Stranger In a Strange Land

One of the many problems with teaching in a foreign culture is that it’s so, well, foreign. It hardly increases my credibility in the classroom, or my control, that half the time I don’t have any clue what’s going on—“Where are you going? What did that announcement on the PA system just say? Why are you sitting on each other’s laps?” Moreover, most of my students lack either the English skills of the confidence—I’m not sure which—to explain to me precisely why they’ve pushed all their desks into a big group in the corner when they’ve got a whole giant empty classroom around them; the best they could give me was to nod vigorously when I asked, I thought sarcastically, if they just really liked each other. (Though, come to think of it, that may be the real answer.) Thus, I am mostly reduced, in these situations, to nodding, still confused, and saying, by way of changing the subject, “you kids are weird, you know that?”

It’s not very culturally sensitive of me, I know. But they are weird, though I can never figure out what is Indonesian culture and what is just 15-year-old culture; at this point, they are equally foreign to me. In one of my tenth grade classes, for example, the students have all ganged up to mock one of their peers: every sample sentence, every dialogue, and every writing assignment they produce is focused on the unfortunate Jono; when, for example, they were asked to write newspaper articles for the headline “Disaster Strikes Semarang,” a good half of the articles, I swear, were about Jono escaping from prison and kidnapping babies; Jono, through his family’s restaurant, poisoning everyone; and, perhaps most creatively of all, Jono growing to giant size and stomping on the city, Godzilla-style. Trying to be a good teacher, sensitive to the feelings of my students, and trying to combat what I thought was simply 15-year-old culture, I heavily censored the articles I chose to be read out loud for the class, and, as the kids wrote sample sentences on the board, I assiduously followed them, erasing “Jono” and substituting the ever-classic “Bob.”

But I constantly second-guess myself: is this because they are fifteen and cruel, or is this because they are Indonesian? My American sensibilities tell me to encourage everyone to “play nice” and not get their feelings hurt, but Indonesia has, I’ve noticed, a much stronger culture of teasing, and I, clueless as I am, never know when comments have crossed the line. When I came to class last week, there was a new decoration in the classroom: a collage of pictures of Jono, along with a song someone had written about him and his family’s restaurant, and then a list of comments solicited from each member of the class. I didn’t understand all the lyrics—something about how spicy his meatballs are—but I definitely understood the comments below: “Jono is so hot!” and “This makes me love him more!” and “His meatballs are delicious!” I spent a good ten minutes of the class period reading though this, thinking, basically, “Huh?” It all seemed to be highly sarcastic, but it’s hard to tell in a foreign language--I mean, maybe his meatballs are the best in town.

So I sidled over to my partner teacher, hoping she could shed some light on this. “Look,” I asked, “in America this would probably be considered over the line and hurtful to Jono. I mean, do they like him or not? Does Jono mind? Are teachers here expected to stop this behavior? Is this okay????”

“Oh,” she said, “Yeah, they don’t really like him. They say he smells bad. But he’s kind of a class mascot now! It’s funny, right?”

I wasn’t so sure. “How does Jono feel about it?”

“I asked him last week,” she said, which reassured me that an adult figure has tried to take responsibility. “He said he doesn’t mind. He just imagines that it’s all happening to someone else. So, see? It’s okay!”

Ouch. I find that more heartbreaking than “okay,” but the other teacher just smiled cheerfully and went back to grading. For me, though, reluctant to just ignore things like this but equally reluctant to interfere, what with my surface-only understanding of this culture, I have a hard time figuring out my responsibility, both as a teacher and as a person. This goes for everything, not just this class—every time a student misbehaves, every time they say something strange, every time I walk into class to find them choreographing disco dances, I face the questions again: stop it? Ignore it? Join in? For now, I just shake my head and sigh. These kids are weird, you know.

Buy Me Some Peanuts and Cracker Jacks

American Foods I Only Like While Living Abroad

macaroni and cheese
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
milk

What is the world coming to? Next thing you know I'm going be craving hamburgers, corn on the cob, and apple pie. Blech.

Waiting For the Other Heel to Drop

As part of my Lenten vow, I’ve been satisfying my fiction cravings by reading in Indonesian. I’ve read some decent books so far—a few English novels in translation, one Egyptian novel in translation, and then, in an even bolder move, a few contemporary Indonesian works. One of them, They Say I’m a Monkey, a collection of short stories, was great, which is saying a lot because I usually don’t like short stories. Quality aside, though, the book was hard to read, at times, because the stories had a strong element of fantasy—pet leeches that turn into snakes when attached to the top of a character’s head are strange enough in your own language, but downright confusing in a foreign one. I had to look up the word “lintah” in about three different dictionaries before I finally had to accept that yes, the main character’s mother really is cuddling with a leech.

Even more confusing, though, at least in a literary context, is the fact that Indonesian doesn’t distinguish gender in pronouns, even the third person, which means that “he” and “she” are the same word. I started one of the stories, in which the main character was only referred to with the third-person pronoun, assuming that said character was a man; after all, he smoked cigarettes, wore sneakers, and rode in taxis by himself. So when a man across the hotel bar buys a drink for the main character, I thought, “oh, interesting, a glimpse into Jakarta’s underground gay scene.” When the main character reminisces about a former lover, Glen, missing his sweet words and the heat of his body, I thought, “well, I knew this book was progressive in its attitudes to sex, but wow! A homosexual hero! That is daring!” When the main character pulls out a long black gown, open in the back, that was a gift from Glen, I thought, “Amazing! A cross-dressing homosexual main character! Who would have thought?”

Then, finally, the main character, wearing the gown, with a pair of high heels replacing the sneakers, returns to the hotel bar to take the stage as the bar singer. I was floored, my thoughts racing: “I mean, I know Indonesia is relatively liberal about homosexuality, especially for a Muslim country, but still! What a daring move on the part of this writer, to center a story around a gay, cross-dressing, bar-singing hero…or, wait. Wait a second. Heroine. This character’s a woman. Duh.”

So, apparently, I am sexist: women can smoke cigarettes and wear sneakers too. They can even ride taxis by themselves! And they certainly look a lot better in high heels and slinky black gowns. Who knew?

Drawing a Blank

Last week, while discussing the history of segregation and the civil rights movement, I drew a map of America on the whiteboard, partially so the students had a sense of where these events took place, and partially to emphasize that “my place,” whatever that means, was never segregated. I don't pretend to be any great hand at drawing, but the map was, I thought, recognizable--the big pointy thing in the north is Maine, the big pointy thing in the south is Florida and the rest is all one big rectangular(ish) blob.

The students all stared at my map for a minute, squinting and turning their heads to the sides, trying to make sense of it. Noticing their confusion, I tried to explain: "Okay, guys, this is the U.S. Sort of. But look, here's Maine! And Florida! And see that bit pointing out at the bottom? That's Texas. And Washington is in this corner. And this thing that looks like a foot is Louisiana. And oh! wait! Let me add Massachusetts. That's my place. Sort of. No segregation there. And...oops, I forgot Michigan. That's okay, everyone does. See? See? Do you see it now? It's America!"

One of my students, in the back row, raised his hand, his face very serious. "Miss, what was your grade in your high school drawing class?"

"Well," I replied, "high school is different in America. We're not all required to take a drawing class. I, for one, took Latin instead of art."

"Oooooh," the class said, in chorus, all nodding their heads. "That explains a lot."

Thanks, kids.

Just One of Those Days

I woke up this morning at five, my regular time, and then promptly fell back asleep for another twenty minutes. After rushing through my morning shower and dress routine, I realized that since today was Thursday, I could catch a ride with my host mother and therefore didn't have to leave for another hour. Drat.

After grabbing my toast and defending my decision to use jam instead of chocolate to the maid, I was waylaid by a houseguest who wanted to grill me, for a full ten minutes, about my family and why they live in India. My toast got cold while we talked. Shoot.

I got to school and it turns out there was still testing, which meant that, instead of teaching four classes, I only had to teach one, which, in turn, meant that I didn't have to be at school until noon and therefore had woken up early for five hours of nothing. Crap.

I went to the library to use the new wi-fi internet connection there and it wasn't working. Darn.

I walked to the internet cafe near the school to use the internet there and it wasn't working either. Blast.

I walked back to school, and, instead of walking all the way around to the front entrance, took a shortcut by scrambling up a shaky wooden latter and climbing over a wall, only to find a group of my tenth grade students watching me from a window. They applauded, amused by the sight of this new "Action Adventure Miss Hannah." I was embarrassed. Sheesh.

When I got back to school, the electricity, which includes the air-conditioning, wasn't working. I spent the next two hours mopping sweat from my forehead with a Kleenex. Good grief.

During the one lesson I actually taught, the sound on the DVD player died, so my lesson plan, which involved a short clip from "Crash" as its nucleus, utterly failed. Too fried from the heat to think of a better plan B, I turned the subtitles on and read them to the students, imitating Ludacris's speech habits to the best of my white-girl ability, and replacing the profanity with tamer alternatives: "What the fetch is you laughing at, man?" My students were more confused than amused. Dang.

Suffering succotash, jeepers creepers, jumping Jehosaphat, oh my heck, and for crying out loud: today was not my day.

Upon This Blog

My mom says this blog is a constantly-updating personal ad.

My dad says this blog is practice for a future job at The New Yorker.

The auntourage says this blog is a great way to keep in touch.

Tolkien Boy, Optimistic, and mishkin27 say this blog is good reason to worry about me.

Shaant says this blog is both "stupid and kind of immoral," but likes to read it when I email him the entries.

Google says “this blog is” full of crap.

Merriam Webster says this blog is a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer.

Kaneeneenie says this blog is funny.

The SLO says this blog is redundant, as she's already heard all my stories.

I say this blog is my lifeline to people who can surf my drift, catch my wave, and pick up what I put down--or, in other words, to sanity.

So? What say ye that this blog is?

One Out of Many

Part of my job here is to be a good, upstanding representative of America, to help counteract bad press. (Britney Spears, I'm looking at you here: knock it off!) While sometimes I'm great at this--"you think all Americans love free sex? Congress pays me to tell you otherwise!"--at other times I worry what sort of generalizations my school colleagues are going to make. I feel a list coming on.

If They Judge By Me, The Teachers Will Think All Americans...

• firmly believe orange and pink match
• are willing to sing Arabic pop songs if asked
• maybe even dance to them
  
• speak passable Indonesian, but with a tendency to over/misuse colloquial particles
• wear big, dangly silver earrings
  
• can talk really fast
  
• can't tell left from right
• gesticulate wildly while explaining things
  
• go to strange churches who, it is rumored, sacrifice newborn babies and drink their blood
  
• don't get offended when asked if they drink baby's blood every Sunday
• say the word "rad" with a straight face
• giggle every time anyone says "get off." Or "ball-peen hammer," but that doesn't happen nearly as often, more's the pity
  
• read, on average, a book a day
• act "flirtatious," which can also be translated as "vain"
  
• wear a pen behind their ear
• forget that said pen is behind their ear and start looking for another one
• complain endlessly about waking up so early
• drop the whiteboard marker every fifteen minutes or so
• don't like durian

(Actually, that last one may be true.)

I feel sorry for my replacement next year. Whoever you are, I just want to say this: have fun singing and dancing in the teacher's room. Brush up on your Amr Diab, if you can. Though they also like church songs--have you ever been to Bible camp? Oh, and don't try durian. You won't like it.

That Was a Pretty Good Day.

Thursday, as I sat in the teacher's room bored out of my mind during my five non-teaching hours, a package arrived for me. It was the box containing pretzels and peanut butter M&Ms and an Iris Murdoch novel that Alea sent in November, arriving not only three months late but, alas, just late enough to be after Lent, which prohibits me from enjoying either the M&Ms or the novel. No matter: I was still overjoyed to see the box, particularly the pretzels, whose absence in my life I've been sorely feeling over the past seven months. I tried to restrain my excitement--Javanese culture places a high emphasis on the bridling of feelings, whether happy or sad, and the teachers already think I'm hilarious/downright strange for my highly expressive use of face and hands in conversation--but clearly failed, as the one teacher who was present when the package came then felt it necessary, later, to relay to all the others how, upon seeing the box, I jumped up and down and waved my arms about wildly. (I believe her exact words were, "She was like a crazy person." I, personally, would call it, at the most, skipping back and forth and maybe moving my forearms a bit, like a moderately happy person, but such are the dangers of intercultural communication.)

So the teachers teased me for a while about how unsuited I am for Javanese culture, and then, just as everyone was getting back to real work, or at least to pretending to really work, Ibu Maya, my favorite teacher, walked in, saw the box, and said, "Aha! The package from your ex-boyfriend!"

Chaos ensued. "Well, that's why she was so happy!" they all exclaimed. "It's not the food she wants, but her boyfriend!" I tried emphasizing to them ex-boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, but to no avail, and I had to endure the teasing to the end of the day. For the record, though, it was the food: I love you dearly, Alea, but I love pretzels more. Add peanut butter M&Ms to the mix, and you don't stand a chance.

And now, a mere two days later, the first bag of pretzels is completely gone. Though I have, I admit, eaten enough to make my tongue sting with salt, it's mostly because I offered the bag around the teacher's room as special souvenirs from America. (Or, um, Canada, but that's basically the same thing.) The teachers all eyed them warily at first, and those who were brave enough to eat a few spat them out in distate at the saltiness, until someone said, "hey, they look like little tree branches" and a giant lightbulb turned on for everyone all at once: "they're just like in Mr. Bean!" (There's an episode where Mr. Bean serves small tree branches to his guests to substitute for pretzels.) From then on it was a rush to the pretzel bag, with several teachers asking for extras to take home to their Mr. Bean-watching children. So the pretzels are gone, but, on the other hand, my stock in the teacher's room has never been higher. Maybe next time I can exchage snacks for teasing: "If I give you my peanut butter M&Ms, you have to stop asking me when I want to get married. Deal?" It'd be worth a shot.

(Note: not a chance. Those M&Ms, come Easter, are mine.)

Thank You, Hollywood

Miss Hannah: All right, today we're going to talk about how to give advice. Advice? Do you know that word? Nasihat. Who can tell me some phrases for giving advice?

Students: You should...you had better...why don't you...I think you must...etc.

Miss Hannah: Good. Now what are some phrases we can use for accepting advice?

Students: Thank you....good idea...I'll go and do it right away...I think you're right...etc.

Miss Hannah: Excellent! Now what if we think it's bad advice? What can we say?

Students: I think I'll try something else...thanks anyway...that's a bad idea...etc.

Miss Hannah: Good. Now--

Andrew: Miss! Miss! I know something else you could say!

Miss Hannah: Yes?

Andrew: Shut up, asshole! Do you think I'm stupid? I wasn't born yesterday! No way I'm trying that! Now piss off!

Miss Hannah: nearly dies laughing

Rabu Abu

This morning, in honor of Ash Wednesday, whose Indonesian name, unfortunately, sounds more silly than sombre, I went to mass. Unlike a few years ago, when I casually dropped in on a Spanish-language session in Orem before my first class of the day, I did this one in proper Lenten mourning style: dragging myself out of bed at 4.30 A.M., I then walked for a half hour, in the dark and rain, to the city's cathedral, where I was too late to even get a seat and had to stand at the back, simulating a kneeling posture by just slightly bending my knees. I stayed through the sermon, a lovely homily reminding us all of Christ's sacrifice for us and its value in our lives, and even lined up to receive the ashes on my forehead (which, rather disappointingly, was closer to a smudge than a cross), but drew the line at partaking of the Eucharist--call me a wimp, but I think my childhood experience with being offered red grape juice as "blood of Christ" was too traumatizing to ever be repeated. Plus, I'm, um, not Catholic.

Be that as it may, I will be, as usual, honoring this Lenten season with a fast. This year's is intense: I'm giving up desserts, as always, but also English-language media, primarily novels, DVDs, crossword puzzles, and most websites. Basically, I'm giving up my sanity for Lent. Wish me luck.

If You're Happy And You Know It

I've been informed, after writing my last post, that, based on its content, those who love me might be worried. I'd like to clarify, then: I wrote the last post, not as a cry for help, but simply as a statement of fact: I've watched a lot of movies recently. And I've cried a lot while watching them.

That is not to say, though, that I'm sad. I love it here, I really do, and have at least one "I'm so glad I came" moment a day, even if it's only taking the chance to laugh at something ridiculous. But culture shock still manages to raise its ugly head, even through all that love, and sometimes--frequently, in the month of January, which for some reason was a particularly bad one--I just need to hide in my room, with my cell phone off and the DVD player on, and give vent to all the frustrations that build up from day to day, all the irritation I often feel at slow public transactions, naughty students, nosy neighbors, maids who pressure me to eat and then, while I'm eating, stand beside me and point at other things I should be eating, men who yell vulgar things at me on the street, men who yell "mister! mister! misTER!" at me on the street, hot weather, waking up early, gym employees who insist on standing two feet away from the treadmill and watching me jog, my total lack of independence, slow internet connections, flooded streets, languages I don't understand, jokes I don't get, indoor smoking in public places, constant stomach sickness, mud, trash, rats, and cockroaches.

Besides, if you look at my movie list, I'm not exactly choosing films of sunshine and light; even the happiest person might, I think, break down at murdered Jews, resistance fighters, airplane passengers, slum residents, nineteen-year-old girls, and Spanish children. So never fear, those who love me: I'm happy. And I know it. And for those who hate me, I'm sorry for this post. You may feel free to ignore it and go back to imagining me alone, in the dark, and crying my eyes at the totally curable testicular cancer of a fictional character. It beats therapy.

By the Rivers of Babylon

Movies I've Watched in the Last Few Months While Battling Culture Shock

(And My Reaction)

Crash
(cried)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
(cried)
United 93
(cried)
After the Wedding
(cried)
Pan's Labyrinth
(cried)
Schindler's List
(cried)
The Queen
(teared up)
Fahrenheit 9/11
(sneered, teared up)
Borat
(laughed)
Thumbsucker
(laughed)
Looking For Comedy in the Muslim World
(laughed)
Look Both Ways
(laughed, cried)
Dogville
(looked at the clock, cried)
The Squid And the Whale
(looked at the clock, fast-forwarded)
In America
(fast-forwarded, cried)
Children of Men
(cried)
Kandahar
(cried)
City of God
(cried)
Mystic River
(sobbed)

Most of the information I've read on culture shock lists one of the symptoms as "feelings of sadness, melancholy, or depression." Yeah, you think?

Let's just say I'm glad January is far behind me. Ayo, onwards and upwards to my happy ending!

Schrödinger's 10th Graders

Imagine this Gedankenexperiment, if you will: a class of tenth-grade EFL students working in groups are, while completing the task, either speaking English or not speaking English. Until the teacher moves closer to supervise their work, the students must be considered in a state of quantum superposition, in which the states of "speaking English/following directions" and "not speaking English/ignoring directions" overlap. It is therefore the observation of the teacher itself which affects classroom behavior and forces the students into a definite linguistic state.

(ps: I know this isn't really quantum theory at all. It should involve decaying nuclei and radioactive substances, but, much as I occasionally wouldn't mind forcing the students into a dead state, I don't think the principal would look kindly on hydrocyanic acid in the classroom.)

(pps: I'm kidding. I would never kill my students. I love the little brats dearly, even when they are in the state of "not speaking English/ignoring directions.")

A Philosopher Met a Girl...

...but things very quickly got too metaphysical.

...but she wasn't his Type.

...but she told him, 'Don't even Sartre. It'd be absurd."

...but she was all about meme, meme, meme.

...but she didn't want to hear about his thing-in-itself.

...and he didn't care about her personality, only her paradox.

...later, their breakup was Absolute.

...all she did was quine, quine, quine.

...and he wanted to try the Original Position but couldn't get behind her veil.

...after some time they broke up because he was too deep, when they talked.

...but she spurned him categorically.

...he introduced himself and she said, "Nice to Nietzsche."

...they decided to keep things Platonic.

...but she was a cheerleader so he had to stick to Ordinary Language.

...he said, "I'd love to date you but I'm Kant."

...he was hoping to explore action theory, but she thought it would be a Sinn.

...but she was a real Paine in the butt.

...even though they got closer and closer he could Zeno future together.

...her sign was sine qua non.

...he begged the question but she refused.

...she wanted to take a break and asked, "Do you mind?" "No," he replied, "It doesn't matter."

...gavagai!

(credit where it's due: this was a joint effort between me and my dad. I won't tell you which ones are his and which are mine, except to say that if it's dirty, it's likely his, and if it's punny, it's likely mine.)

Must Love Puns

Petra seeking rock-solid relationship to take a lode off her mind. Me: cleavage and a gneiss disposition. You: a boulder to lean on, neither animal nor vegetable, never full of schist--a real gem. Must enjoy a sedimentary lifestyle. Must not resent intrusions. If you don't take me for granite and bring me shear bliss, I'll gravel at your feet. Together we can study zones of orogeny and make the bed rock.

Moss gatherers need not apply.

The Year of Living Dangerously

(With apologies to Steve for stealing his title. Then again, he should probably apologize to Christopher Koch, so I don’t feel too guilty.)

Before flying to Sumatra, several weeks ago, I was consumed by a nagging sense of sorry and impending death, having opted to save $40 by flying the cheapest of the cheap airlines, which recently suffered a major crash due to mechanical failure. (Also, the main remnants of the plane are lost in Southern Sulawesi, probably permanently, with the airline steadfastly claiming, at first, that they had already found it, along with twelve survivors. They also claimed that the plane had crashed into a mountain, when it turns out it most probably exploded in mid-air. Real professional, guys.)

Of course, everything was fine when I actually got on the plane and now, looking back, I see how silly I was to even worry. Aside from all the statistical comfort I had been using in the days up to the flight—Adam Air runs hundreds of flights a day, and just because one of their ancient 737s went down doesn't mean all of them will—I realized that, on any given day, I do a number of things far more dangerous, in real world terms, than flying on a semi-sketchy airline. (At least their motto is not "Fly Is Cheap," which is more than can be said for some of the other low-budget carriers, cough Wings Air cough.) While sitting on the plane, smoothly cruising over Java, I made a list of some of these daily activities which could, any day now, get me killed. Thus, for your reading pleasure, or perhaps, if you are my mother or close female relative, panic, I present,

The Dangers of Indonesian Transportation
or, Ways to Get From Here to Eternity

1. Cross the street. Those of you who have been to South or Southeast Asia know what this is like. Those of you who have not should just start imagining Frogger—only, in this game, it’s not just small squares of poorly-animated light moving at you, it’s buses, trucks, public vans, bicycles, motorcycles, becaks, and sometimes other pedestrians. There are lanes, in theory—at least, there are white lines painted down the middle of the road—but these lane boundaries are constantly in flux, veritable Alsace-Lorraines of traffic flow, with each vehicle feeling free to suddenly stop, shift lanes, drive down the precise center of the road, or weave between and through the other vehicles. Oh, right, and in this game you’ve got no extra lives. Have fun!

2. Ride a becak. You’d think a guy driving what is essentially a chair strapped onto the front of a bicycle would yield the right of way to an oncoming bus. You’d be wrong. Becak drivers apparently have no fear of death, God, or traffic: for a fifty-cent fare, they’ll gleefully steer their rickety contraption the wrong way down a one-way street, completely against the flow of traffic, all without blinking an eye. At least, I hope they’re not blinking, being the drivers and all, but my eyes are usually too tightly screwed shut to know for sure.

3. Ride a bicycle. I can’t even talk about this one, because I’m too scared to try it. Never particularly talented on a bicycle at the best of times—my sense of distance is dangerously skewed, leading me to believe that, at all times, I’ve got “plenty of room,”—I would have to be truly idiotic to even think about this method. For the average person, though, riding a bicycle, preferably with another person balanced on the handlebars, is no more dangerous than, say, juggling knives or taking candy from strangers. If you don’t believe me, ask the missionaries; in particular, ask Elder H., who, after a crash about eight months ago, still can’t feel his left hand.

4. Ride a motorcyle. I’ve written about this before. Everyone constantly tells me how safe motorcycles are, but when, doubting their smiling reassurances, I ask if they’ve ever been in a crash, these same folks then eagerly begin telling long sagas of grisly motorcycle accidents, complete with the scrapes and scars to prove them. (“And then there was the time my motorcycle skidded on a slippery wet road...look, I’ve still got the imprints of embedded gravel to prove it!”) In my time here, I’ve seen at least five of my students hobble into school with all the skin torn off their elbows and knees, and at least one of them has broken a limb, but no one except me seems to register this as proof of the fact that motorcycles are not safe. I guess, for them, it’s just another ride in the park.

5. Drive a car. Despite having learned to drive in Boston, a town where even hearse drivers cut you off, I’m not brave enough to drive by myself here. A car feels safer, certainly, than a becak or motorcycle—at least you’ve got all that metal to protect you—but the comparative is necessary here: safER. It’s kind of like saying, for example, “Aghanistan is safer than Iraq”: be that as it may, you’re not about to run out and book a two-week vacation to Kandahar. The senior mission couple who just arrived pulled me aside after church on Sunday to whisper to me, worriedly, that they were afraid their hired driver was “not very good.” I asked them why they thought this and they pointed out that he just got so, well, close to other cars. Poor things, really, but that’s okay: it should only take them about another week or two to figure out that “within an inch of hitting other vehicles” is not “not very good” but, rather, “normal.” In the meantime, I told them, they should work on not hitting the air brake every ten seconds; if they needed to, they could just close their eyes and think of the Church.

6. Ride in a public van. These vehicles, about the size of minivans, with two small benches inside to accomodate as many as twenty riders, cruise the city looking for passengers; for a mere twenty cents you can flag one down, hop in, and go anywhere your heart desires, as long as your heart desires to go somewhere on their fixed route. The drivers are usually twenty-somethings who, apparently, learned to drive from bumper cars at the local amusement park, and the vans themselves are usually venerable, creaking machines with a worrisome propensity to suddenly run out of gas in the middle of the street, refuse to start again after slamming on the brakes for a passenger, and skid on the wet streets during the rainy season. When I'm by myself, these public vans are my main method of transportation around the city. I figure hey, if I’m going to die in traffic, why pay more than twenty cents for the privilege?

7. Ride a bus. The buses are the biggest things on the road, sure, but not the safest. I’ve been on public buses that tilted precariously while going around turns—one, I swear, lost wheel contact with the road on one side—careened around the city at forty miles an hour, ridiculously fast for urban traffic, stalled while going up hills, and, like any other respectable vehicle, serpentined through lanes in order to both move as fast as possible and be ready, at any second, to pick up new passengers. It’s also not particularly comforting, safety-wise, to look down, while standing on a bus, and see, through the corrugated holes in the metal floor, the road whizzing beneath you.

***

In my twelfth-grade psychology class, we were told that a person in the Middle East is more likely, statistically speaking, to get in a car accident than a terrorist attack. Though that may have changed somewhat post-September 11, I’ve been to the Middle East twice since then, and, while I’ve never been attacked by a terrorist, I’m 2 for 2 on car accidents. The danger here, then, statistically speaking, is not bird flu and tsunamis and earthquakes and terrorism and air crashes. It’s about how I get to school every morning, how I visit my friends, and how I cross the street on my way home. And now, having written this, I feel perfectly confident flying any budget airline I like—if, that is, I can get over my newfound fear of leaving the house at all.

'Tis Nearly Two Months Past the Season

Some lucky folks may have already received this unChristmas unNewsletter (accompanied by our recent family photo, in which, amazingly enough, we all are looking at the camera with our eyes open) in the mail. Some others, suffering from too-slow international mail systems, may still be waiting for the day their prints will come. Still others will never get a hard copy, no matter how long they keep wishing, and hoping, and thinking, and praying, and planning, and dreaming, but now, thanks to the magic of the internet, it will be theirs!

***

This year the [P] family has combined a gift and a newsletter in order to gift you some opinions which we hope you will find useful in the coming year.

Family Opinions Gifted To You During This 2006 Holiday Season

• "Gift” is not a verb. (Petra)
• An A minus is not an A, it is a minus. (Mom and Dad)
• An A minus is an A. (Brother #1, a.k.a. The Duke and Brother #2, a.k.a. Klement)
• What is an A minus? (Petra)
• If they say it is beef they are buffaloing you. (Dad)
• "Buffalo" is a verb. (Petra)
• Organs should only be played in cathedrals. (Mom)
• She means pipe organs. (Dad)
• Parents should keep their "opinions" to themselves. (Petra, The Duke, and Klement)
• Airlines should have a higher baggage weight limit. (Petra)
• A vacation in India is not a vacation from India. (Everyone)
• An economy class airline ticket and two little Valium pills from the local Indian chemist is better value than business class. (Mom)
• Klement thinks his parents are great. (Mom and Dad)
• Klement thinks his parents are grating. (Klement)
• In Mother Russia, opinions have you. (The Duke)
• Christmas newsletters mailed at the end of January which contain no news are actually neither "Christmas" nor "newsletters." (Mom)
  

***

There you have it. What's your opinion?

An Open Invitation

I have two fixed plans.

Fixed Plan the First: On May 28, I will depart from Jakarta and fly to Delhi for the high school graduation of Brother #1, a.k.a. Hairlessmano.

Fixed Plan the Second: On June 28, I will depart from Singapore and fly, through Tokyo, to San Francisco.

The more perceptive among you may have furiously calculated dates in your heads and
noticed that these two Fixed Plans are exactly a month apart. These same perspicacious folks may then have concluded that I have no Fixed Plans for that month, which is, more or less, June.

Correct! I will go to graduation, of course, which I will hopefully enjoy more than my own high school graduation, where I started and finished Oscar Wilde's Portrait of Dorian Gray during the course of the ceremony, and I will probably spend a few days pretending to help my family pack up and move, and my mom's throwing around some crazy talk about hiking in Nepal, but nothing is set in stone.

So here is where you all, dear readers, can help. I would like, during that time, to travel Southeast Asia. I have a tentative agreement to go with SWMNB(B)N, but since I have family obligations first, things may not quite work out. While I'm quite brave/stupid enough to take on a solo tour of Southeast Asia, I, like misery, would love company. So, if anyone is free this June, and has a couple thousand dollars they'd like to spend riding crowded buses, sleeping in dirty, dilapidated homestays, and emptying the contents of their intestines over squat toilets, please, come join me! (Oh, and we might also see some ancient temples, interesting cultures, and beautiful scenery. But surely all that is just the icing on the Lonely Planet-style travel cake.) The places on my list, so far, are Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Malaysia, but I'm entirely open to suggestions.

If you're interested, you can contact me at any of my four active email addresses you happen to know. Or you could message me through Facebook or BB, or you could post a comment on this blog, or you could call me, if you, like half the male population of Indonesia, have my cell phone number and care to use it. I guess you could also try sending a message in a bottle, or lighting flares, or designing a semaphore or Morse code message, but I can't guarantee those will be successful. This offer is not limited to those I know in real life, although all those Egyptians who have reached my blog by Googling "swingers AND homestays" are, sad to say, exempt from this invitation. I will also require some sort of reassurance that you are not a) certifiably insane, b) afflicted with any contagious diseases, c) flat broke and expecting me to pay for souvenirs, or d) incredibly irritating. These aren't tough criteria to meet, I don't think, so please! Come join me in Southeast Asia! Your intestines will never be the same again.

This Week In Haiku1

Monday: On Passing the Same Group of Becak Drivers While Walking To the Bus Stop²

Each morning³ they shout:
"Mbak!⁴Mbak! Naik⁵ becak, mbak!⁶"
They should know by now.

Tuesday: On Asking a Listening Comprehension Question to 12th Graders

Silence in the class.
I wait. And repeat. And wait.
Nobody looks up.⁷

Wednesday: On Visiting the Gym

Seven employees
only to watch me work out
solves unemployment⁸.

Thursday: On Using the Public Bathroom At McDonald's

The Western toilet
has sneaker prints on the seat.
It's a squat pot now.

Friday: On Finishing a Japanese Novel Highly Influenced by Haiku⁹

The snow is pretty,
But just description bores me.
That's haikus¹⁰ to me.

Saturday: On Being Asked to Guest Speak at a Teacher Training Workshop

Teacher talk for kids:
what do I know about it¹¹?
Money¹² for B.S.

Sunday: On Walking To Church Every Sunday Morning

As I pass the mall:
"Hey Mister! F***¹³ you!"
Who taught them English?¹⁴

1. Technically senryu, but haiku is the more well-known form, and I'm willing to sacrifice accuracy for recognition here.
2. Technically, it's not a bus stop, but simply "the place where I wait for the bus," or "in front of Papa Ron's Pizza," since the bus suddenly and erratically swerves to the side of the road to pick up anyone who looks like they might want a ride.
3. Technically, only Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday morning. But shouldn't that still be enough for them to figure out I don't want to hire them?
4. Yes, this is one syllable.
5. In standard Indonesian, this should be two syllables, but both monophthongization and diphthongization are common in colloquial Indonesian, and so this word is more commonly pronounced with a diphthong than as two syllables demarcated by a homologous glide. For the sake of the poetic form, though, let's pretend that becak drivers speak standard Indonesian and assign it two syllables.
6. "Miss! Miss! Ride a becak, Miss!"
7. I hate this.
8. If only it were so simple. In reality, Indonesia's unemployment rate is about 11.8%, according to the CIA World Factbook, 2006.
9. Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata. I don't really recommend it, Nobel Prize notwithstanding. Maybe it's better in Japanese.
10. This is not the proper plural, in Japanese or English. Japanese uses classifiers in its pluralization, and I don't know the correct one for "haiku." The preferred English form, according to Merriam Webster, is simply "haiku," but I added the "s" for the rhyme with "news." Again, I opted for humor over accuracy, and I'm really sorry. Hence the footnotes.
11. Nothing, for the record.
12. $50! That goes a long way here.
13. This is also one syllable.
14. This is a rhetorical question; were I to answer it, I would say, "movies." Or maybe "the internet." But it was certainly not me: I would have at least taught them "Miss" instead of "Mister."

At the Travel Agency

I think I'd prefer a 10-day tour, wouldn't you?

S(ingle), M(ale), S(earching)

So, I met someone.

It's not like it sounds. At least, not on my part. While in West Sumatra, during the two-hour drive from Padang to Bukittinggi, in a public car filled with off-duty policemen from Bandung, West Java, all of them chain smoking, one of the policemen, after about an hour, started the conversation I had dreaded all along: Where was I from? Where was I going? How old was I? Was I married?

We chatted amiably for the rest of the drive, him curious about this female foreigner traveling alone, me bored and sick to my stomach but, at least, in some small, enjoying a chat with eye candy precisely my age. When we arrived in Bukittinggi he asked for my number and, because I'm a sucker for a pretty face in a uniform, and because I cannot, in fact, be taught (sorry Katya), gave it to him. He has called me several times after that, always in the middle of the night, and I've always ignored his calls.

So, finally, giving up on calling, today he SMSed me, making his feelings clear. I give you, in all its text-message glory, the lamest attempt at picking up on me I've ever seen. And, seeing as the last few boys who asked me out used email, that's saying something.

Harry: So now you're arrogant, huh? So our acquaintance was only in Bukittinggi?

Hannah: It's just that you've always called me when I'm asleep. Don't call in the middle of the night! Duh!

Harry: Oh. Okay. I'm sorry. So where are you now? Now I'm in Bogor. Do you already have a boyfriend?

Hannah: I'm back in Semarang already. And yes, I already have a boyfriend. His name is Biff.


Harry: Suppose an Indonesian guy liked you. How about it? Would you want to be his girlfriend?

Hannah: Perhaps, but for me the important thing is a shared religion. And I already have a boyfriend who's my same religion.

Harry: Do you want to become my girlfriend? I've liked you since I saw you in the car: you're pretty, smart, and also tall.

Hannah: Well, thank you for the compliments, but my boyfriend in America is big and strong and probably wouldn't like it if I found a boyfriend here. We can be friends, though.

Harry: Okay. I'm happy to know you.

Hannah: Yep. Me too.

Luckily, as it turned out, this superlatively lame attempt was also superlatively easy to reject. I'm going to have to remember this whole Biff-the-big-strong-American-Mormon-boyfriend idea; it's easier, for me, than training myself to refuse to give out my number in the first place. And maybe, just maybe, with that lie in place, all those would-be Single Male Searchers (SMSers) can learn to resist the siren call of my pretty, smart, tall, American passport-holding self.

Oh, and if anyone happens to know any big strong American Mormons named Biff, send them my way. I'm looking to meet someone.

Terrible! Horrible! No Good! Very Bad!

Everything was fine when I woke up this morning. I was a little sleepy, but that's normal. I fell asleep at my desk during first period, which I usually hate doing, because then I wake up covered in drool and with large red spots, and sometimes even the outline of a book's spine, on my face and arms, with all the teachers staring at me and then, later, feeling free to ask me a million times if I'm still sleepy: "Ngantuk? Ngantuk? Ngantuk?"

But then, somewhere around third period, I got sick. I had to dash to the bathroom during two of my classes, leaving the students happily "writing dialogues," which, without constant teacher supervision, was probably closer to "running around wildly and/or texting friends in other classes." In between classes, I dozed in the school nurse's office, and eventually I just skipped my last class, unable to pull myself off the cot where I had been curled up in stomach pain for the last hour. In the hour that followed the end of school, I cancelled plans with a friend, two months in the making, that I was actually looking forward to; forgot the motorcycle helmet I borrowed from the servants at school; dragged myself, in a pained and almost crouching way, through the roughly 100 students on the school bus to take my seat in the front; spent half an hour on the bus trying not to think about how sick I felt; after said half hour, threw up out the window of the bus, while it was moving, in front of all those students, and, what's more, at the busiest intersection in town; stumbled off the bus to throw up several more times into a potted plant by the side of the road; didn't look where I was going and so got hit on the top of the head by one of those bars that raise and lower to admit cars to a parking lot*; and, finally, standing in the lobby of the second swankiest hotel in town, with one hand clutching the enormous swollen lump on my head and the other covered in my own vomit, broke down sobbing.

Things got a little better after that. I came home, changed into my houseclothes, a nightie covered in frogs and the slogan "Toadily Cool," which I paid $6 for because I couldn't resist the pun, and turned on a movie. After crying my way through "Mystic River," I fell asleep for about five hours**, and somehow got the energy to eat some white rice and head to the internet cafe.

So yeah. Today was um, not great. I don't think even Alexander can compete***.

*to make this even more embarrassing, or maybe just more infuriating, the bar wasn't automatic. You'd think the operator could have, I don't know, raised it when he saw me coming.
**throwing up really takes it out of you. Ha!
***to be honest, I haven't read the book since I was really little. Maybe he can. But before you decide, you should see the size of the bump on my head.

Wild Wild West (Sumatra): A Roundup

The Good: Flora and fauna like I’ve never seen before; a canoe ride across a volcanic lake; really cheap homestay rooms; delicious Padang food, famous across Indonesia for its spiciness; the feeling of reaching solid ground and fresh air after five hours on a rickety, cigarette-filled public bus; conversation with a real, live American, my friend She Who Must Not Be (Blog) Named; spectacular scenery; touring Japanese World War II-era underground tunnels dug by forced labor; monkeys on the side of the road; singing along, loudly, to Celine Dion on another public bus, wantonly disregarding the real words to “My Heart Will Go On”; watching traditional Minangkabau dances, including one which involves jumping into a pile of ceramic and glass plate shards; cooking chicken fajitas, tortillas, and salsa with SWMNB(B)N and watching “Little Miss Sunshine” as we ate them; buying silver jewelry for cheap; gorgeous 75-degree weather; spending only $160 for the five-day trip, including round-trip airfare, local transportation, souvenirs, and four nights in hotels. I’d say it was worth the money.

The Bad: The only book I brought with me was Moby Dick. Cheap homestay rooms have really dirty sheets, pillows, and bathrooms. I feared for my life on those public buses, especially when twisting and turning down a mountain. I dropped SWMNB(B)N’s cell phone in the squat toilet and ruined it; I gave her mine in exchange, leaving me deprived of communication or a clock. Don't worry, though, it all ends happily: I finally finished Moby Dick, I’m back to clean sheets, I survived the 44 hairpin turns descending to Lake Maninjau, and I paid $20 and got my cell phone fixed and hence can once again send text messages and wake up in the morning.

The Ugly: The scratches on my arms and ankles from branches in the "jungle”; the intense sunburn on my arms, neck, and nose; the peeling of the same, soliciting many questions from my students along the lines of "Miss, what's wrong with your arms?"; the mosquito bites on my legs, arms, feet, and, mysteriously, stomach; my own personal odor after three days of bathing in really cheap homestay bathrooms. Yet, the sacrifice of beauty is but a small price to pay for a west Sumatran adventure.

It's a Jungle Out There

Or, Into the Woods

On my first day in Sumatra, in the small town of Bukittinggi, a man walked up to me on the street and started chatting. His Indonesian was clear and easy to understand, and he was funny and knew a lot about the area, so I played along and let myself get taken to the town’s clock tower, traditional dance hall, and night market. The next morning, as I was touring a particularly scenic spot, he walked up and claimed he had been looking for me all morning: where had I been? I was planning on walking to a nearby town famous for its silver production, about an hour’s walk away, so he offered to accompany me and show me some sights along the way, such as his ganja farm and, right next door, his childhood home. I’m far more naïve than you’d expect, so of course I accepted his offer and we set out. It was only a half-hour later, well-entangled in what I would call a jungle but what he adamantly insisted was only the woods, that the various dangers of my situation occurred to me. By that time, however, I was far too lost to go back on my own, so I shrugged and put thoughts of rape and murder out of my head.

I’m glad I did. The hike took about four hours, and, no matter what my guide claimed, we were definitely not on the path that Lonely Planet had mentioned—Lonely Planet didn’t warn me about fording a thigh-deep river four times, or climbing up rock walls, or walking through mud to my ankles--but it was fantastic. The night before, my guide had claimed to be an orang hutan*, or "man of the forest," and in the clear light of day, this turned out to be true. He knew everything about the forest, and showed me which plants are good for toothache and which ones were good for getting high. (I suspect he had a lot of experience with the latter.) He knew which plants would fold up delicately if you touched them—“Check it out!” he said, “It’s a Muslim plant!”—and which plants would hurt you if you even thought about touching them. He cut raw cinnamon from its tree and gave me unripe coffee beans, plucked straight from the bush, as souvenirs. He shushed me as a snake crossed the path, pointed out a gigantic elephant beetle sleeping on a tree branch, and noticed when an eagle was soaring far overhead. He also, of course, taunted me for my city-girl ways, clumsy about stepping over fallen tree branches, laughed uproariously at my nervousness when several of the free-range water buffaloes we encountered took a strong interest in me and trotted over to say hello, and made it overwhelmingly obvious that he expected me to sleep with him in exchange for the tour.

For the record, I did not, but it was equally obvious that most Western tourists would, and did. My guide had a whole collection of amazing stories—“when I was young and the water buffaloes were my best friends”; “the time I got bitten by a snake and my dog saved my life”; “when I lived on the streets of Jakarta”; “how I visited all 31 provinces of Indonesia without any money”—that were, I think, about 30% true and 70% cleverly calculated to seduce impressionable young white girls. He also had a whole litany of easy-conquest stories: the Dutch girl, the French girl, the Australian girl, the British girl. I told him pretty plainly that no, I was not his girlfriend-to-be and he should stop introducing me as such, and no, I was not going to go home with him, and no, I was not going to be "the American girl" on his list. To his credit, he didn't immediately leave me in the wilderness, but continued being friendly, though I did have to work to keep his hand off my knee. Hope springs eternal, I guess. I was not sorry to disappoint him, and that evening, after returning to civilization, such as it was, I politely thanked him, gave him a fake phone number, and promptly skipped town.

So here’s to you, King of the Swingers. May you live out many more happy days as a jungle VIP, and may you, next time, find a girl who will fall for the snake bite story. Thanks for the great day.

*whence the English "orangutan," for the interested

On All Your Houses

Miss Hannah: Today, class, we're going to talk about going to the doctor. Who has ever been to the doctor?

[all raise their hands]

Miss Hannah: Good! Now why do we go to the doctor? What kinds of sicknesses can he treat?

[all are silent]

Miss Hannah: Okay...what kind of symptoms does a doctor look at?

[all are silent]

Miss Hannah: Please, people, we're just brainstorming vocabulary. Someone just tell me a disease.

[all are silent]

Miss Hannah: Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[all are silent]

Miss Hannah: All right. You, in the back. Name a disease. Any disease.

Julio: What?

Miss Hannah: You've been to the doctor, right? What were you sick with?

Julio: What?

Miss Hannah: What disease, or sickness, did you have when you last went to the doctor?

Julio: Oh! I had smallpox, Miss.

Miss Hannah: [laughs] Yeah, kid, you and the Indians.

Julio: What?

When I Grow Up

One day, I'm going to acquire a black dog or cat, or maybe even bird or fish, so that I can refer to it as my "pet noire."

(This will be even funnier when it runs away or has an accident in the house or otherwise annoys me. I can't wait.)

Retreat From Sanity

I just spent the last one (hellish) night and two (surreal) days on a "rededikasi spirituel" retreat for all the teachers (middle school and high school) at my school. While I love all these people dearly--really I do--this love seems to hinge as much on my ability to retreat (get it?) from their combined presence for an occasional breather, or at the very least an occasional ten-minute stretch without someone, usually proxying for a wandering fruit saleswoman, asking me if I like avocados.

(It's not very Christlike, I know. But I like to think even Christ might have whipped out his trademark sarcasm at that point--a little bit of "render these avocados," if you know what I mean. Then again, that thought is probably just proof of how little "rededikasi" my spirit really got.)

While the retreat had its high points--like when I accidentally got locked into the conference room during our lunch hour and had to escape by climbing out of a window--my general opinion on it is probably best summarized by my first thought upon waking up this morning: "Please don't speak Javanese. Please, please, please don't speak Javanese. I can't take another second of not understanding what's going on. Please...oh, sialan."

This whole language thing was the main problem, see: I love everyone dearly on an individual basis, where I can persuade them to stick to Indonesian, and to repeat things when necessary, so that we can actually talk. When everyone gets together, though, they switch into raucous Javanese from which I can only catch basic words like "Miss Hannah," "does," "not," "like," and "avocados." This means I'm completely left out of the fun bits of every conversation, which, by definition, is no fun.

Moreover, I was left out of the fun bits of our spiritual rededication. We had about ten hours, all told, of what were basically church talks with PowerPoint. This being a mainstream (and sometimes charismatic) Protestant school, most of the speakers were professional preachers and therefore reasonably talented. (Although, to my Mormon mind, used to a lay clergy, this also made them vaguely slimy and not to be trusted. Plus, it's triply disappointing when a professional's talk resorts to "it was then that I carried you." For heaven's sake, man, you're paid to do this! You really couldn't come up with anything better?) However, since they liberally made use of Javanese to keep their audience entertained, their talks, to me, sounded something like this: "And we need to REDEDICATE ourselves to the LORD! As my grandmother used to tell me...blo blo blo londo goble goble songo lungo siji loro!" [Hearty laughter from the audience, with the exception of Miss Hannah, who is thinking of trying to choke herself to death on the nearest avocado.]

And of course, I had to concentrate ridiculously hard to even understand the speakers' Indonesian, so after an hour or two (out of ten, mind you) I ended up with a headache. When I tried to kill my headache (and my sore throat and runny nose and cough and aching stomach--did I mention I was sick with a cold through all of this?) by going to bed early, I found that my two roommates wanted to watch TV until one in the morning. (They were possibly celebrating the fact that we got to wake up "not too early in the morning," which the retreat coordinator apparently defined as "in time for a mandatory 6 AM exercise session.") And then my host mother arrived and brought two of the maids, which excited everyone because the maids could take care of me, which was terrible because hello? I spend all my time trying to persuade them not to take care of me. And on the way home, we had to stop to buy oleh-oleh, or edible souvenirs, where I then had to explain to an estimated fifteen people, in the space of five minutes, why I was not buying anything. (No, I don't hate you. No, I'm not on a diet. No, I don't hate your food, with the exception of avocados. I just don't. feel. like. eating. Is that so hard to understand?) And there was no hot water at the hotel, which is fine in Semarang's 100-degree weather, but not so fun in Kopeng's breezy 75 degrees. (I ended up just faking it: going into the bathroom, splashing some water around noisily, including on my hair, and changing my shirt. Luckily, that same breezy 75 degrees guaranteed that I didn't smell too bad.) And, of course, I managed to eat something spicy just before leaving Semarang and so had to request an emergency gas station stop halfway to Kopeng, which I found hugely embarrassing, especially since it encouraged all the teachers to watch what I ate even more closely than normal, and, of course, to make plenty of snide comments about how Westerners just can't handle their chili.

So yeah. It was not, let's say, the best two days of my life. On the other hand, it's over now, and early tomorrow morning (too early, even by the retreat coordinator's standards), I get to make my own retreat (surely it's funny now?): I'm flying to west Sumatra, where, as long as I don't die in a fiery plane crash, I intend to visit beaches, jungles, lakes, and mountains, speak English with an honest-to-goodness American, buy lots of cheap silver, and not even look at a single avocado.

The Obligatory "Weird Food" Post

New Foods I Tried Today

cow brains, mashed, fried, and cooked with egg
cow skin, dried and inflated
cow lungs, disguised in some way to look vaguely like chicken
chicken feet, not disguised in any way

New Foods I Enjoyed Today

...

Chapter 78: Borobudur

In which our heroine wakes up early, spends seven hours on a three-hour bus ride due to two flat tires, misses a wedding ceremony, almost misses a wedding reception, dances the funky chicken, discusses the 19th century opium trade with a technical drawing teacher, squeezes into a public van with 16 other people, buys edible souvenirs, meets an American tourist, teaches racial slurs to a sociology teacher, and sees an (unofficial) Wonder of the World.

That’s about it, actually. How did those early novelists ever manage to add anything to their chapter summaries? I guess pictures will have to substitute for the three thousand words Fielding or Thackeray would add here.

17 people in an angkot. Only about ten of them are technically visible, so you'll have to trust me that I counted right.

(I did.)

If you touch the Buddha statue in the middle of the stupa, all your wishes come true. If you don't, you just look like an idiot trying.

(I didn't.)

Don't you think it should be an official Wonder of the World?

(I do.)

Home (Where My Music's Playing)

I dreaded coming back to Indonesia, I’m ashamed to say. I spent the last few days of my vacation abroad surrounded by cranberry juice, a fast internet connection, English novels, and Monty Python episodes with my brothers. How could I leave all that? My heart sank at the thought of it.

When I first returned, on the day before New Year’s, I stayed with a friend, an embassy employee in Jakarta. Her place was, for me, a sort of halfway house: cranberry juice but no fast internet, English books but no loving family. I spent my time there sleeping (one night, for a record fifteen hours), reading books (seven novels in two days, my idea of heaven), and eating American snacks from the commissary.

I came back to Semarang on Wednesday night, on a ghetto little plane (insects crawling on my seat: seven) with a ticket I had purchased for twenty dollars the day before. I spent the flight planning my lessons for Thursday and Friday only to discover, when I landed to a flurry of text messages from my school, that the students had testing on Thursday and I didn’t have to teach. Fine, I thought, another day in the sun, reading novels and finishing my grad school reapplication. Friday morning, I woke up bright and early (or, at the very least, early, since the sun isn’t quite up at 5 A.M.) and headed in to school, only to find out that testing extended to Friday and therefore I still didn’t have to teach. No one told me because, as my favorite teacher put it, they missed me. It was rather sweet, really, except that it meant I wasted an entire week in Jakarta and Semarang that I could have spent in Bali. (I forgive them. See what I sucker I am for people who miss me?)

Now that I’m actually back, I am, to my surprise most of all, glad to be here. Between a church activity where I was greeted, loudly and enthusiastically, by the missionaries, the entire Relief Society, and the children to whom I teach piano lessons; time spent exchanging vacation stories with my favorite teachers; the new Decemberists CD to obsess over; a random school trip to Kudus, two hours away, simply to tell three middle schools there that we would like to visit later in the week; and the exciting discovery that I’m suffering several of the major symptoms of pinworms, I’ve realized I really do have a life here. It may be different, sometimes to the point of surreal, it may not be what I expected, it may not even be exactly what I want when I wake up every morning, but it is my life and I’m happy with it, parasites and all.

Asking For It

This Christmas, I asked for books. Any kind of book will do, I told my mom, as long as it’s in English. I have scads of spare time, both at school and at home, and the comfort of English prose, even bad English prose, is enough to stave off the potential ravages of culture shock. Yet, English books are expensive here, having been imported from abroad, and the shipping costs of books from the States are enough to discourage any cheapskate like myself from trying.

Luckily, my family lives in a land of milk and honey, book-wise. India has some of the world’s greatest bookstores; although they’re usually not as big as Border’s or Barnes and Noble or any of America’s giant take-over-the-world chains, they are filled, almost exclusively, with books I want to read. I can walk into almost any bookstore in India and take almost any book off the shelf and know I’ll enjoy it. Where else could I, within two minutes of entering the shop, find the Ali Smith novel Alea recommended, which is practically nonexistent in Utah libraries? Where else posts on a sign on the door advertising Elfriede Jelinek, the Austrian Nobel Prize winner I had been meaning to read since returning from vacation there? Where else, in sum, would the first five books I picked up be winners of major literary prizes?

So now, thanks to my mother diligently saving what she’s been reading for me, plus a few heavenly bookstore visits, I have enough to read for the next, oh, month and a half. Thank you, family, and thank you, India.

(As a side note, I managed to get nearly all these books back to Indonesia in only my one 44-pound suitcase and a backpack, which, I later discovered, weighed about 35 pounds itself. So that no officious Indian airline employee would realize how massive my carry-on truly was, I had to walk like it wasn’t heavy; it was quite the acting feat, if I may say so myself.)

***

This Christmas, I asked for nothing else. Since anything my family gave or received then had to be carried in a suitcase, we opted to forgo the gift exchange this year. Yet my father, who loves buying things for Christmas, couldn’t quite let it go. He insisted that we each get something from “Santa,” but then complained that “Santa” had it a lot rougher nowadays, with practically grown-up children wanting practically grown-up, and therefore expensive, toys. In the good old days, he told us, he went to Toys ‘R Us a few days before the 25th, blew $100 a kid, and we all jumped up and down with joy to see stuffed animals and action figures on Christmas morning.

Well, why not? we thought, so as a family we bundled up and made a trip to a Toys ‘R Us in Innsbruck, where we each selected a stuffed animal or action figure to serve as a token Christmas present. I got this rockin’ Care Bear on a keychain, as a memento of the days I used to have real Care Bears; as soon as I have keys again, you can be sure I’ll use it.

(As a side note, this is the first time I’ve ever owned a brand-new Care Bear; when I was actually in that phase, my parents were in the “too poor for new toys” phase, and so all my beloved childhood bears were from yard sales. We were also in the “too poor for TV” phase, so don’t even try to reminisce about the TV show; I didn’t know it existed until only a few years ago.)

***

This Christmas, I didn't ask for a trip to Austria, sparkly silver shoes, or a new Belle and Sebastian CD. I didn't ask for good friends who mail me packages to cure my homesickness (thank you, Alea and Kaneeneenie) or let me stay at their house for as long as I need (thank you, Ruth). I didn't ask for a roof over my head or enough food to eat. I didn't ask for a supportive and entertaining "work" environment; I didn't even ask that my "work" be easy enough that it deserves the quotation marks. I didn't ask for a kind, loving, and remarkably un-screwed-up family. Yet I got all those things anyway. I know this is a Christmas post, not a Thanksgiving one, but can't (and shouldn't?) a girl be grateful the other 364 days of the year?

Ten More Things Jaya Would Be Cute Doing

10.
Working as a footwarmer.

9.
Vanquishing her new Christmas toy.

8.
Helping out the servants.

7.
Reading The New Yorker.


6.

Getting ready for a walk.

5.

Playing computer with Brother #2 (a.k.a. Hairmano).

4.

Singing the jailhouse blues.

3. Showing off her circus dog genes.
2.

Hiding from the puparazzi.

1.

Just being herself.

Vacation Face

(written by special guest writer Petra's Mother, edited by Petra)

To fully appreciate Petra's vacation adventure one needs to understand the nuances of Petra's vacation face. I do not know if non-family members have ever seen this face but I can attest to its frequent presence during our perambulations together.

Here is the face:

Here are the situations in which the face appears:

1) "He is speaking a foreign language." Petra's linguistic talents do not come from her paternal genes. PatrusPetra believes that every language in the world can be pronounced using a loud voice and either an American English or an Argentinian Spanish accent. Thus, the German word for "street", strasse (editor's note: that final e is a schwa) is said, loudly, as either "strays" or "strawsee" (accent and hand gesture on the last syllable). Petra's vacation visage was particularly present when Patrus, inspired by the German all around him, produced the one German word he remembered from his college days: schadenfreude. Over the course of the 10 day vacation poor Petra, the linguist, had to hear this word pronounced variously, and at top volume, as: "sa-chen-den-froy-dee", "skan-ten-de-fru-dee", and "se-che-ne-da-fro-how-you-say-it."

2) "She is doing math again." Petra's mathematical skills do not come from her maternal genes. MatrusPetra believes that every math problem in the world can be solved with enough creative narrative around the problem. Thus the Rock's vacation face appeared often as Matrus recounted how a salary of 15,000 a year was a good amount of money, working out to 5000 a month, how the 8 hour flight from Vienna to New Delhi really turned out to be a 6 and 1/2 hour flight (3 and 1/2 hours is halfway) and how something that costs 34 euros works out to be 15,000 Indian rupees which works back to being about 200 US dollars. (editor's note: You can check the exchange rates for this one to experience your very own vacation face!)

3) "The Sound of Music Bus Tour." A huge tour bus. Noisy, fat Americans. Painted scenes of Maria and 7 von Trapp children in curtain clothes. A flamboyant tour director explaining why "we LOVE this movie so much." Matrus singing along to the soundtrack as the bus drives through Salzburg. Heard enough? Vacation face.

A face to make a mother proud. Thanks for coming on our vacation, Petra.

Some Things Never Change

When I was a senior in high school, my Latin class's trip to Italy got cancelled because of September 11. A reporter for the town paper came around the school looking for suitable quotes for her piece on the topic. Instead of using deep thoughts from my peers, like "Man! This totally sucks!" she featured a quick interview with me, in which I said, "I am a bit disappointed" and pointed out that the trip's cancellation was rather paranoid; Italy and Afghanistan are not exactly close neighbors, and the danger to a bunch of 16 and 17-year olds travelling abroad would still come more from alcohol poisoning than terrorist attacks.

When the article was published, my friends all teased me endlessly. I sounded like an idiot, after all: what sort of high schooler, when denied a chance to see the glories of ancient Rome, tamely says "I am a bit disappointed"? Way back then, I tried to blame the reporter--I would never phrase things that way! She must have misquoted me!--but, having just reread the opening line of my last blog entry, I see now that I would, in fact, phrase things that way. So then, Local Reporter, wherever you are: I'm sorry. I should never have tried to blame you. Your reporting skills are better, and my sound-bite-giving skills worse, than I ever imagined. I am, all in all, a bit disappointed in myself.

High On a Mountain Top

I am a bit disappointed by Austria. I did not expect to travel halfway across the world to an exotic foreign country and find that it looks just like Utah. In fact, as far as I can tell, Austria is a sort of bizarro-Deseret: the mountains looming over the city are the same shape but a little taller, a little more looming; the houses look like Park City, in that wooden, boxy, chimneyed, houses-drawn-by-kindergarten-children Alpine style, but a little more authentic; and the people are tall, blond, and healthy, precisely like Utahns, but a little more German-speaking.

It is, however, quite a bit colder here. My poor family and I, unprepared by our respective Ind* countries for this sort of weather, look a bit pathetic, having scrapped together whatever cold-weather gear we could find. Before leaving Jakarta, I stopped in at Plaza Indonesia, the city's ritziest mall, and purchased some expensive sweaters from chichi European stores like Mango and Zara, but they're not thick enough on their own, which means I hit the streets of Innsbruck every morning wearing three pairs of pants, four sweaters, and a pained expression that says, "I can't feel my fingers or toes." Luckily, for the ski slopes themselves we rented or purchased warm clothes, so I was always perfectly warm on the top of the mountain, wearing overly thick ski pants, an incredibly high-tech coat, and a pained expression that says, “I paid $30 for my socks.” Oh, right, and a fuzzy black hat, which, with my short hair, makes me look more like a cancer patient than a Swedish ski bunny.

Not that, while facing down the mountain, fashion is my top concern. I've done a fair amount of skiing in my life but yet, alas, I still vacillate between "nearly intermediate" and "rank beginner." When the terrain is smooth, snowy, and not steep, I can swish and swoosh like someone who knows what they're doing. The minute the terrain falls apart, though, so does my technique. On the steeper hills, I am not above pizza-wedging, stair-stepping, or even butt-sliding my way down. (Ask me about the time I took out an entire mogul field with my stair-stepping technique.) The main problem with my skiing, as far as I can tell, is that I have absolutely no need for speed; quite the reverse, in fact: I wind down the mountain as slowly as I possibly can, muttering "Up! Down! Butt! Knees! Up! Down!" under my breath. I look and sound like an idiot, it’s true, but I’m used to that. At least I don’t fall very often.

The last time I took a bad fall in Utah, many years ago, my Butt and Knees having failed to go properly Up and Down, I lay in the snow for a few minutes, snatching, like an Italian soccer player, a few moments of rest. As I stared up at the sky, an old couple on the lift over me shouted down, full of tender concern, "We're praying for you!" Yesterday, after taking my skis off and sliding down an entire mountain slope on my backside, finding that the least frightening and most effective way to the bottom, a young girl skiing by made the mistake of looking back at me and my mom, working her way down the mountain the same way. She paused for a split second, as if considering what to do, and then literally fell over laughing. I guess I'm not in Zion anymore after all.

Radio Head

So, thanks to the U.S. Embassy and its magical powers of networking, my friend the Short Loud One (not her real name) and I have our own radio show. (Or, rather, our own regular guest spot on someone else's radio show--it's practically the same thing, right?) We are supposed to, once a week, lead a discussion, in English, about American culture and whatever else we can think of. We've only done it once so far, but, seeing as how it was a blast, we're planning to set the regular schedule in stone just as soon as I'm done travelling to Yogyakarta and Vienna and New Delhi and the SLO is done travelling to Burma and Cambodia and Thailand--that is, sometime in February.

In any case, our first attempt at a show was, as I saw it, excellent. We explained the history of Thanksgiving, talked about different traditions--in the South, apparently, they deep-fry their turkeys--and developed a fun rapport with the actual hosts, two very hip-yet-pleasant twenty-somethings. With the exception of a suggestive joke on my part--"size always matters" referred to turkeys, people, turkeys--our wit was nice, safe, and culturally sensitive, all that "Congress pays me to be a nice American" sort of stuff. What's more, since our interview was interspersed with music, our hosts allowed me to choose a song; I think that's the first and last time an Indonesian audience will hear Radiohead's "How to Disappear Completely" played on air. I just hope they appreciated it.

Busy Bee

Things I did this week, in a desperate attempt to fill my spare time:

hosted a radio show
read four (4) novels
taught piano lessons to six (6) rowdy Primary children
worked on my grad school application
created a poster presentation for an academic conference next week
did aerobics with the Relief Society
taught my weekly English class at the church
did numerous (?) crossword puzzles
guest lectured about anaphora and deixis in a university class, in Indonesian
took a five (5) hour nap
watched my favorite soap opera, The Teenage Bride
memorized five hundred (500) vocabulary words
tried to watch Trainspotting for the second (2nd) time
beat my students at Scrabble one hundred seventy eight (178) to forty-four (44)
changed my phone number to avoid my stalker
wrote tens (10s) of emails
went to a housewarming party
had a Javanese lesson
read six (6) books of the New Testament
ate delicious soup with some friends from class

Notice how not one (1) of those things is "did homework" or "studied for finals." Life is good.