Indonesia: Food and Culture

So, Indonesia is known for their spicy food. I have been known to start coughing by just being in a room with a person cooking something spicy. I am like a canary in a coal mine for spicy food. Anyways, I survived because my friend and her friends were so vigilant to buy non-spicy food for me. I owe my survival to them.

Food was...

So...

Good...

And cheap. First picture cost I think... $1-$2. It's fish balls with stuff inside in a broth, and ramen with fried ground pork. The last photo is like fatty pork, pork blood, intestines, other stuff... in a broth. You put those donut like things inside the broth. The dish next to it is fried meat. I forgot what. The middle picture. Oh man, let's talk about the middle picture.

So, I traveled with locals, thank Jesus. They knew the places to eat and what to do. They would tell me stuff like "don't eat there, you're gonna get food poisoning", or "this is the most famous food place for ____," and "don't walk around this street at night here or you'll be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery." 0_0 Definitely things I appreciate knowing.

So my friend's friends took us to a fishing village to eat. Going to this place was one of the biggest culture shocks of the whole trip.

So this was a little fishing village. People live in these houses that I'm pretty sure they built themselves with the material they stored up as shown in the first picture. On the outskirts of the village is a restaurant.

The building to the left is the restaurant and the ramp leads to a place where you pick the fish you want them to cook. The third picture shows the place up close. Each box holds a different animal in it: lobsters, crabs, shrimp etc. The last picture is the view from the restaurant. The fisheries place had this weird animal that i have never seen before. From the top, it looks like a cut off lobster tail. From the bottom, it looks like a cockroach. It's called Hippo.

First picture is it raw and flapping, then cooked in this black sauce (this is when it looks the most like a cockroach 0_0), and what it looks like on the inside. It tastes like a combination of shrimp and lobster. Everything was so fresh and so good.

It was obvious people thought food is one of the most important things to show a traveler in both Singapore and Indonesia. They stuffed me so full with all kinds of stuff, and it was all really good and really unique. I don't remember most of it. It was a blur. What sticks with me about Indonesian food is that there's a lot of seafood, spicy food, deep fried food, and organ types foods. I definitely had a belly throughout the whole trip and had to wear loose clothing... haha.

Let's talk about culture.

Oh man, there is so much to say. I'll start with the positive first. It seems Indonesian people form very close relationships to one another. There's close family ties and also close ties with friends. When my friend and I visited, people went out of there way to drive us like 3 hours out somewhere and spend the whole day with us. My friend's cousin lugged us around Singapore for 5 days with 2 small children flailing behind her. (That. Is dedication, my friends.) My friend's aunt paid for 3 nights of apartment stay for me and my friend. It was crazy. In Indonesia, there was some party going on every night at people's houses. They just come together, eat, watch movies, play cards, tell stories. Indonesia's party like the people at my christian fellowship. haha. But it's a frequent thing. What I'm saying is, Indonesia is much better at maintaining social relationship and interdependence than the US. People seem to take care of one another and check up on each other. Even very awkward people have their loyal group of friends. This contrasted so starkly to the situation in the US. I read so many news stories of terrible things one person did to another because he/she was lonely. Even in my church, a word was given about loneliness and I could hear people sniffling all over the place. America is too independent and it causes people to be isolated. I think it has a lot to learn from cultures like Indonesia. What was most impressive is that I saw some very poor places in Indonesia (you can imagine rats in the garbage cans, dirt and mold on the buildings...), but no beggars. That definitely makes a statement.

The bad thing about Indonesian culture is, I guess, the same thing that is bad about Chinese culture, so at least I wasn't too surprised. They really care about appearances and are really blunt. My poor friend... She would meet her mom's friends for the first time, and the first thing the friend would say is, "Why are you so dark and fat?" No joke, at least 5 separate people greeted her this way. It seems like the more rural the city is, the more blunt people get. The first thing they comment about is your looks. Good thing I'm pale. I didn't feel the wrath of their negative judgments. They did compare me and my friend though. It was uncomfortable. What surprised me even more was that they did this to siblings. My friend's aunt asked me which of her grandchildren were prettier. Each child is special in their own way, lady.

So imagine sliding this cultural trait into daily life. What do you get? Offensive nicknames. haha. Seriously, Indonesian people are so funny. They seem to possess very thick skin and tease each other all the time, sometimes in ways that are probably offensive to Americans. One guy's nickname is "Narcotics" because "his face looks like he's been taking drugs." Another guy's name is "Donald Duck" because of his short chin. Another guy is "corn" because of his cornrows. Apparently teasing is not exclusive to kids, teachers gave some of these names to people. Compared to Indonesians, Americans are really serious and very sensitive. Not long after I arrived home, I saw this video about an anchorwoman talking about how people on the news website posted comments that she should lose weight because she's not setting a good example to viewers. Her face was very stern and she was very emotional. There was such a stark contrast. I'm not condoning teasing about appearances, especially for girls who tend to be more sensitive about these topics... but it seems like in America people are constantly in denial about everything. I think somewhere between the two extremes is the best. If we can admit what we are (fat, skinny, dark, pale etc) but not pass any positive or negative judgment about those descriptions. It's just what we are and people hold different things in esteem. I told people we met that my friend would probably marry an American because Americans love tan skin. Tan people were like, "I'm going to move over there." haha.

Other topics to be covered

Relationships

Communication

Weddings

Government

Conclusion

Indonesia: Bathrooms

Ahhh... Bathrooms. In summary, they were weird.

I had enough foresight to mentally prepare myself for something very strange when I got to Indonesia. Maybe it was a hole in the ground. Perhaps I had to wipe my ass with leaves... I was basically racist. One thing I neglected to think about was how much we actually do in bathrooms.

So both Singapore and Indonesia have normal toilets. Some places have a squatting type of toilet, which is a ceramic bowl that is placed at ground level. And some places, you pour water into the toilet bowl to flush it instead of pushing a handle. This wasn't a huge culture shock. The strange thing for me was that the toilet is put in the same area as the shower so that the toilet rim is always wet. Furthermore, most places don't have toilet paper. Instead, they usually have a hose with a water spray nozzle for you to use, and one place had a bidet (which I once accidentally pushed instead of the flusher, almost nailing me, and also causing those waiting in line to think I was peeing on the floor with impressive velocity and distance). The problem with this is that your butt is wet from the toilet being wet and also from the spray. And you know what, you just suck it up and put your pants back on and walk around like crazy to help it dry out. In all seriousness, these countries would be a nightmare for anyone that shudders from the thought of using a public bathroom. So that happened.

Another thing is that not all places have the traditional shower head. Instead, they have a spigot with a huge bucket underneath and a small scoop inside the bucket. Some of these same said places also do not provide a spray nozzle for the toilet. So... what they're wanting you to do is use the water in the bucket to shower with by using the scoop to pour water from the bucket over yourself. And for the toilet, you also use the same method to clean up after doing your business. I would recommend bringing your own soap for both tasks because I just can't see how just using a bucket to pour water over your privates is going to get you clean. This is fine with me as long as there is a spigot to provide running water. But some places didn't even have a spigot and I felt super uncomfortable pouring water on myself that has been sitting there for God knows how long. At this one Buddhist temple, there was no spigot and the water in the bucket was greenish. GREENISH. I just think this whole experience highlights how important toilet paper is, for real. What saved me from the yeast infection or parasites that may have inhabited the green water of doom was tissues. Bring tissues.

But praise God, He was merciful to me. Half way through the trip my friend attended her brothers wedding, which was held in a nice hotel. I got 4 days of the American toilet and shower setup. Oh my goodness... those 4 days. It was heaven for my hair, skin, and bowels. Heaven.

Other topics to be covered

Food and Culture

Relationships

Communication

Weddings

Government

Conclusion

Indonesia: What they think of Americans

This was one of the weirdest parts of the vacation, and therefore, what I will address first. When I went to Singapore, we met up with my friend's friends. One of them is this very aggressive, outgoing girl who pretty much led us everywhere. The first thing she did is bring me to all these designer clothing shops: Chanel, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo. She would literally walk me inside the shop and hand things to me that she thought were nice like I could just buy it, no big deal. Then she would WAIT for me to finish shopping. (I awkwardly bought nothing.) Then when we went to eat, she wanted to take me to these super high end restaurants, when I just wanted to go to china town to have those $1 dollar meals because... a $1 meal is my idea of a great time, k. I'm just a graduate student trying to be financial responsible by saving enough money to pay off my student tuition. At one point, the other friend leaned over and asked if the watch I was wearing was Valentino. Girl, this watch was $30.

One thing I've learned traveling to these countries is that being a US citizen gives you some unfair advantages. I threw away my customs receipt, which I needed to leave Singapore. My friend and her aunt were freaking out because when they didn't have it, customs officials took them into a little room and interrogated them. The customs official shrugged it off after seeing my passport. In another instance, my friend told me to go yell at the person behind the airport counter because our flight from one indonesian island to another had been delayed and the person behind the counter didn't give her an explanation or an updated boarding time. I started yelling at this little guy who had probably no idea what I was saying. I kid you not, he left and about 3 minutes after he returned, the boarding gate opened. It seems that in general, there is a lot of corruption there, but that topic will be discussed later.

Once I arrived in Indonesia, my friend told me that my aunt wanted me to go to her school to give a presentation as a special speaker. I assumed the teacher wanted her students to have a fun little chat with someone from another country. We arrive there around 2 hours late because of the late plane, and all the students have left. The principle and teachers are all there waiting for me. They shook my hand, took pictures of me, and took videos of me talking to the principle. They asked me about my life, the American school system, how teachers motivated students, what classes were like, what they taught us... I asked my friend why they were taking pictures and getting video of me. She said it was for evidence that I came. I was like "... why..."

I'm not exactly sure what they were thinking. In most circumstances, teachers would give a sigh of relief and go home early to eat dinner with their families. Be that as it may, it was confusing to me. My culture here taught me that people are just people and any assumptions you make based on race, ethnicity, place of origin etc is what you would call prejudice. I guess we all do some degree of labeling whether we intend to or not, but I felt the level of that was much stronger there partially because it doesn't seem as looked down upon. I should have ridden in on a unicorn, decked in designer clothing, throwing out cash while barfing rainbows. What I'm saying is that I feel like I kind of let them down. At least I had pale skin so they thought I was pretty (to be covered later...).

Additional topics to be covered:

Bathrooms

Food and Culture

Relationships

Communication

Weddings

Government

Conclusion