In defense of a little political correctness...

I think my dear friend Christine explained it really well in part of an email she sent to her family and friends back home:

“‘Hey N*gger,’ Miss, my friend is a ‘n*gger.’ I hear this all of the time. I try to explain why this is wrong, but all I get is, “We are just joking. This is Indonesia. It is ok in Indonesia.” I hate that expression: “This is Indonesia.” I get it all of the time for the faults of people. It’s become an excuse for things I promise you are not cultural. People also call the darker skin students in the class “Obama.” Indonesians can be brutally honest with each other too. A teacher said this to me and a student in regards to the student’s appearance: “Look at her Miss, isn’t she fat. She is so fat. Haha, we call her the fat one.” The student puts her head down and looks mortified. I correct the teacher in front of her. The teacher tells me “But this is Indonesia. We joke in Indonesia. It’s OK in Indonesia.” When the teacher leaves the girl lifts her head, tries to smile, and thanks me.”

When my students got new uniforms earlier this year, one of the other teachers paraded two boys in front of me. “Which one is the fattest one?” she asked. Excuse me? She said they only had one uniform for “really fat boys” and this year they had “two really fat boys.” So the smaller “fat boy” would get the uniform and the bigger boy had to wear a white dress shirt to school every day. I said, “I think you’re hurting their feelings. Maybe you could just order another of the larger size?” She laughed. “Hurting their feelings? They know they’re fat boys!”

I was showing a group of teachers some pictures of mine, and they saw one girl who’s overweight. They all gasped and pointed and asked, “What is wrong with her? Why is she so fat? Does she have a disease?”

So what’s cultural and what’s rude?

I finally tackled the post office alone last week. I marched in, head held high, repeating all the words I’d made sure to memorize before I went inside. Behind the counter was the same man who is always sitting behind the counter, but this time I had no Yana.

He found my packages and was very polite this time, but then he asked, like every Indonesian always does, “Are you single, miss?” I suddenly realize I’m in for an uncomfortable conversation. I pretend to misunderstand and try to back out the door, but he stops me. “Do you have a boyfriend?” (This is in Indonesian.)

I weigh the odds. Be honest, reject him, and wind up with him withholding my mail from now on? So I decided to lie. I intended to say yes, I have a boyfriend, and he is very muscular and jealous. I figured a little description couldn’t hurt. Sadly, my knowledge of Indonesian adjectives is limited, and I wound up saying “I have a boyfriend in America who is fat and angry!” He took my number anyway and called me immediately, making me show him my phone to prove it was my number. Sigh.

I visited another English school in the area, and one of the teachers demanded to talk to me. I say demanded because he told the students I was talking to that they couldn’t talk to me any more and beckoned me into a classroom. Luckily, I brought my Indonesian friend with me.

Teacher: So, where are you from?
Me: America.
Teacher: Not from Australia?
Me: Nope. I’m from America.
Teacher: Is this your boyfriend?
(points at my friend)
Me: No, I don’t have a boyfriend.
Teacher: Why don’t you have a boyfriend?
Me: I’m too busy for a boyfriend.
Teacher: So who do you like better—black men or white men?
(Ughhhhhh.)
Me: I like nice men.
Teacher: But if you met a black man and a white man, which would you make your boyfriend?
Me: I would say that I’m too busy for a boyfriend.
Teacher: Would you go on a date with me? Maybe be my girlfriend?
Me: I’m sorry, I’m too busy for a boyfriend.

I love it when Indonesians are brave enough to just plow through English even though they don’t get the words in the right order. I feel like a character in a Dan Brown novel, decoding some mysterious message. “Rain rain. Makes you wet. Not hot. You is diseased. Responsibility mine not if you do.” I concentrate very hard. Aha! Being outside in the rain will make me sick, but you warned me so you’re not responsible! I pat myself on the back for a job well done. And then two days later I have a cold.

I can’t quite catch on to some cultural things. A few friends dropped me off at my house the other evening and came in to use the bathroom before they started the 45-minute trek back into the actual town. I let them in and, completely without thinking, apologized for the mess.(Really, I don’t have enough stuff to count as a mess, but there were some lifesavers strewn around from an unfortunate cockroach-spotting incident earlier that day.) Anyway, I said, “Oh, it’s such a mess!” And they all said the word aloud, turning it over in their mouths and repeating it. “Mess. Mess. Meeehhhh-usssss. So your house… this is mess?”

I stammered a little. “Well, not really a mess, no.”

“You said it was a mess.”

“Well,” I said. “Sometimes we do that in America. We said something is a mess when it isn’t.I’m sorry to confuse you.”

“Why would you say it was a mess in America when it is not?”

Good one, Katie. Now where do I go with that? Sometimes in America we say bad things about ourselves or our belongings because it’s considered polite? Why DO we do that? It’s happened other times, too.

I was talking to a teacher who said, “I hate my shoes. They are so ugly!” And I instinctively replied, “Oh, no they’re not. Just look at mine!” And so she did. She just looked. And then she looked back up at me and said, “What did you want me to see on your shoes?” And I said, “Well… umm, my shoes are… kind of… ugly… too.” She just looked at me confused and said, “No, they are not.”

And she’s right. My shoes aren’t anything special, but they aren’t ugly. They are perfectly fine shoes. Why do I do that?

And then, there was the time one of the teachers asked to introduce me to her boyfriend who was picking her up outside.

Her: My boyfriend is so ugly. I hate how ugly he is. He is so very ugly. Please do not tell me that he is ugly.
Me: Oh, I would never say that. I’m sure he’s not ugly.
(We see him. In the interest of full disclosure, the guy was ugly. No way around it.)
Me: This is your boyfriend? He is handsome!
Her: Really?!
(She jumps up and down and tells her boyfriend I think he’s handsome. He whispers something back.)
Her: He says thank you and he thinks you are very beautiful.
Me: Makasih! [Thanks!]
Her: Now I am jealous! We have to go. Don’t ever call each other handsome and beautiful again!

And check out this poster that hangs in our school:

"I'm not handicapped... I'm just lazy! Why?"

What?!

Idul Adha

Have you heard the one about the Muslim who walks into a bar? Ok, just kidding.

A cab driver in Yogya told us a joke. There was a very respected Muslim man walking into a hotel one day when a reporter stopped him and said, “Sir, which religion is the closest to God?”

“Christians,” the Muslim answered.

“What?!” said the reporter. “How can that be?”

“Well, to Christians, God is their Father or their Son,” said the man.

“All right, then which religion is the second closest to God?”

The man answered, “Judaism, because God is their Uncle.”

The reporter was very confused, and he said, “But sir, where do Muslims stand?”

The man laughed. “Muslims are the furthest from God because we need a loudspeaker to reach him.”

I think a few months ago I wouldn’t even have understood the joke, but it’s a reference to the “azan,” or call to prayer, which plays loudly (I mean LOUDLY) to remind Muslims it’s time to pray. It starts at around 4am.

So in the effort of understanding, and therefore caring, here’s a very brief Islam 101 with Professor Katie:

The legend is that in the biblical story of Sarah and Abraham, Sarah was worried she wouldn’t be able to conceive. She told her husband to sleep with their servant Hagar. She got pregnant and gave birth to Ishmael. Later, Sarah got pregnant like God had promised her, and she had Isaac. Sarah then ordered Hagar and Ishmael to leave, because she wanted her son to be the heir. Jews, and then Christians, descended from Isaac, and Arabs descended from Ishmael.

Islam is based on the Five Pillars: a profession of faith, praying five times a day (as reminded to by that delightful loudspeaker), giving money and food to the poor, fasting during Ramadhan, and making a pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in their lifetime.

(When I go to the travel agency to book my tickets, it always surprises me to see special “Hajj” fares. For some reason I feel like the pilgrimage should be some sort of spiritual hike or exhausting journey, but most of them buy plane tickets and take taxis like any of us would. And apparently, there are some good deals.)

The area of Aceh in North Sumatra adopted Islam centuries before the rest of the island, and it’s the strictest today; that’s where they were trying to pass the adultery stoning law and where two American English teachers were targeting in a shooting last week.

You know that much of the conflict in Iraq surrounds the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam. Sunnis are in the majority around the world, and Sunnis are the heavy majority in Indonesia.

Muslim women wear a head covering in daily life because they choose to; the scripture only says they have to cover their heads during prayer. Indonesians Muslim boys must be circumcised, and it’s usually done between the ages of 6 and 11. I won’t be too disappointed if I miss one of those ceremonies. Muslim men are allowed to have two wives, with permission from the first, but polygamy here is very rare, and I haven’t met anyone who practices it.

Idul Adha—

This Muslim holiday takes place 70 days after the end of Ramadhan. It commemorates the story where God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son.

I have never liked this story. Mostly, I blame my Sunday School teacher who asked, probably with innocent intentions, “Do you think your parents love God enough to kill you?” I remember saying, at maybe seven years old, “My mom would never kill me. She wouldn’t do that.” And the teacher said, “She would if she loved God and he asked her to.” Shudder.

Anyway, in the story, God can see Abraham’s devotion, so he spares his son and Abraham sacrifices a ram instead. Can you see where this is going? All over Indonesia, people sacrifice rams, goats, and cows. There's some discrepancy about who God ordered Abraham to sacrifice, though. Genesis says it was Isaac, but the Koran says it was Ishmael.

It’s difficult to get a straight answer out of most people here, but here’s what I’ve been able to learn about Idul Adha:

The animals are expensive. An average teacher at my school makes $150 a month, and a goat is about $120 in Palembang. They sell them on the side of the road for about a week before Idul Adha. Each goat “counts” for one person; same with a ram. A cow “counts” for seven people, but cows are very expensive.

"Moo."

You don’t have to have any religious position or title to do the sacrificing, but you have to read some passages aloud from the Koran first. There’s also some correct way to slaughter the animal, but you’re getting outside my realm of expertise now.

Some families, like Yana’s, sacrifice one goat a year and dedicate to a different family member. This year was Yana’s year. They don’t eat the meat themselves; they give it to their mosque, which distributes it among the poor.

Since I was in Yogyakarta, I wasn’t able to participate in the festivities here. Oftentimes schools will sacrifice animals, too. Christine’s school killed a whole slew of animals on the basketball courts.

As with everythingggggg in Indonesia, no one really had a concrete time that the sultan’s sacrifice would be taking place. First they said Thursday at 9am, but when we got there they said it was the next day. That night, people told us we’d missed it and it was actually that morning at 10 right after we’d left. Then they said it was at 5am on Friday (the actual holiday). It turns out, the sultan’s two cows were sacrificed at 9am on Friday, and we got there at about 9:15am.

At first I was disappointed we’d missed the climax of the ceremony, but I got over that pretty quickly. The cows were still twitching and trying to get up, and their heads were just barely held on. I expected the whole ceremony to be a lot more… holy somehow, and less like someone had just cut off a cow’s head in a parking lot.

No more mooing.

Later that night, at the beauty shop getting our manicures, one of the beautician’s husbands came in and sat down. He knew a little English, so he was excited to talk to us. We told him about the sacrifice. He said he’s Muslim, but he thinks “sacrifice is bullshit.”

Well, yeah, I can understand feeling that way.

“It’s just killing an animal.”

Then he started asking us about religion and it’s very important for everyone to believe in God “in case Titanic happens again.” I think I understand what he was saying.

Then he said that George Bush was a Christian, and he didn’t like George Bush, and that made it hard for him to like Christians. I don’t like George Bush either, but for some reason, that really upset me. Here I am, spending nine months in the largest Muslim country in the world, and he doesn’t like Christians because of what George Bush did? What if I said I didn’t like Muslims because of September 11? That would be ignorant. No, maybe stupid. I think that would be stupid of me.

Then he said he liked Obama but was waiting for him to actually start making some changes.

“President Obama is a Christian, too,” I said.

“Yeah, but he’s from Indonesia.”

No, he’s not from Indonesia. Sigh.

My class really liked my Thanksgiving lesson! It was an especially fun week to teach. We played “Thanksgiving BINGO,” watched clips of the Macy’s parade, listened to “Over the River and Through the Woods,” and looked at pictures of my family’s Thanksgiving feast from last year. I think the message was important, too. They really see Americans as fast-paced, greedy people (not that they think that’s bad necessarily), and I liked saying “See? Sometimes we slow down and say ‘thank you.’” And the older classes thought it was hilarious that the President pardons a turkey every year.

I had them list some verbs and adjectives to describe the nouns food, family, and football. I let them use their dictionaries, and most of the higher-level classes did a really good job learning new words. When I got to adjectives for families, though, one boy kept shouting out from the back, “Broken! Broken! Brooooo-kennnn.”

I tried to ignore him, because he knows that’s impolite, but I finally looked at him. “Your family is broken,” he said.

“Your face is going to be broken,” I said. I thought maybe that was going a little far, but the whole class erupted into laughs. Even the boy clapped with delight. Who knew?

At the end of the lesson, I handed out big pictures of turkeys, and the students had to write a reason they were thankful of each of the six feather.

The results ranged from “I am thankful for my father because he pays my tuition” to “I am thankful for my mother because she taught me devotion and love.” Every single student wrote that he or she was thankful for God.

I taught them the phrase “keeps me company” when I said I was thankful for my princess cat Callie, and that appeared pretty often. It’s funny which phrases they really like and which they don’t care about.

One boy who messes up his pronouns wrote, “I am thankful for my god because she give to me everything and I accept her, whatever she is.” That’s not what he meant exactly, and we took some time rewording it, but I liked his original better.

One girl wrote, “I am thankful for my second boyfriend [she meant ex-boyfriend], because he was my whole world and my every happiness until he broke my heart into pieces.”

Uhh.

I said, “Maybe you could be thankful that you can now meet a cuter, nicer boy who won’t break your heart into pieces?”

“No, thank you,” she said.

My favorites, of course, were the ones that said, “I am thankful for Miss Catty [that’s me!] because she gives us fun games to learn English and always tries to make us laugh.”

I’m thankful I’m having an adventure, however exasperating it can be.

Lots of luck in Yogyakarta (Part 2)

When we last saw our heroines, they were walking the bird seedy streets of Yogyakarta, devouring turkey sandwiches, and watching princesses burn themselves alive at the ballet. That was just on Thursday.

The duo head to Solo

Friday started early, and Christine and I took the train an hour-long ride into Solo. Solo is smaller than Yogya, but has quite a lot of culture of its own. For some reason, it’s also a hotbed of political unrest. But not on the day I visited, thankfully.

I’ve heard many Indonesians say that Palembang is the “rudest” city in the country. I would like to suggest that maybe Palembang is the second rudest city. The citizens of Solo were, without question, the pushiest, grabbiest, loudest bunch of people I’ve ever seen.

We ate lunch at a yummy Italian restaurant. Sadly, the Office of Tourism was closed for the holiday, so we explored by guidebook alone. Supposedly, the largest batik warehouse in all of Indonesia is in Solo. Again, we arrived by becak (a bicycle with a small cart in front for passengers), and we couldn’t believe we were where we wanted to be. But a nice old man appeared like he always does and pointed in the direction of a large building surrounded by shouting food vendors. We dove into the mayhem.

There was definitely a lot of batik inside, but most of the booths were closed like the tourism office. The booths that were open were home to the bravest and boldest vendors, apparently determined to make a sale if it meant literally stealing the money from our purses. Some people wouldn’t even let us through; they blocked our path with crazy colorful shirts. I tried to buy a scarf, and the woman insisted on trying to sell it to me for about three times what she was selling it to Indonesians. We speak enough Indonesian to communicate that with her, but she just shook her head and refused to budge. The Indonesian women in line were laughing because they knew she was cheating us, so we finally abandoned our souvenirs and walked away.

Everyone shouted and grabbed us. We tried to be nice and say “Tidak, terima kasih.” [No, thank you.] Then people mocked us! One woman flipped her hair and batted her eyelashes and strutted around saying “oooh tidak tidak tidak terrrrrimmaaaa kassssiiiihhh.” I tried to give her an international look of death.

We read about one restaurant that served cobra. There, you can also drink the snake’s blood mixed with an energy drink or a glass of wine. We decided it was at least worth a visit.

The “restaurant” wound up being a lone food stand and the cobras, the only item on the menu, were just restrained in cloth bags. The vendor saw us coming and let three of them out, who circled around him and bit at his hands. It was pretty terrifying. He offered to cook one for us, but I’d already watched something die at the sacrifice earlier in the day (more later, promise), and I wasn’t in the mood to do it again. So we just paid him for the cost of one anyway and ran as fast as we could in the opposite direction. We could still hear the snakes snapping at him as we rode away.

Snakes alive! (heh)

The train was an experience in itself—filthy and crowded, but delightfully cheap. It was just $.70 for a ride. It was hard to find our own seat to share, but people (not Solo natives, I would like to point out) were nice enough to shift around to let us share.

I think I can I think I can...

The salon

Chris and I were walking around on Thursday night, and I was in one of those vacation moods. You know the one: you’re tired, you had a full day and a camera full of new pictures, but you’re not just not ready to cross off one of your precious vacations days and declare it over. So we walked around the streets near our hotel (lucky for us, right downtown).

We spotted a few salons advertising a bunch of things I’d never heard of at really terrific prices. Chris was thinking about getting her haircut, but wisely decided that these joints probably weren’t the safest bet. Regardless, we were curious.

Have you ever heard of a cream bath? Maybe they have them in the US and I can’t afford them there; that’s very possible. But I COULD afford the $2.50 listed on the sign out front. In true Indonesian fashion, they were excited to get us inside and then tried to charge us $4 because “our hair is so long.” (Our hair barely reaches our shoulders.)

It was great—cream baths are basically glorified conditioning hair treatments with an added upper back and shoulder massage. (Don’t worry, there’s no taking off your clothes at all.) Judging by Chris’s grimaces and muffled whimpers of pain, her beautician was rubbing a lot harder than mine. But mine was perfect and relaxing. My only disappointment was that the water they washed our hair in was cold, of course. For some reason, I’d forgotten.

Rub a dub dub

We (or I) enjoyed it so much we went back for $2.50 manicures the next night. This one wasn’t quite as terrific, but it was still an adventure. They pulled tools out one by one from a mass of metal in a grubby cardboard box. They cut, trimmed, yanked, and filed. Honestly, I think they were afraid of messing up for American customers. Sadly, this didn’t stop them from chopping Christine’s nails into something that looked like a profile of the Rocky Mountains. Poor Chris. Although, I have a chronic case of bad luck ordering food in restaurants, so we’re even.

Borobudur

Another ancient structure. I always have lofty goals of one day seeing some forever-old monument or building and truly being moved. Now, however my thoughts follow a familiar pattern, something like Hmm, that sure is pretty. It must have taken an awfully long time to build. I’m so lucky to see this. I should take a picure. (I do.) Woah, I’m pretty hungry for 10am. Did I eat all the toast they gave me at breakfast? I wish I’d remembered a granola bar. Do I even have any left or did I eat them all? I bet Mom would send more. Hmm, that sure is pretty. I should take a picture.

The more I know, though, the more I care. (Surely that’s a universal truth, right?) So I made myself carsick on the ride to the temple reading everything about what we were going to see. And I’m glad I did, because it’s a point of pride that I am annoyingly well-informed on ways to bring yourself good luck and other anecdotes.

Indonesians pay $1.50 for admission. “International guests” pay $10. I suppose that’s fair—although I don’t think their taxes go to upkeep or the natives who can afford to travel here need a break on the cost of a ticket more than I do. In a proud little turn of events, they accepted our police ID cards as proof of residency and admitted us for $1.50 each. I walked through the gate with my head a little higher. Oh, hello, all you visitors. I live here.

We walked around a garden before attempting to scale the steps to the temple. (Weren’t people shorter then? Why do ALL ancient temple/pyramid/ruin steps I’ve ever been to require me to step up a yardstick at a time?) The temple, and the view from it, truly is beautiful. Unfortunately, terrorist attacks and natural disasters have robbed almost all of the little Buddhas of their heads.

Getting good luck

It started to rain while we were at the top, and we decided we’d better move toward the ground quickly, lest the rain would make the stone slippery and we would slide down meter by meter on the steps. Luckily, before it started raining, we made sure to get our good luck by reaching in through the stupa and rubbing the Buddha that sits inside for good luck.

Banyan Trees

There is a sultan in Yogyakarta. I had no idea about this until we got a cab at the airport and the driver proudly told that his president and his sultan were good men. I’m glad about that, at least. I have since looked it up. There IS a sultan here, and Yogya is the last province with a monarchy in the country. He acts as an elected governor, though.

What I understand perfectly well… is that he has a palace. A real palace with a huge concrete wall surrounding it. Thousands of people live inside that big concrete wall, but sadly, it was closed to outsiders (literally, with a deadbolt on the 40-ft tall doors) for Idul Adha.

Outside of the palace, however, are two huge Banyan trees sitting about 70 feet apart. Buddha was supposedly sitting under a Banyan tree when he achieved enlightenment, which is obviously awesome. The Banyan tree is also featured on Indonesia’s coat of arms; it represents that the country is one, though the people (roots) are sometimes flung far away.

There’s a legend that says if you can successfully walk blindfolded from the other end of the courtyard (maybe 200 feet away) through the trees, your wish will come true. You have to make the wish before you take your first blindfolded steps.

Uh oh. That doesn't look like the right way to go.

I had to try it. I went first, and our guide secured the blindfold around my eyes. I decided I would point my hands forward and just follow them—you just have to walk in a straight line. The thing is, after about 30 seconds, it really is hard to remember which way your hands were pointing and where you are and you start to be afraid that your head will smack into the trunk of a Banyan tree at any moment.

Our guide wouldn’t help me, but he kept telling me to concentrate on my wish, and if it was meant to come true, then I would find my way. Is it cheating a little bit if I could tell that his voice was coming from pretty far off to the right? I concentrated very hard on my wish while at the same time heading more toward the sound of the guide’s voice.

He later told me that I walked completely left of the path I should have been on, then stopped and thought, and walked right back and through the middle of the trees. He said my wish would surely come true. I’m going to believe him.

I made it!

Of course, I can’t tell you what my wish was if I want it to come true, but it was vague enough that if it really didn’t come true, that would be seriously bad news. Whew!