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…