Happy Belated New Years (a post from when my blog was in google limbo..)

Friday, December 18th, 2009 was the Muslim New Year (year 1432). But in Central Java, Thursday night was the Javanese New Year as well. This special night is strikingly different from the New Year’s celebrations in the Western world, which welcome January 1st like royalty with fanfares, fireworks, and general excess. Here, though, the New Year is coaxed in on prayer and a song sung by the Sultan and his court. The people of Yogyakarta then respectfully and silently, pray into the New Year on an hour-long walk around the old palace city.

I expected to be overwhelmed by silence. Instead only in brief moments did I notice the quiet, and the shuffling of feet and sandals over the noise of my thoughts. In a city of motorbikes, jingling vendors, and a surplus population, the ability to walk empty streets and hear only the occasional chuckle of a tea seller, was truly extraordinary.

It was like a marathon, the course blocked off by policemen and lined with spectators, many of whom were part of the counter culture art scene of Yogya’s many universities. Their expensive cameras with Pinocchio-like lenses, their dark rimmed glasses, and thick swooping bangs were like counter culture nametags. As the flashes went off, threatening that shy New Year, I wondered how many art projects and zine’s I would be in the next day. Why weren’t these people joining our procession? Are they not Javanese or simply too modern? This was the first time for my Javanese friend who accompanied me and he had lived in Yogya for years...

We were, though, part of hundreds of others who diligently participate year after year. We walked amongst the young and old, people with their children and grandchildren. Batik cloth was ubiquitous and every few minutes someone would stop to swap sandals for bare feet. We moved collectively to a changing rhythm -slow, fast, slow- through streets that would be unrecognizable to the early Yogya royalty, the first to whisper in the New Year. Neon store signs illuminated asphalt and glinted off the kris (traditional dagger) of the royal, sarong-clad police ahead of me. Time seemed to stretch as we all pattered on in the procession. Pollution made way for starlight and even the children were quiet as we shuffled into early morning, each in their own thoughts, arm in arm, reflecting on the past and hopes for the future.

It was a visible challenge for some to remain silent this long. Different from the Balinese day of silence ceremony where families stay indoors, this procession creates a visible community. Introspection is coupled with the awareness of a moving human river. All emerge together into the palace courtyard, back into the usual chatter, welcomed by warm night snacks and tea stalls. The New Year has begun.


*I found out later that some people choose to circle the palace grounds up to seven times and there are other sorts of ceremonies that occur at home, before and after the walk. I wonder what time these people got home…

How Curiosity Killed Tact: A tale of cultural similarity.

There have been a few obstacles to getting this blog back, but please look forward to weekly posts. This one's rather lengthy... thanks for your patience!

At first I waited for it. I knew it was coming, that moment when, like a three year old, the perpetrator would become anxious, eyes would dart left then quickly right, then quickly center. Before I could intercept with a joke, tangent, or fake cell phone call, lips would rip apart in a cannon and it'd be out there. Like someone who knows they've just spit up all over my favorite sweater, they're hoping I will appease their unoriginal question, validate it -them- with an answer because, yes, they are that charming, interesting, funny, and ultimately deserving of my time and energy and trip down memory lane to explain that, no, I do not know why it happened, and no, it was not fun. In fact, I cannot imagine a scenario in which being woken up at six in the morning by gunshots to your home could possibly be enjoyable. And yet, three months later, I am still answering those questions. “You're Michelle?.” Statement-question. “ The one who's house got shot,” another statement question. Here's where the eyes start to shift around a little more and then ...“How was it?”

Three months ago, today, I was woken up at six am by a series of gunshots. I did not sprawl onto the floor per the news stories. I did not go running into the hallway. I stayed in bed. I waited for the gunshots to end and then realized I was awake and waited for a sign that I had actually heard something real. And, well, eventually, my housemate and I came to realize that someone had been shooting and something had been shot. I still do not know conclusively who or why and this post is certainly not the place for me to speculate. What I do know is that my neighbors got the chicken we would have had for Thanksgiving dinner and that we gave thanks anyway for the peace we still had. I also know that a story like this in the communities of Banda Aceh fuels enough curiosity to kill nearly everyone's sense of tact.

I have tried my hardest to see this as a cultural misunderstanding. Perhaps in Acehnese culture it is acceptable, perhaps even more polite, to address and inquire after the unfortunate events in the life of a new acquaintance. Maybe ignoring the fire of a distant neighbor's house or the burglary of your friend's cousin's car would be considered quite rude. This would be, of course, gossip and what better to fill the hours of coffee consumption in which nearly every Acehnese partakes. My constant awareness of potential intercultural indiscretions is why I then take these inquisitions, introductions, and yes, annoyances, in stride and answer briefly but politely the shopkeepers, the person who met me once at a coffee shop nine months ago, and the bike mechanic.

But, then what is the excuse of my fellow foreigners, of my fellow Americans? The community of foreigners here is ever shrinking, but that is not to say that I am close friends with the 300-400 foreigners who still reside in the province of Aceh. What is the excuse for the cannon-like mouth opening on a new acquaintance who is casually holding a drink I poured her at a party? Is this really the place to discuss my personal disaster? And what about the man I met thirty seconds ago who is about to join my friends and me for dinner? Why is he allowed to dribble out this question? Why should I be interested in how this affected whether or not he came here to volunteer? I can only assume that this phenomenon is a testament to the power of human curiosity and the blunders into which it may take us. I also implore the man at the stationary store, and the American development worker to ask yourselves first, how would you feel?

Fortunately, this is what several remarkable students did just a couple days after it happened. In class together we discussed the possible motives, and more importantly, ramifications for the Acehnese and foreigner communities, the two being quite interlinked given the tumultuous politics of this region. We decided that more important than what had happened is what would happen next, and that people need to discuss just what's been going on. Three “attacks” on foreigners, all grossly inflated by the media were enough to spur NGO curfews and a cleansing of company logos off of vehicles.

I am fortunate enough to have a journalist in my class and he took our discussion quite seriously. Instead of simply handing in the homework assignment -to write a personal narrative about the presence of foreigners in Aceh- he wrote two very positive news articles, and published them both. They are both in Indonesian (so much for the homework assignment). The first entitled ,“I am a foreigner, but I am also a Teacher”, used our classroom discussion to humanize the experience. The second, “The Children of Aceh are not Smart” (I would have picked a different title), outlines how necessary it is to have teachers here and how disastrous and embarrassing the attack was. It affirms that Aceh is peaceful and that those who attempt to disrupt the peace are a tiny minority and will not be successful.

These articles are beautiful gestures that are a great part of why I returned to Banda after our rather forced vacation. This person -and all those students in that particular class- were willing to engage in a serious and critical discussion about the unfortunate events that happened. So here I am, three months later, answering the same questions over and over again. I take serious comfort in remembering what this student did for me, and for himself and his community. He publicly expressed his opinions, despite fear from his colleagues about the consequences.

I am happy to report that things here are peaceful. Today is a beautiful and sunny day and I am enjoying a cup of coffee, just as I always do. In a few minutes I will teach another class of students, several of whom will be surprised to see me back (the semester just started). I am happy to be here and look forward to the rest of my time in Banda.