No white man of mine!

Yesterday when I came into school, there was a picture sitting face-down on my desk. It was picture of a overweight shirtless man posing strangely with some sort of electronic device.

I asked one of the teachers what it was and why it was on my desk. "Well," she said. "There is a white man in the picture, so we thought it belonged to you. Maybe it is your father? Or your boyfriend?" They seemed embarrassed. "This is not my picture, I promise! This is not my picture!" I said. They just pursed their lips and turned away.

This is not my picture:

Also, please notice the (unusually arranged, to me) map behind my desk.

Photo Phriends

Remember the group I celebrated the Chinese New Year with? With the exception of Yanti, Raj, and me, they’re all professional photographers.

(This is a good time to point out the unbelievable value placed on family portraits here in Indonesia. Every single home has dozens of gigantic professional photographs hanging all over. They might sleep three to a bed in a house without so much as a sink, but they will have 4’ by 3’ portraits looking down at you from the walls.)

Rully, a very sweet man with a very beautiful and equally sweet wife, is the ringleader. He built an impressive photo studio above his home, and every time I’ve visited, there have been at least a handful of aspiring photographers lounging around just watching him work.

Rully and Anna and “the gang,” as they call their followers, speak hardly any English. But they love to laugh and force-feed me Indonesian cookies.

They all love that I was born in the Chinese year of the tiger. While it’s just something fun to think about in America, it holds a lot more significance here. They call me, “Katie macan manis dan cantik” or “Katie sweet and pretty tiger.” Ok, yeah, I like that a lot.

The first time we were all in public together, they were appalled at how strangers shouted at me, so they taught me the Indonesian phrase that means “My God, that is absurd,” and I say it as often as possible when I’m around them. It’s a lot easier to be funny here.

Now when Anna and Rully forget I can’t understand them when they talk quickly using slang, I just shake my head and say gravely, “My God, that is absurd.” And it’s also a really terrific line for all those men who shout dirty words at me in the mall.

When Rully asked if he could have a photo shoot with me as the subject, I balked at the idea. “I am not a model!” I exclaimed. He said, “Sweet tiger, you are my little model.” And if there’s a woman who can resist that, she’s a stronger woman than I.

So I agreed to hang out with a big group of them and let them take pictures. His wife dressed me up like a Barbie doll and did my hair and make-up. See was horrified that my curls went limp and stringy after ten minutes in the humidity. Welcome to my world.

But we had a lot of fun. If it seems awfully conceited of me to post pictures of myself on here, I'm sorry. I feel weird doing it, but I want to share my happy memories, too.

Below is the photograph that prompted Rully to say, “Katie-Tiger, you laugh ugly.” Actually, I kind of look like a tiger:

At least I laugh hard.

Rully has asked me about five times if I'd consider being his second wife, which is totally legal here. I'm 80% sure he's kidding. His wife always smacks him.

He and his students took hundreds of pictures. Then they let me take some pictures of them, but they wouldn’t give those to me.

Say cheese.

Maybe they just didn’t want me to see how much better they are at photography. We took photos until it got too dark to take them anymore.

Then I stopped being KatieTigerModel and went back to JustKatie:

Yup, this one was candid. That's me, all right.

They posted some of the photos on their Web page, and the response was insane. In fact, some people were offering to buy the photos and pay me to model for them, but I said I thought one day of squinting without my glasses was probably enough for a while. My God, that is absurd. But so fun.

Thom's Things on Motorbikes

Thom Stead is another Fulbright ETA here in Indonesia. There are three especially cool things about Thom:

1. He lives in Ohio (Cincinnati).

2. He went to college in Indiana (Earlham).

3. He has a sub-blog in his blog (http://semasemasemarang.blogspot.com) of Things on Motorbikes.

In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert calls the motorbike "the minivan of Indonesia." It's so true.

So I stole it to share with all of you. He said I could.

Things on Motorbikes #1:

These are obviously watermelons,

but I've also seen as many as five water-cooler-sized jugs

of water on a single motorbike, too.

Things on Motorbikes #2:

And they were all alive!

Things on Motorbikes #3:

I don't know what this guy's hauling,

but it sure is massive.

And a close-up.

Things on Motorbikes #4:

Hey, family, let's go get dessert. Everyone hop on the bike!

Things on Motorbikes #5:

(I took this one in Medan.)

When you need a goldfish on the go.

Cool people who do cool things.

Christine's town of Depok was veryyy excited a second "bule" was visiting back in December, and nearly everyone knew I was coming. Her friend Rie even wore his best pair of pants to meet me, which is, frankly, better than what I get from most American guys.

I wrote about this in a previous blog, I think. One night, Christine and I were lounging around in her living room when Rie and his friend Anas asked us to play Uno. We invited them over. They shifted around uncomfortably before finally just saying they felt too uncomfortable being in a girl's house, especially after dark. They suggested we play in Anas's family's restaurant down the street.

"Ok," we finally agreed. "Can I go like this?" I motioned to my t-shirt and shorts.

"Ooooohh, no!" Rie said. "There is a parental advisory on your knees!"

I thought that phrase was hilarious. So I put on long pants and we dragged ourselves down the street, where I was thoroughly demolished in two consecutive card games.

But Rie made me this awesome t-shirt:

*NOTE: The phrase was "There is a parental advisory on your knees." Rie, a good Muslim boy who won't even kiss a girl until his wedding night, doesn't understand that "Parental advisory. On your knees!" has an entirely different connotation. But I'm not going to be the one to explain it.

Rie actually does freelance graphics work for a guy out of Los Angeles. He's really good. And he edited a picture of Chris and me from Bandung. Don't worry, I did not bare those shoulders on the streets of Depok.

He turned this...

...into this:

Isn't that awesome? I love that we are "100% FRESH." It's really too bad about the "on your knees" part. Although, I'm glad we're advertising only to ages 12+. ?!