So I got all tongue-tied. Again.

And it took me almost 5 minutes to recover. I couldn’t believe what I read on a website when I was weighing the pros and cons of nuclear weapons, and whether it would be possible to live in a nuclear-free world. It said, “Yes we can have a nuclear free world. Right after we've dropped atomic bombs on Iraq, Iran, Israel, South America, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Indonesia. After that - we won't need them.”

My heart just skipped a beat. Shock, anger, pity, and sadness, all of them got mixed up in my stomach and immensely produced an emotional tornado. I was badly shocked by the statement as I read my country’s name in it. This might be a ridiculous idea (but hey, I didn’t start it), but I was wondering, since the author put my country the last in order, was this person actually saving the best (the worst, rather) for the last?

And then I got furious (this kind of thing drives me nuts). “Hello, people! Are you blind? We are the victim here. We experience external threats almost everyday, bombings here and bombings there. And the actors? The masterminds? Who do you think they are? Indonesian? Like we didn’t have enough trouble to deal with. Like we had plenty of time destroying and rebuilding things.”

“This kind of people is just pathetic.” And that was when I felt sorry for the author. For one who claimed coming from developed, civilised country, this individual sure was a misfit. He/she struck me as a narrow-minded person: the kind who made conclusion out of two words (Indonesia and bombings, in this case) without listening till the news came to a halt. Had he/she known better, he/she would have not embarrassed him/herself by writing something stupid, on the internet for crying out loud. Handmade bombs compared to nuclear? This person didn’t even know what he/she was talking about.

Besides, who needs nuclear when nature eagerly takes care of everything? Its interference has already given us more than enough horror. Tsunami and earthquake will always be a nightmare to us here. You ask me why I felt sad? I don’t usually answer a question with another question, but did you not read the news of what was happening in this country? If you want to cause further damage to my country, save your time and money, someone else has been doing your dirty job.

Is Michael Jackson ever a role model?

Even if I had to be kicked out of the intellectual community, I would say ‘yes’ any day of the week. Since his dramatic death, we’ve been fed by the media about Jackson’s unique (if not controversial) way of leading life. A lot of people claim to loathe him, while the other lot also claim to love him. Forget the amount of people who say, “I don’t care about him.” Those people are the kind of people that should not be taken into consideration, for being careless and ignorant.

What do the media call him? Let me ponder… Self-loathing and psychologically imbalanced (for being black) human being. Oh, my very favourite, ‘bleached-out, gyrating, sexually ambiguous primadonna’.

But think it over, his concerts were always flooded, or overwhelmed might I say, with people. Those were human beings, with brains to judge what mattered and what didn’t, now who are we to judge that Jackson is a waste-of-time-and-space person? He is a billions people’s idol. Look again, ‘billions’ is a big number.

Now the question is, why? Despite of all the pros and cons, he left us a legacy, footprints not everyone can leave for the next generation to follow. Now I’m not talking about self-denial which leads us to racial issues. I’m talking about what he represented when he was still alive.

In late 70’s, black people were considered as low-life peasants, even if they were freed from slavery issues after the magnanimous round of human rights declarations, bills and charters, they were still at the lower-end of society. That was the age where black people tended to end up dead on streets, getting killed by gang wars, or if they were lucky to survive, in prisons.

How did these people make a living? Actually, they didn’t. They filled the social facilities begging for a bowl of soup and a piece of blanket. They were the bummers on the streets threatening people with guns to get money they didn’t deserve. Even if there were one or two percents of this number that eventually made quite a name for themselves, they must have been a monkey-faced basketball players or piece-of-junk rappers.

Where was Michael Jackson standing during that time? He was out in the open, singing in polite language instead of cursing in rhymes, moonwalking instead of porn-dancing, making donations instead of robbing money. Yet nowadays people think of him as a criminal for changing the way he looked? Sure we can find people around us who have straightened their former-curly hair, why don’t they get judged for denying their natural hairstyle? What’s the difference between skin and hair other than literal positioning and function?

Before you get it the wrong way, let me make it clear to you. I’m not his fan, not even close. I don’t memorise his songs by heart, in fact there are just two or three songs I can come up with, and the furthest I can go is the refrain, as if it counts, anyway.

But as much as I admire the existence of Mother Theresa, Lady Di and Bono U2, I don’t mind having ten Michael Jacksons, or maybe hundreds if it actually can make differences in people’s lives. They’ve done a major contribution in this world. Michael Jackson was no saint, that is very much true, but he was neither a villain. At least not to billions of people, and as I have said in the aforementioned, ‘billions’ is a big number.

The first Letter I forgot to post

Dear Mr. President,

Greetings to you and your family, and Happy belated Independence Day. How are you? I hope you are all fine there. I am fine, too, but my mother is not doing very well. Please pray for her.

I am writing this letter because I have something to tell you. I am happy we all have a president again. I mean, it’s not like we didn’t have one for quite a while, what I’m trying to say, I’m congratulating you. I just wish I could make it sound nicer. So, welcome back.

Mr. President, I once wanted to be in your position. When I was a little girl, people often asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. When girls my age wanted to be flight attendants, becoming a president was what I had in mind. People mostly shrugged it off. They didn’t take us kids seriously. They still don’t.

I can’t blame them, though. Sometimes children have second thoughts, too. Years after that, being asked the very same question, I answered, “I’ll go back and forth. Either a primary school teacher or the press secretary for the presidential palace.”

People raised their eyebrows (which was a good improvement from shrugging their shoulders). They really did. What is the similarity between an underpaid school teacher and high-ranked presidential staff? Nothing. That is the whole point.

I want to be a school teacher because every president was a primary school student once. I think that is the right place to shape one’s mind, while they are still pure and innocent. I want to be the kind of teacher who can tell her grand-grandchildren, if I have the good fortune to live that long, “I taught the incumbent president how to spell A-B-C.” And I want to be able to say that with pride because the incumbent president is a righteous one, the person we can always look up to.

But what if, the president wasn’t the one we could be proud of? I wouldn’t have the nerve to be a teacher. I wouldn’t have the bravery to look at my students in the eyes and tell them how great this nation was when in fact, it wasn’t?

And if I couldn’t have that job, well, there would be just one option left. I would be going after the position of the press secretary of the presidential palace. Why? Because even if I had the naivete in me, I also had this scepticism. Trust me, the scepticism wasn’t there for nothing.

It’s like this. You are hitting on someone, and he disappoints you in some way. But you just love him too much you ignore the pain he gives you. And in the name of love, you can’t leave him alone. You just can’t. But deep down in your heart you know you have to do something about it.

The question is, “How?”

By telling yourself he has the good reason to break your heart, perhaps even more than one good reason. Maybe it is for your own goodness. And you start thinking, “I can understand that, but other people won’t, unless I make them.”

Now let’s talk about this country. I love this country too much I won’t leave it for anything. But please don’t give me a reason to take the latter option. I don’t want to be the one who has to make excuses to herself and to everyone else just to… Please don’t make me finish my sentence.

I still want to become a primary school teacher. When I get there, you will not be our president anymore. That is exactly why I am writing this. I want you to show me why I can speak of you as a good former president, no, a great former president to my students. I want to speak of legacy. How I love the word ‘legacy’.

I still have so much to say, but it’s late at night already. Next time I’ll write you more. In the meantime, I wish you to have a truckload of fun, Mr. President. You need it. We all do.

P.s.

Please remind us again why we once wanted to become a president.

Regards,

Esther

Wrong-addressed Letter

Dear Mr. President,

Greetings to you and your family. It’s good to write to you again. This is my second letter, did you get the first one?

I want to say how I admire you for setting good examples. I’m painfully aware that us kids find it so hard to listen to the elderly, so you’re being smart by showing us how to put the theory into practice. I can never be any prouder than this.

You see, I’m seeing you not only as a president, but also a father, a father to all Indonesian people. I’ve learnt so much from you recently, in a way only a child can learn from her father. Now given the standing situation, I need to learn about something else, about generosity. I remember I had so many toys back at home when I was just a little girl. I was a spoiled child, the kind of kid who got what she wanted instead of what she needed. I wasn’t aware of the less fortunate children around me. It’s not something I am proud of, but that was me in the past.

I recall a moment where one boy came by to my house, and I was still at school. His parent (I can’t remember, was it his mother or father?) was my mother’s patient. While he was waiting outside of my mother’s White Room (the room was literally dominated by white colour), he saw my car toy somewhat abandoned in one corner of the house. I think he couldn’t resist the temptation of playing with it, or else he might have died out of boredom. He took it and played with it.

When I got back from school, he and his parent were ready to leave the house. The car toy was still in his hand and his expression surely told my mother he wanted to keep it. My mother understood his shyness she said, “You can have it.” That was the moment I felt like speaking. “No, you can’t. It’s mine.” You have to understand I was still a little girl then, I know it’s not a good excuse to my selfish behaviour, but please don’t be so hard on me.

My mother shook her head. “Esther…” Let me tell you that when my mother calls me with my real name, it means I’m in trouble. I stubbornly said, “No, he can’t have it.” My mother tried to remind me that I didn’t even like that toy, that I still had other toys to play with. But persistence was always my feature. To cut the story short, I kept the toy, the boy went home bitterly. A couple of days later, I lost the toy.

Now we have a neighbour asking for one of our belongings. And this neighbour is probably too shy to verbalise the feeling. Only this time, it’s not about a car toy. Should we give it? Should we keep it? Personally, I still have this selfishness in me I want to keep it badly. But now that I’m older, I’m not supposed to be childish.

I need second opinion, though, that’s for sure. I don’t go to my mother because, let’s face it, she didn’t do a very good job persuading me to let the car toy go. I don’t go to my father because I can’t. You need to know that my father passed away when I was 6 years old. I think I should go to you. Why? Because you were elected by many (I have lost count) people. Not just once, but twice. I don’t know you personally but millions of people must think you are wise enough they put their faith in you.

So, Mr. President, what should we do? I’m not really good at reading signs I may as well interpret your silence as ‘yes’. If you say so, I can understand that. Maybe you want us to be more mature. Wise men say, “If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it’s yours.” Besides, it’s just one of so many other cultural products we have. We are supposed to love the poor and the needy, aren’t we? Even though I resent our neighbour’s parents for not telling their children it’s not good to take something which isn’t theirs.

That’s all for now, Mr. President. I have to admit I’m not really good at putting my feelings into words some people will see my letter as an innuendo.

Lots of love,

Esther

It's so easy to see...

If GH can stand for P as in Hiccough
If OUGH can stand for O as in Dough
If PHTH can stand for T as in Phthisis
If EIGH can stand for A as in Neighbour
If TTE can stand for T as in Gazette
If EAU can stand for O as in Plateau
Then the right way to spell POTATO should be:
"GHOUGHPHTHEIGHTTEEAU"

And you ask why I love Bahasa Indonesia??

When it comes to goodbye...

... I'm a sucker. After tons of practice, it's still hard for me to fake a smile while saying 'goodbye'. My lips may be able to draw a curve line but no matter how strong my defence is, my tears always find their way out.

My friend Meera will hate me for this but I hope one day she will eventually understand why I'm so not coming to the farewell party this weekend. She will be scoffing her usual 'I-knew-it', I can't blame her.

She is right about so many things, though. For one, somehow I'm getting worse at 'goodbye'. She also thinks I'm good at 'hello', and much better at escaping (one time she wrote 'Houdini' after my first name as the extention to the letter 'H' which was supposed to be 'Hasugian'), her unique judgement of me will be another post.

I'll never be able to say, "I didn't get the chance to say a proper goodbye," because we all know I am avoiding it right now. What is the point of lying when everybody knows the truth already?

I sure will miss you guys. Write me letters, uh, revise: type me emails ( and of course, send them to me), let me know you are still alive and well.

So, if you are reading this and actually leaving, so long. Full stop.

Non-Indonesian speaking Indonesians Need a Name

Have I told you that I want to be an Indonesian teacher? A hundred times? Oh, you have lost count already. I still have that desire in me, but first I have a confession to make. For a moment, I thought maybe it was not really a good idea. Yeah, something must have gotten into me.

And this something got into me when I was reading Tessa Wijaya’s stuff on The Jakarta Post. Suddenly I felt so shallow. I never tried to see things from their (English speaking Indonesians’) perspectives. I also felt guilty for, you know, forcing my friends to speak Indonesian when they didn’t feel like it. And I spent the rest of the day thinking it over.

How many times have I left my friends literally disconnected from the conversation? Oh, I have lost count already. What made me feel worst was that we often went dining out only to find the absence of connection between them and us across the table.

Before you blame me even more, hear (read, for this matter) me out. My defending argument would be, “I just want them to feel at home. I want them to feel accepted instead of treated as foreigners in their own homeland. I want to help them adapt with how we do things here in Indonesia.” My naiveté can surprise even me sometimes.

Anyway, if Tessa Wijaya is a product of globalisation, I am a product of localisation (be careful there, ‘localisation’ in Indonesian has entirely different meaning, negative one). I come from a very small town in North Sumatera where some people there don’t even speak very good Indonesian as they are deeply affected by local languages (I bet you have heard how rich this country is with cultural heritage). I pride myself for being able to communicate in Indonesian and Bataknese both in oral and written, in fact I am very good at it.

When I was only a first grader (somehow I skipped kindergarten), I spoke very fine Indonesian because my family subscribed to Majalah Bobo and Donal Bebek for us kids, (but sometimes I also sneaked Gatra and Tempo into our room). I also learned English because my father wanted me to, but I stopped liking it the day his body got buried, the fun died with him. Anyway, my point is, my peers didn’t speak as well as I did then. Even when we all spoke Indonesian, I didn’t think we spoke the same language. I understood what they were talking about, but unfortunately the feeling was not mutual.

Now that I am studying journalism, I feel disheartened by how kids these days speak Indonesian. My first heartbreak wasn’t caused by English speaking people, don’t worry, yet somehow the pain was still there the second time around.

Sometimes I can be so conventional. My apathy, for some people, is considered intolerable. I once turned down an email just because the sender had made too many shortcuts even when the words were only four-lettered words (that kind of things always ticks me off), with ‘I can’t understand your email, please send it again in a proper language’.

I make some shortcuts too, when I write SMS’s. I can relate to that because for people who own out-of-date cellphone like me, the SMS characters are limited. What I can not relate to is when some people start playing with capitalised letters and replacing letters with numbers just to make it look cool when for the receiver, it’s actually not cool at all.

My feeling is well-described by Professor Hampton Roth on Definitely, Maybe, “The most endangered species in our nation isn’t a big woodpecker or some freshwater fish. It’s the tongue in our heads. Listen to the bastard truncated language of today, the average vocabulary is a third of what it was 100 years ago. Words fall out of our mouths and die at our feet.

“The landscape of vocabulary is being hacked down and grubbed up by the dribble of pop culture, poisoned by lazy obscenity, infantilised by a youth-obsessed media…”

Now as the time goes by, before we even have the solution for this problem, along comes another greater problem. I see English as a big threat for my Indonesian. I am not using hyperbole here (I usually do, but this time it’s a real thing), because I have encountered so many Indonesians for whom English is their first language. And the fact that they choose another language as their second is another major contribution to my 'irrational' phobia.

I may over-react to the phenomenon happening these days, but I have a reason for that attitude. I believe that Indonesian language is our identity. When people don’t speak Indonesian, they barely feel Indonesian. We can not expect people to act like an Indonesian when they don’t feel like it.

I am painfully aware that culture is not the topic of the day (and it seems to me to be a very long day), so let’s try politics. Some not-so-Indonesian Indonesians think their staying here in Indonesia is only temporary, what do you think they will be doing on July 8? Some of them may still have the spirit in them however few, but somehow I think many of them will be more than just glad doing something else. Now ask any of our presidential candidates how much one single vote means.

And I just found out that the (not so) newly crowned Miss Indonesia, Karenina Sunny Halim had needed a translator to understand the question that had been being asked in Indonesian. Isn't she supposed to be representing Indonesia on the world stage? I understand she will be answering questions in English but, hold your breath, there is actually more to it.

Quoting Indonesiatogo.com, "Apparently, after 23 years of growing up in Indonesia, she never bothered to actually learn to speak the language until now that she is representing the country which language she still has to learn.

"Her brother defended her by saying that Karenina never had the chance to speak Indonesian as she was more of a homebody who never hung out with Indonesians to be exposed to the language. Makes me wonder how much of the culture of Indonesia does Karenina actually understand then? I find it stunning that the person crowned as Miss Indonesia knows little about the Indonesian culture and doesn’t even speak the language."

Can we at least be represented by someone who feels culturally bonded to this country since we can't hope for one emotionally bonded?

So to every Tessa Wijaya out there (by ‘Tessa Wijaya’ I mean my English-speaking Indonesian friends I don’t have enough bravery to call them by the names), please forgive me. What I am offering here is my life story, hoping it will help you understand why I become such Indonesian freak. Feel free to speak English afterwards, but promise me you will let me enjoy the satisfaction of hearing familiar words such as ‘apa kabar’, ‘enak banget’ et cetera et cetera.

You are going to believe that I am actually 50 years older than I claim to be. Why? Because all the above is not actually ‘all’. And the other things I am about to give you are going to be considered selfish. When you are old enough, people let you do selfish things. It is still a long journey for me to being allowed doing selfish things, but one can dream, right? Even when ‘nightmare’ seems to be the suitable word.

Let me offer you my ridiculous idea of how the amount of Indonesian speaking people affect my (I don’t know anything about yours) future. Indonesian speaking people are the ones who love Indonesian culinary. Think about the trouble it is bringing for people like me who can’t live without a plate of white rice thrice a day. The justification to that selfishness would be, “the suffering the Indonesian farmers will have to go through”, because the lesser people eat rice, the lesser will buy it, the lesser the farmers will plant it. Not a very comforting thought, is it? One person can affect so many people before they know it.

After all, what do I know? It is just my opinion.

P.s.

Did you notice that I used 'for a moment' in the beginning? Yeah, my naiveté is back already, thanks to Akeelah and the Bee. If English can be fun, so can Indonesian, right?

P.s. (again)

To know and understand me better, I think you should read this also.