expect from people who've never had intimate contact with an outsider, but because I was already familiar with so many aspects of their culture, I've made it much easier on them, and in some ways harder on me because now I don't even have the relative luxury of people trying to figure me out. You don't expect people in your own culture to have to figure you out, but at least subconsciously you know that people from other cultures are doing their best to try; however, when people here confidently treat me like an Indonesian, it can sometimes be even more frustrating than entering a completely new and unfamiliar place, without any prior connections.
Nevertheless, I've digressed. The second biggest reason why people feel the irrepressible urge to take care of me is due to a fact that I've already mentioned in a previous post; I'm 23, unmarried, and living by myself. At least last year, I was living on the campus of the school. This year I'm in a neighborhood ALONE, away from the people with whom I work, around people who no one knew before I moved there. This is a constant source of distress for my headmistress, who's sister once knew a German guy who died in Indonesia on vacation.
I'm currently half way through my round of antibiotics, and I'm almost well. I've been laying low in my house, trying to get over a throat infection, but to anyone from the outside, it probably looks like I've been having a week-long garage sale, judging by how many people have been coming in and out of my house all day. At this point, I really don't know how to tell people to stop bothering me. Once again, I have to come back to this western sense of privacy that these people just do not have. The two people sitting with me right now informed me that after they called my cell phone, and I didn't answer, they decided to come over (which is surely what they were going to do even if I had picked up). They've now been here for over two hours because it's apparent that they don't have to work (on a Monday), and one of them has fallen asleep watching, guess what, Indonesian day-time television with the volume at full blast. I feel like I've been running a circus all week, and it's no coincidence that it's because I've been feverishly ill.
I guess what has gotten on my nerves the most is having had to listen to the incessant suggestions as to how to get better and everyone's diagnosis, as well as probable cause for the illness. First of all, when I say diagnosis, what I mean to say is hearing people exclaim, “Ooooh, masuk angin!” Masuk angin seems to be the only illness afflicting anyone who's not perceived to be 110% healthy in this country. This is their expression for “catching a cold.” According to my co-workers and friends, my particular case of masuk angin could have potentially been caused by the following:
1)Eating too much spicy food
2)Playing soccer with the middle schoolers a week and a half ago
3)Riding my motorcycle in the rain
4)Riding my motorcycle without a jacket (even when it's sunny)
5)Watching TV with the fan pointed toward me
6)Taking a nap on the floor on my new mattress
7)Breathing chalk dust from the chalk board
These are all perfectly sound arguments for why I had a fever for 3 days in a row, a headache, dizziness, and swollen glands with a soar throat and redness. And interestingly enough, after my counterpart (who is just about the loopiest woman I've ever met) gave me her advice about not eating spicy food, she opened up the bag of arsyik she had brought me for my lunch, certainly the spiciest traditional Batak dish that I know of. I was positive that spicy food had not caused my throat infection, but honestly, stuffed chilies surrounding a goldfish swimming in chili sauce was not what I wanted at the time.
There are an ample amount of remedies for curing masuk angin, which range from a traditional massage to seemingly random concoctions of god knows what, and I've been subject to them all. The massage I was forced into left me with bruises on my shins, but the special drinks, at least, weren't physically painful. My favorite has been just taking huge double-shots of honey! I've also seen people taking shots of olive oil and strange fermented milk drinks. Honey, though, in this country is by far the most common drink that one might make a toast to. It is viewed as the preferable alternative to sugar in almost all cases because it makes you “strong instead of fat.” So like I said, people tend to just throw their head back and down a glass of it in fractions of a second. Another drink, however, that has only recently been brought to my attention was unfortunately forced down my throat twice in two days. When Mr. Jon walked in my house with two glowing blue eggs, I knew I was in for it. He casually walked into my kitchen, needing not to start any sort of conversation, and began draining the whites from the two eggs he had cracked on my counter.
“Are raw eggs healthy?” I asked in Indonesian, to which I got a delayed answer but instantly raised eyebrows followed by an intimidating glare. “This is medicine,” was Mr. Jon's only verbal reply.
He proceeded to mix the egg yokes with honey and some indonesian spices, which I don't think even have English names. After the brew was homogeneous, it was handed to me in a coffee cup. All I could think of was bird flu, and so I asked one more time if it was okay to drink. Mr. Jon assured me that there was no need to worry because these were not chicken eggs, but instead they were telur desa, or “village eggs.”
Oh great, “Village eggs!” I thought to myself. Well, why didn't you say so???
Reluctantly, I gulped down the entire glass, while Mr. Jon put a couple more eggs into my refrigerator. I didn't want another glass of that stuff, but I wasn't going to insist that he take the eggs home. The next day, he barged in while Mr. Sinaga had been making himself comfortable on my couch. Immediately he asked if I had eaten the other eggs. Pretending like I didn't know what he was talking about, I just looked at him with a confused expression, and hesitantly answered no. I guess I was hoping he would just let it go, but instead he simply opened my refrigerator and got them out himself. About that time Mr. Sinaga had awakened and walked into my kitchen to see what the commotion was about. He looked at me, then looked at Mr. Jon, and with a concerned but eagerly consenting tone, he exclaimed, “ahhhhh yes, village eggs!”
I realize that my being a foreigner and a guest at this school tends to amplify whatever reaction people might have to my being in a state of need; however, that's not actually the biggest factor when looking at all the reasons for the differences in how people here are treated when they are ill. Number one is, with out a doubt, the sense of community that people have here. I've made comments like this before, but it's worth mentioning again. It's just so far beyond “southern comfort” that looking out for your friends and family doesn't only function as an aspect of the culture here; it defines social norms and the way people treat each other everyday, in every situation.
I entered St. Yoseph and my community here in a much different light than I did at the pesantren. I immediately started making friends who don't speak English; I instantly began making cultural jokes and quickly learned new ones; I could sing their songs, and I already had strategies for the classroom. By default, I was also less of a novelty. I'm in a big city with more cultured people who, aside from that, have grown up in a culture where everyone seems to be a little less willing to immediately take things at face value. What I mean to say by telling you all this is that I entered this community much more as a community member than as outsider, as compared to last year. And so, I'm being treated as one. I'm already used to how people act around one another (Medan just isn't that different from Java, from the perspective of a westerner, as far as interactions between friends and family); I expected this and instantly accepted it – rather than both parties starting from ground zero and learning everything from one another. Consequently, people look at me, and instead of trying to figure out what a westerner might want in a particular situation, they just assume that I would want to be treated as they treat each other. This is all you could expect from people who've never had intimate contact with an outsider, but because I was already familiar with so many aspects of their culture, I've made it much easier on them, and in some ways harder on me because now I don't even have the relative luxury of people trying to figure me out. You don't expect people in your own culture to have to figure you out, but at least subconsciously you know that people from other cultures are doing their best to try; however, when people here confidently treat me like an Indonesian, it can sometimes be even more frustrating than entering a completely new and unfamiliar place, without any prior connections.
Nevertheless, I've digressed. The second biggest reason why people feel the irrepressible urge to take care of me is due to a fact that I've already mentioned in a previous post; I'm 23, unmarried, and living by myself. At least last year, I was living on the campus of the school. This year I'm in a neighborhood ALONE, away from the people with whom I work, around people who no one knew before I moved there. This is a constant source of distress for my headmistress, who's sister once knew a German guy who died in Indonesia on vacation.
I'm currently half way through my round of antibiotics, and I'm almost well. I've been laying low in my house, trying to get over a throat infection, but to anyone from the outside, it probably looks like I've been having a week-long garage sale, judging by how many people have been coming in and out of my house all day. At this point, I really don't know how to tell people to stop bothering me. Once again, I have to come back to this western sense of privacy that these people just do not have. The two people sitting with me right now informed me that after they called my cell phone, and I didn't answer, they decided to come over (which is surely what they were going to do even if I had picked up). They've now been here for over two hours because it's apparent that they don't have to work (on a Monday), and one of them has fallen asleep watching, guess what, Indonesian day-time television with the volume at full blast. I feel like I've been running a circus all week, and it's no coincidence that it's because I've been feverishly ill.
I guess what has gotten on my nerves the most is having had to listen to the incessant suggestions as to how to get better and everyone's diagnosis, as well as probable cause for the illness. First of all, when I say diagnosis, what I mean to say is hearing people exclaim, “Ooooh, masuk angin!” Masuk angin seems to be the only illness afflicting anyone who's not perceived to be 110% healthy in this country. This is their expression for “catching a cold.” According to my co-workers and friends, my particular case of masuk angin could have potentially been caused by the following:
1)Eating too much spicy food
2)Playing soccer with the middle schoolers a week and a half ago
3)Riding my motorcycle in the rain
4)Riding my motorcycle without a jacket (even when it's sunny)
5)Watching TV with the fan pointed toward me
6)Taking a nap on the floor on my new mattress
7)Breathing chalk dust from the chalk board
These are all perfectly sound arguments for why I had a fever for 3 days in a row, a headache, dizziness, and swollen glands with a soar throat and redness. And interestingly enough, after my counterpart (who is just about the loopiest woman I've ever met) gave me her advice about not eating spicy food, she opened up the bag of arsyik she had brought me for my lunch, certainly the spiciest traditional Batak dish that I know of. I was positive that spicy food had not caused my throat infection, but honestly, stuffed chilies surrounding a goldfish swimming in chili sauce was not what I wanted at the time.
There are an ample amount of remedies for curing masuk angin, which range from a traditional massage to seemingly random concoctions of god knows what, and I've been subject to them all. The massage I was forced into left me with bruises on my shins, but the special drinks, at least, weren't physically painful. My favorite has been just taking huge double-shots of honey! I've also seen people taking shots of olive oil and strange fermented milk drinks. Honey, though, in this country is by far the most common drink that one might make a toast to. It is viewed as the preferable alternative to sugar in almost all cases because it makes you “strong instead of fat.” So like I said, people tend to just throw their head back and down a glass of it in fractions of a second. Another drink, however, that has only recently been brought to my attention was unfortunately forced down my throat twice in two days. When Mr. Jon walked in my house with two glowing blue eggs, I knew I was in for it. He casually walked into my kitchen, needing not to start any sort of conversation, and began draining the whites from the two eggs he had cracked on my counter.
“Are raw eggs healthy?” I asked in Indonesian, to which I got a delayed answer but instantly raised eyebrows followed by an intimidating glare. “This is medicine,” was Mr. Jon's only verbal reply.
He proceeded to mix the egg yokes with honey and some indonesian spices, which I don't think even have English names. After the brew was homogeneous, it was handed to me in a coffee cup. All I could think of was bird flu, and so I asked one more time if it was okay to drink. Mr. Jon assured me that there was no need to worry because these were not chicken eggs, but instead they were telur desa, or “village eggs.”
Oh great, “Village eggs!” I thought to myself. Well, why didn't you say so???
Reluctantly, I gulped down the entire glass, while Mr. Jon put a couple more eggs into my refrigerator. I didn't want another glass of that stuff, but I wasn't going to insist that he take the eggs home. The next day, he barged in while Mr. Sinaga had been making himself comfortable on my couch. Immediately he asked if I had eaten the other eggs. Pretending like I didn't know what he was talking about, I just looked at him with a confused expression, and hesitantly answered no. I guess I was hoping he would just let it go, but instead he simply opened my refrigerator and got them out himself. About that time Mr. Sinaga had awakened and walked into my kitchen to see what the commotion was about. He looked at me, then looked at Mr. Jon, and with a concerned but eagerly consenting tone, he exclaimed, “ahhhhh yes, village eggs!”
Thursday, September 11, 2008
How I Long for Seinfeld
My blog entries seem to be going about once-a-week strong. I'd like to write even more, but I think we can all agree that if this pace keeps up, then I will be doing much better than last year. This new rate of postings, however, is admittedly not the result of a new-found motivation for writing; it is just as much a product of the time I spent watching TV in Pati being displaced to other mediums. While I did not veg-out exorbitant amounts last year, I can certainly attribute my recent and genuine interest in politics/current events to having had access to both Al-Jazeera and The BBC on my satellite television. I watched them enough to have both of their musical themes memorized, and I know the names of my favorite shows on each station. This year, however, my only exposure to televised media is through the 12 or 13 channels on Indonesian basic cable. AN-TV, Trans-TV, and Trans-7 are the only stations that I have ever had the slightest interest in sitting in front of and watching straight through an entire program. I highly doubt I will be able to elucidate just how terrible television programming is in this country, but I will try.
Last night I had come home from breaking fast with a new Muslim friend, Era, whom I made ironically at the Liquid Chlorophyl presentation. She's really sharp, and she's the only person I even bothered to try and convince not to be sucked into this down-payment, 4% yield, pyramid scheme. We had a really pleasant time and hung out for close to 3 hours, if not more (which is border-line monumental for me for three main reasons: 1) she is female, 2) this did not happen on vacation, which means I will be able to continue to build a relationship with her, and 3) we actually broke cultural norms and chatted through an entire meal). The only snag is that she doesn't speak any English. So, after straining my brain for the better part of the evening, and only after getting turned around in the rain on my motorcycle and having had to ask three or four street vendors how to get to Setia Budi Street, veging-out in front of the television was really the only thing I wanted to do once I got home.
The only redeeming quality that Trans-TV possesses is the fact that every night there is a line-up of American movies. I've seen quality films such as “Batman Begins,” “In the Line of Fire,” and “Air-Force One” during my time in Indonesia. Despite this however, movies of that sort are somewhat of an anomaly when you consider the type of flicks that are regularly shown. For example, last night I watched the second half of “Boa vs. Python” for the forth time since I've been here.
I was more discouraged than ever and no less mentally exhausted, after having had to endure predictable one-liners and horrible quality CGI, so I decided to wait for the midnight movie. The movies shown at midnight are usually of a slightly higher quality, which unfortunately is pretty disappointing, since I rarely stay up that late. Last night's feature, though, was Oliver Stone's “U-Turn,” possibly the most frustrating movie I've watched since I saw David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. four years ago. I don't know how they get off on juxtaposing a low-budget horror flick with an experimental art-film that caters to the tastes of only a small minority of people in the country in which it was actually intended to be seen – but it's not the first time I've seen this happen on Trans-TV. Ultimately, I forced myself to watch the entire movie, despite the fact that by every commercial break I could only reflect on how badly I wished the main character would just die and the movie would end.
Wishing that programming in this country would just end is regrettably the sole reason why I've only turned my television on four or fives times in the three weeks I've been in Medan. The only actual news I've seen so far was last night at 2 a.m., when “U-Turn” finally ended. And even when watching real news, I can hardly bring myself to pay attention because it's so graphic. When you actually do catch news in this country, it's nothing like our own. Instead of airing a professional shot of the crumbled roof from outside, Indonesian news usually seems to include personally submitted “handycam” footage of someone walking into the destroyed house and video-taping lifeless, legless children.
Everything I've ever seen during the day is either celebrity gossip or an intolerable “Morning Cup of Coffee” kind of show, with more fake laughter in five minutes than I would care to endure in five hours. Prime time sit-coms here are actually what we would label as daytime soap-operas. And thankfully, we don't even have a word in English for Indonesian day-time television. These shows are so horrible that I guarantee I could star in any one of them. I'm not joking, I've considered it, and I may still try.
Cheap laughs are incredibly common as well. Game shows usually include some ridiculous obstacle course with conveyer belts and moving walls, where people are sure to fall and then be shown at least four times in a row in reverse-motion, slow-motion, and fast-motion replay. Commentators with silly voices, such as on “America's Funniest Home Videos” or “The Planet's Funniest Animals” are also overused to the farthest imaginable extent, on any show where a reply could possibly be shown.
If I must have the television switched on, nature shows are what I usually find myself staying tuned into. The apparent demand for 1970s American science programs is simply astonishing. I'm sure I could find at least one subtitled documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman each week. Just as with Trans-TV's choices of films, though, it's not even the out-of-date, science and nature programming that entertains me; it's the choice of programming that generally comes on directly afterwards. I've gone from watching cute panda cubs quarreling over a shoot of bamboo to seeing an interview with a crazy indonesian man, with a 5-inch mustache and a Metallica shirt, talking about his professional horse-fighting ring. I imagine you've probably never seen a dog fight or a chicken fight. Maybe you have. Nevertheless, I bet you can at least imagine how brutal it must be. Now, lets add about 4 feet in height to those dogs and about 600 or 700 pounds of muscle. I promise that unless you ever seen a horse that has been trained to fight other horses, you cannot imagine how horrible it is, especially considering how majestic these animals are and how our culture tends to hold them in such high esteem. Watching Sea Biscuit get the shit beat out of him is pretty traumatizing.
Last night I had come home from breaking fast with a new Muslim friend, Era, whom I made ironically at the Liquid Chlorophyl presentation. She's really sharp, and she's the only person I even bothered to try and convince not to be sucked into this down-payment, 4% yield, pyramid scheme. We had a really pleasant time and hung out for close to 3 hours, if not more (which is border-line monumental for me for three main reasons: 1) she is female, 2) this did not happen on vacation, which means I will be able to continue to build a relationship with her, and 3) we actually broke cultural norms and chatted through an entire meal). The only snag is that she doesn't speak any English. So, after straining my brain for the better part of the evening, and only after getting turned around in the rain on my motorcycle and having had to ask three or four street vendors how to get to Setia Budi Street, veging-out in front of the television was really the only thing I wanted to do once I got home.
The only redeeming quality that Trans-TV possesses is the fact that every night there is a line-up of American movies. I've seen quality films such as “Batman Begins,” “In the Line of Fire,” and “Air-Force One” during my time in Indonesia. Despite this however, movies of that sort are somewhat of an anomaly when you consider the type of flicks that are regularly shown. For example, last night I watched the second half of “Boa vs. Python” for the forth time since I've been here.
I was more discouraged than ever and no less mentally exhausted, after having had to endure predictable one-liners and horrible quality CGI, so I decided to wait for the midnight movie. The movies shown at midnight are usually of a slightly higher quality, which unfortunately is pretty disappointing, since I rarely stay up that late. Last night's feature, though, was Oliver Stone's “U-Turn,” possibly the most frustrating movie I've watched since I saw David Lynch's Mulholland Dr. four years ago. I don't know how they get off on juxtaposing a low-budget horror flick with an experimental art-film that caters to the tastes of only a small minority of people in the country in which it was actually intended to be seen – but it's not the first time I've seen this happen on Trans-TV. Ultimately, I forced myself to watch the entire movie, despite the fact that by every commercial break I could only reflect on how badly I wished the main character would just die and the movie would end.
Wishing that programming in this country would just end is regrettably the sole reason why I've only turned my television on four or fives times in the three weeks I've been in Medan. The only actual news I've seen so far was last night at 2 a.m., when “U-Turn” finally ended. And even when watching real news, I can hardly bring myself to pay attention because it's so graphic. When you actually do catch news in this country, it's nothing like our own. Instead of airing a professional shot of the crumbled roof from outside, Indonesian news usually seems to include personally submitted “handycam” footage of someone walking into the destroyed house and video-taping lifeless, legless children.
Everything I've ever seen during the day is either celebrity gossip or an intolerable “Morning Cup of Coffee” kind of show, with more fake laughter in five minutes than I would care to endure in five hours. Prime time sit-coms here are actually what we would label as daytime soap-operas. And thankfully, we don't even have a word in English for Indonesian day-time television. These shows are so horrible that I guarantee I could star in any one of them. I'm not joking, I've considered it, and I may still try.
Cheap laughs are incredibly common as well. Game shows usually include some ridiculous obstacle course with conveyer belts and moving walls, where people are sure to fall and then be shown at least four times in a row in reverse-motion, slow-motion, and fast-motion replay. Commentators with silly voices, such as on “America's Funniest Home Videos” or “The Planet's Funniest Animals” are also overused to the farthest imaginable extent, on any show where a reply could possibly be shown.
If I must have the television switched on, nature shows are what I usually find myself staying tuned into. The apparent demand for 1970s American science programs is simply astonishing. I'm sure I could find at least one subtitled documentary narrated by Morgan Freeman each week. Just as with Trans-TV's choices of films, though, it's not even the out-of-date, science and nature programming that entertains me; it's the choice of programming that generally comes on directly afterwards. I've gone from watching cute panda cubs quarreling over a shoot of bamboo to seeing an interview with a crazy indonesian man, with a 5-inch mustache and a Metallica shirt, talking about his professional horse-fighting ring. I imagine you've probably never seen a dog fight or a chicken fight. Maybe you have. Nevertheless, I bet you can at least imagine how brutal it must be. Now, lets add about 4 feet in height to those dogs and about 600 or 700 pounds of muscle. I promise that unless you ever seen a horse that has been trained to fight other horses, you cannot imagine how horrible it is, especially considering how majestic these animals are and how our culture tends to hold them in such high esteem. Watching Sea Biscuit get the shit beat out of him is pretty traumatizing.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
I Can't Understand Mr. Monang
I'm still not quite to the point where I can fully comprehend the actions or intentions of many Indonesians, but at least I have finally gotten to a place where expecting the unexpected is second nature. I feel like I've developed a unique ability to at least recognize situations where the result will be doubtlessly unpredictable. In Medan I've already been doing much more laughing to myself (as opposed to staring in confusion) about the strange occurrences that happen here, mainly because leastwise I'm prepared for the irony. This year, rather than hitting trip mines and getting blown away, I will be watching time-bombs from a safe distance.
My second night in Medan truly began about two hours after dark with a shout from outside my bedroom window, produced by the high-pitched voice of five-foot-nothing Mr. Monang, an employee at St. Yoseph. I had met him briefly at school that day, and he had already been to my house that afternoon to help fix a slight problem in my bathroom. Especially at the time, but even right up until yesterday afternoon, I'd had a problem communicating with this man. I did deduce, however, that he wanted to enter my house, totally unprompted, after I'd already eaten, prepared for bed, and locked my doors. I'd been home alone for hours and was fully expecting to sleep soon, so his abrupt and arguably discourteous arrival puzzled me slightly. Of the few people I'd already met in Medan, and with whom I'd formed only a 24-hour relationship, I inarguably knew Mr. Monang the least. Wielding an over-night bag, he walked past me at the front door, sat on my couch, and turned on my television.
I've been in my new home for over two weeks now, and I've had countless interactions with Mr. Monang. He's taken me to the bank, motorcycle shopping, and has often given me rides home from school. Even now, I'd say I can understand maximally 20-30% of what he says to me. It's not because I have a hard time with his accent nor with his choice of words; it's mainly because I absolutely have no idea where this guy's mind is, and it doesn't help that he speaks in sharp, short bursts. I can literally speak in Indonesian with a group of people for 20 minutes straight and be totally within an Indonesian mindset, and Mr. Monang can enter the scene, and I can no longer communicate with anyone in the room. He destroys my groove like nothing else. One thing I never let slip by me, though, are his frequent queries about why I'm always laughing at him. I don't know how to explain that I pretty much never know what on earth he's talking about, so I've just resorted to laughing at the situation every time I'm around him. I feel like every once in a while we have the occasional and exciting breakthrough, but each time that happens, only 30 seconds later does he ask me a question that I simply don't have an answer to, nor can I think of anything to say that might be even slightly related. I usually just look at him with a huge smile on my face and get nothing back but a blank stare. He sees me speaking in Indonesian with countless people, so I'm sure he's also confused as to why we can't seem to get ideas across to one another. I love him, but I'm not sure that he likes me at all.
That night when he arrived at my house for an unannounced sleepover (or maybe it was; I guess I'll never know), I couldn't even understand him when he asked me simple questions like “what time is it?” His questions not only came up at seemingly random times during what I'd like to think was a conversation, but he'd use expressions that I'd never heard before (and of course using nothing but words that I actually did know, so it was all the more frustrating to not understand). He repeatedly kept saying “jam kita,” and with his unfamiliar Medanese intonation, I didn't even realize that there was an implied question mark until he reached for my cell phone to look at the clock. Jam can mean “time,” “hour,” or “clock,” and kita means “we.” I finally figured out that kita was modifying jam and, therefore, probably meant “our time.” But it was “our time” for what? I guess it's not so uncommon for someone to ask, “Yo, what's our time, bro?” But at least in English, we've got a question word floating around somewhere within the sentence.
Clearly, in his mind, there had to be no question as to why he was slipping into his pajamas and making himself comfortable on my couch. So, I was at least hoping that his thoughts were going farther than the fact that we had finally established that it was bedtime. Nevertheless, my knowing that he certainly must have some straightforward reason for being in my house, it made it extremely difficult for me to phrase the question that was turning over and over in my head; “what the hell are you doing here?!?” One thing I have gathered is that people in this country, especially if they work with you, are almost always obliged to assist you, and so rarely do they have negative intentions. I knew that I had nothing to worry about, but I certainly wasn't expecting to have a room-mate. I was admittedly in a tough spot because I really wanted to know what was going on, but if there's anything you shouldn't do in this country, it's insult or refuse someone's attempts at kindness, especially upon first meeting them (and especially in Medan, where I had heard that people are more vindictive and easily upset).
Ultimately, I willingly let this complete stranger take a shower and brush his teeth in my bathroom, and I gave him my extra pillow. The next morning, he left without a word, and I went to school alone, as I had expected to do all along. Once I got there, I decided it might be a good idea to give Sister Modesta, the school's headmistress, my account of last night. Simply ecstatic to hear that I had spent the night with Mr. Monang, she explained to me that she had “ordered” him to sleep at my house. I assumed it had to be something like this, and that's why I went to her first. Indonesian people are always genuinely concerned about whether or not others are lonely, and for them, this sort of thing is not only common, but it would be totally unacceptable to have a new guest in the ranks and not provide company for them. After all, I'm only 23 (a kid in the minds of many here), so how could I not be scared and lonely in a new house? It's a simple fact that there was no word in Indonesian for the western notion of privacy until they added pribadi, only recently, into their dictionary. Oh Indonesia.
My second night in Medan truly began about two hours after dark with a shout from outside my bedroom window, produced by the high-pitched voice of five-foot-nothing Mr. Monang, an employee at St. Yoseph. I had met him briefly at school that day, and he had already been to my house that afternoon to help fix a slight problem in my bathroom. Especially at the time, but even right up until yesterday afternoon, I'd had a problem communicating with this man. I did deduce, however, that he wanted to enter my house, totally unprompted, after I'd already eaten, prepared for bed, and locked my doors. I'd been home alone for hours and was fully expecting to sleep soon, so his abrupt and arguably discourteous arrival puzzled me slightly. Of the few people I'd already met in Medan, and with whom I'd formed only a 24-hour relationship, I inarguably knew Mr. Monang the least. Wielding an over-night bag, he walked past me at the front door, sat on my couch, and turned on my television.
I've been in my new home for over two weeks now, and I've had countless interactions with Mr. Monang. He's taken me to the bank, motorcycle shopping, and has often given me rides home from school. Even now, I'd say I can understand maximally 20-30% of what he says to me. It's not because I have a hard time with his accent nor with his choice of words; it's mainly because I absolutely have no idea where this guy's mind is, and it doesn't help that he speaks in sharp, short bursts. I can literally speak in Indonesian with a group of people for 20 minutes straight and be totally within an Indonesian mindset, and Mr. Monang can enter the scene, and I can no longer communicate with anyone in the room. He destroys my groove like nothing else. One thing I never let slip by me, though, are his frequent queries about why I'm always laughing at him. I don't know how to explain that I pretty much never know what on earth he's talking about, so I've just resorted to laughing at the situation every time I'm around him. I feel like every once in a while we have the occasional and exciting breakthrough, but each time that happens, only 30 seconds later does he ask me a question that I simply don't have an answer to, nor can I think of anything to say that might be even slightly related. I usually just look at him with a huge smile on my face and get nothing back but a blank stare. He sees me speaking in Indonesian with countless people, so I'm sure he's also confused as to why we can't seem to get ideas across to one another. I love him, but I'm not sure that he likes me at all.
That night when he arrived at my house for an unannounced sleepover (or maybe it was; I guess I'll never know), I couldn't even understand him when he asked me simple questions like “what time is it?” His questions not only came up at seemingly random times during what I'd like to think was a conversation, but he'd use expressions that I'd never heard before (and of course using nothing but words that I actually did know, so it was all the more frustrating to not understand). He repeatedly kept saying “jam kita,” and with his unfamiliar Medanese intonation, I didn't even realize that there was an implied question mark until he reached for my cell phone to look at the clock. Jam can mean “time,” “hour,” or “clock,” and kita means “we.” I finally figured out that kita was modifying jam and, therefore, probably meant “our time.” But it was “our time” for what? I guess it's not so uncommon for someone to ask, “Yo, what's our time, bro?” But at least in English, we've got a question word floating around somewhere within the sentence.
Clearly, in his mind, there had to be no question as to why he was slipping into his pajamas and making himself comfortable on my couch. So, I was at least hoping that his thoughts were going farther than the fact that we had finally established that it was bedtime. Nevertheless, my knowing that he certainly must have some straightforward reason for being in my house, it made it extremely difficult for me to phrase the question that was turning over and over in my head; “what the hell are you doing here?!?” One thing I have gathered is that people in this country, especially if they work with you, are almost always obliged to assist you, and so rarely do they have negative intentions. I knew that I had nothing to worry about, but I certainly wasn't expecting to have a room-mate. I was admittedly in a tough spot because I really wanted to know what was going on, but if there's anything you shouldn't do in this country, it's insult or refuse someone's attempts at kindness, especially upon first meeting them (and especially in Medan, where I had heard that people are more vindictive and easily upset).
Ultimately, I willingly let this complete stranger take a shower and brush his teeth in my bathroom, and I gave him my extra pillow. The next morning, he left without a word, and I went to school alone, as I had expected to do all along. Once I got there, I decided it might be a good idea to give Sister Modesta, the school's headmistress, my account of last night. Simply ecstatic to hear that I had spent the night with Mr. Monang, she explained to me that she had “ordered” him to sleep at my house. I assumed it had to be something like this, and that's why I went to her first. Indonesian people are always genuinely concerned about whether or not others are lonely, and for them, this sort of thing is not only common, but it would be totally unacceptable to have a new guest in the ranks and not provide company for them. After all, I'm only 23 (a kid in the minds of many here), so how could I not be scared and lonely in a new house? It's a simple fact that there was no word in Indonesian for the western notion of privacy until they added pribadi, only recently, into their dictionary. Oh Indonesia.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Reactivating, Body Cleansing, Energy Revitalizing Trickery
Here am I at 8:00 am, sitting in my living room on a Sunday morning, laughing to myself because after one year of living in Indonesia, it's still so difficult to accept the crazy reality that, in fact, I am living every day. I was just awakened by my new team of servants, who come to my house two or three times a week. Ika is a 17-year-old girl, who's currently in trade school, studying telecommunications. Her mother, Sia, has lived in Medan her whole life. After she cleans houses in the morning, she opens a small warung (eating stall), where she sells various fried indonesian snacks. They both seem to have the typical Batak personality – loud and direct, much different from my passive and polite Javanese friends. They cut me no slack when speaking the language and leap at every opportunity to make fun of my unfamiliar, American-Indonesian dialect. They were recommended to me by my neighbors, who apparently have been hiring them for quite some time. Last week they came to my house for the first time, and we negotiated a price of Rp. 150,000 per month. Compared to Java, that seemed pretty fair to me, but when I spoke to my co-workers at school about how much I had agreed to pay them, each of my new friends' expressions changed, and they scolded me for not asking their advice first about how much to pay. I guess a whopping $16 a month for washing dishes and clothes, ironing, and mopping my floor multiple times a week is pretty unheard of in Medan.
Someone outside school, however, who has already gone to great lengths to introduce me to the culture, to befriend me, and to show me the ropes may or may not have the noble intentions that I would have hoped for. Chris drove me from the airport to my home on my first day here, and since then, I have spent a couple really long days with him, visiting his friends and family, as well as checking out some scenery in the area. I had a wonderfully genuine experience with him last week when I ate dinner with his family. Before the end of the night, I was deemed 'Uncle Ken' and was asked to say the blessing before dinner. I had multiple kids climbing all over my back for the better part of an hour, and I was receiving constant directions about how to cook the delicious food that I had been served.
Later that night, we moved from his mother's home to one of his friend's places, where many people had already gathered together. One of the crew is a local TV personality, and a couple more seemed to be pretty successful business types. They were great people, and we talked about everything from our future plans and goals to how they were going to “open my third eye” and show me a ghost who tends to hang out around their house – which hell, if they can do that, then I'm totally up for it. A couple hours passed, and throughout the course of the evening, mentions of their business popped up as non-sequiturs in our conversation. I didn't really have much interest in it because I was so tired by that time, so I never really bothered to ask what they were all into. Without a doubt, however, they were certainly selling some product.
This past friday was a good 20-hour day, which started at my school, St. Yoseph, and ended on the back of Chris's mo-ped. I was in Medan city for many hours with my friend, John, another teacher at the school, where we tried to sort out my internet situation at the infamous Telkomsel office. This year, I'm handling the complications with Telkomsel quite productively, whereas a few interactions last year ended up in tears later in the day, when I still could not begin to apply for graduate school... but that's beside the point. After John toted me around on his Suzuki for half the day, he dropped me off at Citra Gardens, where I was supposed to meet Chris for dinner. However, this place's formal atmosphere looked much more like that of an office complex than that of a food court, and in fact, it was.
I sat down with my new friend and three other people I hadn't met yet and was given expensive coffee to drink while Chris explained to me that, actually, he wanted me to see a presentation before we went to eat, and how that was actually the true reason why he wanted me to meet him there. I'm not going to say that I had been leery of him the whole time, but since our first meeting, I hadn't forgotten seeing his set of motivational tapes and secrets-to-success guides (all from the same publisher) in his car on the ride back from the airport. And sure enough, all the people I had met with him the previous weekend, who had all been introduced to me merely as friends, immediately showed up wearing suits and carrying bundles of electronic equipment.
While the crew began to assemble their mini-stage upstairs, Chris began to entertain the many guests who started to filter in. To my utter disappointment, he whipped out a few boxes of Liquid Chlorophyll, a product of some pyramid scheme (which is now referred to as “Multilevel Marketing,” by the way). Last year, a few teachers at Guyangan, including Imam (who is always scheming about something), came to school one day with this great new idea about how to get rich and how to sell a product that cleanses your body naturally. Liquid Chlorophyll is just some drink with a lot of iron and a lot of calcium, but a new cult of multilevel marketers has apparently started to go around (especially in developing countries, where people have a lower standard of education), in order to promote their product with a super fancy presentation, including an LCD projector, an advanced sound system, and a Powerpoint slide-show with all the bells and whistles that the program has to offer.
It's just fact that a great deal of people in developing countries are fascinated with new technology, and because they haven't been exposed to it (nor to fraudulent money making schemes, nor to many science or psychology classes), when they see a production like this, they have absolutely no reason in the world to doubt the truth of what the presenters are saying. I actually talked for over an hour about this kind of marketing and about the psychological tricks that are used in order to get people to join these scams with the group of teachers in the pesantren, who were all highly considering dropping the equivalent of $200 to join – that's two months' salary for a lot of them.
On some level, I was actually happy that I was about to see this presentation, which had excited my co-workers in Guyangan so strongly. And about half way through, I wanted my video camera so badly it was killing me. They were making claims that if you were to leave a cigarette near a closed bottle of Liquid Chlorophyll for some mentioned length of time, that the nicotine in the cigarette would be absorbed (into what, I don't know). They had so much scientific-sounding lingo for the different kinds of products, like “omega squared,” “universe induced energy,” “solar-harnessed negative ions,”and “the six elements of health.” Each time a new presenter entered or left the stage, they were given an up-beat, rock 'n' roll intro or exit track, to which they jogged off the stage, through the audience, giving high fives to the other presenters and sometimes even to excited audience members. And at one point, they had four volunteers come up onto the stage, not knowing what their assignment was to be, and they were all told to lift a man into the air using only their index fingers (a seemingly impossible task). The man was sitting in a chair, and of course the participants were confused; they were only told where they could lift him (under his arms and legs), but they didn't know exactly why they were doing this, nor how.
After they failed miserably, they were each given a glass of Liquid Chlorophyll to drink and were told that after 15 minutes, when the product had been properly metabolized (also a perfect amount of time to think about their new job and mentally prepare), they would be asked to try and lift the man again. The second time when the group of people went up in front of everyone, you could see that their attitudes had changed. They knew what they had to do, and they had all been thinking about how they would do it. Also, unlike last time when they were expected to fail, this time they had 35 pairs of eyes expecting them to succeed. The participants had smiles on their faces instead of grimaces, and they had bent knees and fully planted legs instead of precarious and apathetic postures. Of course the four of them were able to lift the man, and to their own amazement and satisfaction, an audience of genuinely impressed people began to clap. I was desperately scanning the room to see if I could make eye-contact with anyone who wasn't buying into the silly deception. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful.
After the presentation, everyone was broken into groups, and round-table discussion ensued. Everyone was asked to stand, introduce him/herself, and give his reason for wanting to join the Liquid Chlorophyll family. If they had already joined, they were encouraged to give a testimonial about how Liquid Chlorophyll had changed their life. I'm not exaggerating about that last comment either; Indonesian people in general love drama much more than western people. For example, yesterday I was asked to video tape the speeches that some individuals made at a going away party for one of the teachers at my school who is about to move to another island. Any time someone started crying while the camera was off, John, who was sitting next to me, gave me an urgent look and pressured me to switch it on. The fact that, in a group of friends at someone's house, people were giving speeches one-by-one to honor their departing workmate should tell you enough. Anyway, I of course was not exempt from the introduction process at the Liquid Chlorophyll debriefing. If there is anything that I have learned to do during my time in Indonesia, it's been how to handle myself in completely random, awkward, and uncomfortable situations.
After the hours of craziness, I actually did have a good time with Chris and his friends at an eating stall outside the building. They were pretty genuine people, and I couldn't really be frustrated with them. Chris had been slightly deceiving, but I have truly begun to embrace all unpredictable things that happen while I'm here. I honestly just don't have a whole lot on my plate, so it's not like anything could really inconvenience me. So many things that used to frustrate me last year just make me excited now, and I when find myself in these situations, I'm always taking notes with the software on my cell phone, just so I can remember exactly how silly everything is. The only undeniably disturbing aspect of the evening was having to silently watch desperate people get taken advantage of by an American product, clearly aiming to take advantage of desperate people in other countries (there's a reason why you probably haven't heard of this drink before). But hey, that's why I can't wait to start focusing on education next year in grad school.
Someone outside school, however, who has already gone to great lengths to introduce me to the culture, to befriend me, and to show me the ropes may or may not have the noble intentions that I would have hoped for. Chris drove me from the airport to my home on my first day here, and since then, I have spent a couple really long days with him, visiting his friends and family, as well as checking out some scenery in the area. I had a wonderfully genuine experience with him last week when I ate dinner with his family. Before the end of the night, I was deemed 'Uncle Ken' and was asked to say the blessing before dinner. I had multiple kids climbing all over my back for the better part of an hour, and I was receiving constant directions about how to cook the delicious food that I had been served.
Later that night, we moved from his mother's home to one of his friend's places, where many people had already gathered together. One of the crew is a local TV personality, and a couple more seemed to be pretty successful business types. They were great people, and we talked about everything from our future plans and goals to how they were going to “open my third eye” and show me a ghost who tends to hang out around their house – which hell, if they can do that, then I'm totally up for it. A couple hours passed, and throughout the course of the evening, mentions of their business popped up as non-sequiturs in our conversation. I didn't really have much interest in it because I was so tired by that time, so I never really bothered to ask what they were all into. Without a doubt, however, they were certainly selling some product.
This past friday was a good 20-hour day, which started at my school, St. Yoseph, and ended on the back of Chris's mo-ped. I was in Medan city for many hours with my friend, John, another teacher at the school, where we tried to sort out my internet situation at the infamous Telkomsel office. This year, I'm handling the complications with Telkomsel quite productively, whereas a few interactions last year ended up in tears later in the day, when I still could not begin to apply for graduate school... but that's beside the point. After John toted me around on his Suzuki for half the day, he dropped me off at Citra Gardens, where I was supposed to meet Chris for dinner. However, this place's formal atmosphere looked much more like that of an office complex than that of a food court, and in fact, it was.
I sat down with my new friend and three other people I hadn't met yet and was given expensive coffee to drink while Chris explained to me that, actually, he wanted me to see a presentation before we went to eat, and how that was actually the true reason why he wanted me to meet him there. I'm not going to say that I had been leery of him the whole time, but since our first meeting, I hadn't forgotten seeing his set of motivational tapes and secrets-to-success guides (all from the same publisher) in his car on the ride back from the airport. And sure enough, all the people I had met with him the previous weekend, who had all been introduced to me merely as friends, immediately showed up wearing suits and carrying bundles of electronic equipment.
While the crew began to assemble their mini-stage upstairs, Chris began to entertain the many guests who started to filter in. To my utter disappointment, he whipped out a few boxes of Liquid Chlorophyll, a product of some pyramid scheme (which is now referred to as “Multilevel Marketing,” by the way). Last year, a few teachers at Guyangan, including Imam (who is always scheming about something), came to school one day with this great new idea about how to get rich and how to sell a product that cleanses your body naturally. Liquid Chlorophyll is just some drink with a lot of iron and a lot of calcium, but a new cult of multilevel marketers has apparently started to go around (especially in developing countries, where people have a lower standard of education), in order to promote their product with a super fancy presentation, including an LCD projector, an advanced sound system, and a Powerpoint slide-show with all the bells and whistles that the program has to offer.
It's just fact that a great deal of people in developing countries are fascinated with new technology, and because they haven't been exposed to it (nor to fraudulent money making schemes, nor to many science or psychology classes), when they see a production like this, they have absolutely no reason in the world to doubt the truth of what the presenters are saying. I actually talked for over an hour about this kind of marketing and about the psychological tricks that are used in order to get people to join these scams with the group of teachers in the pesantren, who were all highly considering dropping the equivalent of $200 to join – that's two months' salary for a lot of them.
On some level, I was actually happy that I was about to see this presentation, which had excited my co-workers in Guyangan so strongly. And about half way through, I wanted my video camera so badly it was killing me. They were making claims that if you were to leave a cigarette near a closed bottle of Liquid Chlorophyll for some mentioned length of time, that the nicotine in the cigarette would be absorbed (into what, I don't know). They had so much scientific-sounding lingo for the different kinds of products, like “omega squared,” “universe induced energy,” “solar-harnessed negative ions,”and “the six elements of health.” Each time a new presenter entered or left the stage, they were given an up-beat, rock 'n' roll intro or exit track, to which they jogged off the stage, through the audience, giving high fives to the other presenters and sometimes even to excited audience members. And at one point, they had four volunteers come up onto the stage, not knowing what their assignment was to be, and they were all told to lift a man into the air using only their index fingers (a seemingly impossible task). The man was sitting in a chair, and of course the participants were confused; they were only told where they could lift him (under his arms and legs), but they didn't know exactly why they were doing this, nor how.
After they failed miserably, they were each given a glass of Liquid Chlorophyll to drink and were told that after 15 minutes, when the product had been properly metabolized (also a perfect amount of time to think about their new job and mentally prepare), they would be asked to try and lift the man again. The second time when the group of people went up in front of everyone, you could see that their attitudes had changed. They knew what they had to do, and they had all been thinking about how they would do it. Also, unlike last time when they were expected to fail, this time they had 35 pairs of eyes expecting them to succeed. The participants had smiles on their faces instead of grimaces, and they had bent knees and fully planted legs instead of precarious and apathetic postures. Of course the four of them were able to lift the man, and to their own amazement and satisfaction, an audience of genuinely impressed people began to clap. I was desperately scanning the room to see if I could make eye-contact with anyone who wasn't buying into the silly deception. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful.
After the presentation, everyone was broken into groups, and round-table discussion ensued. Everyone was asked to stand, introduce him/herself, and give his reason for wanting to join the Liquid Chlorophyll family. If they had already joined, they were encouraged to give a testimonial about how Liquid Chlorophyll had changed their life. I'm not exaggerating about that last comment either; Indonesian people in general love drama much more than western people. For example, yesterday I was asked to video tape the speeches that some individuals made at a going away party for one of the teachers at my school who is about to move to another island. Any time someone started crying while the camera was off, John, who was sitting next to me, gave me an urgent look and pressured me to switch it on. The fact that, in a group of friends at someone's house, people were giving speeches one-by-one to honor their departing workmate should tell you enough. Anyway, I of course was not exempt from the introduction process at the Liquid Chlorophyll debriefing. If there is anything that I have learned to do during my time in Indonesia, it's been how to handle myself in completely random, awkward, and uncomfortable situations.
After the hours of craziness, I actually did have a good time with Chris and his friends at an eating stall outside the building. They were pretty genuine people, and I couldn't really be frustrated with them. Chris had been slightly deceiving, but I have truly begun to embrace all unpredictable things that happen while I'm here. I honestly just don't have a whole lot on my plate, so it's not like anything could really inconvenience me. So many things that used to frustrate me last year just make me excited now, and I when find myself in these situations, I'm always taking notes with the software on my cell phone, just so I can remember exactly how silly everything is. The only undeniably disturbing aspect of the evening was having to silently watch desperate people get taken advantage of by an American product, clearly aiming to take advantage of desperate people in other countries (there's a reason why you probably haven't heard of this drink before). But hey, that's why I can't wait to start focusing on education next year in grad school.
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