{"id":5876,"date":"2017-05-16T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-16T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-09-12T15:44:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-12T19:44:44","slug":"so-your-character-is-from-indonesia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victoriagracehowell.com\/staging\/6258\/so-your-character-is-from-indonesia\/","title":{"rendered":"So Your Character is From Indonesia … Featuring Cilla @ Paved with Books & Tasya @ The Literary Huntress"},"content":{"rendered":"


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It’s
\n time for this week’s So Your Character is … Post! This is a weekly
\nsegment where I interview lovely volunteers from around the world to
\ngive you a firsthand account of being a citizen of their respective
\ncountry or having a disability. I’m hoping to encourage international
\ndiversity, break stereotypes, and give writers a crash course on how to
\nwrite a character from these different places on our planet. If you
\nhaven’t checked out last week’s  So Your Character is from India …<\/a> be
\nsure to hop on over there and give it a read!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

I honestly didn’t know very much about Indonesia before reading these interviews. I know some missionaries who live in India and I’ve heard them pray in the latest language. I also knew that Indonesia is primarily a Muslim country, but that was the extent of my knowledge until now. <\/span><\/span>
\n
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\nLet’s welcome Cilla and Tasya!<\/span><\/span>
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\nDisclaimer:
\n The content below may be culturally shocking to some. Each of these
\nposts are as uncensored as possible to preserve the authenticity of the
\ncultures of each of the interviewees.<\/span><\/span>
\n
<\/span><\/span>
\n(None of the Images are Mine)<\/span><\/span>
\n<\/span>
\nHello there! My name is Cilla, and I grew up in a city in East Java, Indonesia. I\u2019m being specific about it, because I think if you\u2019d like to write about an Indonesian character, being specific is a good idea. Indonesia is huge and hugely diverse. It is made up of about 13 thousands islands, home to 215 million people from 200 different ethnic backgrounds. It acknowledges five different religions: Islam, Christian, Catholic, Hinduism, and Buddhism. While Bahasa Indonesia is spoken nationally as the official language, in practice it is often peppered with the local language. So, I – the Catholic city girl of Chinese descent – may have quite a different experience from someone living in another city or small town, on a different island, raised with a different ethnic and religious background. <\/span><\/span><\/span>Blog<\/a>\/\/<\/span><\/span><\/span>Twitter<\/a>\/\/<\/span><\/span><\/span>Instagram<\/a>\/\/<\/span><\/span><\/span>Bloglovin<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\nHi! My name is
\nTasya, and I\u2019m currently a biotechnology student. I am Indonesian, and I\u2019ve
\nlived here my whole life. My hobbies are reading, writing, swimming<\/span>,<\/span> and eating. When I\u2019m not at uni, I bet you can find me
\nin the nearby restaurant <\/span>?<\/span> I\u2019m a proud Indonesian and I have written about my
\ncountries several times on my blog.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nBlog<\/span><\/a><\/span>
\n\/\/ <\/span><\/span>Twitter<\/span><\/a><\/span>
\n\/\/ <\/span><\/span>Goodreads<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n


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\nWhat do you feel is
\nunique to your country? Landmarks? Celebrations?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nCilla:<\/b> There are so many, I
\ncan\u2019t possibly list it all out. The first one that pops to mind is <\/span>Borobudur Temple<\/span><\/a>. It was once considered one of the seven
\nwonders of the world, for good reasons. The temple was apparently built without
\nany kind of glue, and it\u2019s held on for centuries! <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nThere\u2019s also <\/span>Wae Rebo<\/span><\/a>, which is a tiny, rather isolated village that holds traditional
\nhouses of the Mbaru Niang people. The houses are conical rather than square,
\nwhich I believe is unique to this part of the world. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nAs for celebrations,
\nNgaben is a cremation ceremony that is unique to Balinese culture. I actually
\nhave never seen it myself, but I\u2019ve heard it\u2019s quite fascinating to watch!<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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Borobudur<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Borobudur<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\n Tasya:<\/b> Indonesia is comprised of many islands (17.000-18.000 the last time I checked), so it\u2019s a perfect country if you\u2019re looking for summer getaway. I bet you\u2019ve heard of Bali, Lombok, or Raja Ampat? Yep, they are all in Indonesia! Other than islands, we also have pretty impressive landmark here. Indonesia is very rich in culture, each islands have their own culture, so you can visit some of them like the temples in Bali and of course, the famous Borobudur in East Java. We\u2019re also historically rich, being under colonialism for so long, so we have a lot of national monuments like monas, which is the trademark of Jakarta and Old Town in Jakarta, which is a place used as town hall in Dutch era, but now is a museum and it maintains its Dutch colonial building style.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Monas<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Old Town<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nTell me about your
\ncountry’s environment. What are some of your favorite places?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nCilla: <\/b>Temperature-wise, it is
\nwarm, <\/b>hot, or really hot. It\u2019s dry and humid for half of the year, and
\nthen torrential downpour is a regular occurrence for the other half of the
\nyear. There are parts of Indonesia where the temperature is regularly in the 20
\ndegrees Celsius, but these are mostly in the mountainous areas. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nI live in a big city
\nwith a lot of shopping malls and insane traffic, which is common in the big
\ncities, but that\u2019s not what all of Indonesia looks like. There are little
\nvillages in green, lush environments like Wae Rebo above. There are beautiful
\nbeaches, like the ones in Bali and Lombok. There are gorgeous mountains, like
\nMount Bromo. My favourite place is my hometown, for obvious reasons, but I also
\nlove shopping at the strips of factory outlet in Bandung and visiting the
\nisland of Flores (at least the parts of it that is on the cooler side!)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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Mount Bromo<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n
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Jakarta Shopping Mall<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\nTasya: <\/b>Indonesia has only 2 seasons, summer and rain season, and it\u2019s ALWAYS hot. Even when the rainy season. So the first thing people notice when they set foot in Indonesia is the heat ? Usually, it\u2019s summer from March-August and rainy for the rest of the year, but lately the climate has been erratic. I live in Jakarta and the traffic there is horrendous. But my favorite place is definitely the Thousand Islands (nope, this is not a sauce), which is an isles located 1 hour away from Jakarta by boat. It\u2019s comprised of many small islands, with clean water that is perfect for snorkeling. Some of my favorites is Pramuka, Pari, and Tidung.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Pramuka<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Tidung<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Tell me about your
\ncountry’s food. What are some of your favorite dishes?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span>
\n<\/p>\n

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\nCilla:<\/b> Indonesian food, in
\ngeneral, are full of spices and packed with flavours. One of my favourites is nasi
\npecel<\/i>. This is a rice dish served with warm vegetables and peanut sauce.
\nThe vegetables can be anything really, and you can add fried tempeh <\/i>(a
\ntraditional soy product) or even chicken; the peanut sauce dressing is the
\nabsolutely crucial ingredient. Add a cracker on the side, and it\u2019s even better.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\nI also love <\/b>oxtail
\nsoup<\/i>, which is so delicious when they get it right, and martabak<\/i>. Martabak
\n<\/i>is originally an Indian cuisine, I believe, but I\u2019m not sure if they have
\nthe sweet kind too. The sweet version is basically a much bigger version of the
\nEnglish crumpet. The best kind has an unhealthy amount of chocolate sprinkles
\n(what the Dutch called hagelslag, <\/i>so there\u2019s that influence), cheese,
\ncondensed milk, and butter on top. It\u2019s my ultimate comfort food.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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Nasi Pacel<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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\n Tasya:<\/b> In Indonesia, our main food is rice. We eat rice everytime, and there\u2019s the saying that said \u201cIndonesian won\u2019t feel full if they haven\u2019t feel rice\u201d. Personally, I agree xD We use a lot of spices on our food and most of our cuisines are spicy. You might have heard of the famous rendang and satay, both of dishes use lots of spices. Satay itself has different variations, depending on its origin. While they are the most famous, that doesn\u2019t mean they are my favorites. Some of my favorites Indonesian food are soto, nasi liwet, and nasi goreng.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n\n
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Nasi Goreng<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Satay<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Soto<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Tell me about any
\ndifferent speech patterns in your country. Slang? Idioms? Words for things such
\nas \u201cbiscuits\u201d instead of \u201ccookies\u201d?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\nCilla: <\/b>Bahasa Indonesia is the
\nofficial national language. It\u2019s influenced by Dutch, as we have a long history
\nof colonialism with the Netherlands, but it is common for English words to pop
\nup in the language too. It\u2019s often spoken with the influence of the local
\nlanguage of the area. For instance, I speak Indonesian with a heavy Javanese
\ndialect on a daily basis, but I\u2019ll be speaking it quite formally when I\u2019m
\nholding a conversation someone from a different island, or even a different
\npart of Java. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\n(As a side note, it irks
\nme to no end when people say we speak Bahasa. Bahasa in Indonesian literally
\nmeans \u2018language\u2019. Of course we speak a language.)<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n Tasya: <\/b>Like I said, Indonesia is culturally rich. Each island or area have their own cultures, which have different traditional language. So even though they are from the same island, the language may be different. Like the Island of Java is differentiated into 6 provinces; West Java and Banten use Sundanese as its traditional language, Jakarta use Betawinese and while Central, Yogyakarta and East all use Javanese, their dialect are different.<\/p>\n

Our national language is Indonesian, and it\u2019s a bit similar with Malaysian. The reason is because we came from the same roots. The thing about Indonesian language is, there are a lot of words and particles that can have different meaning depending on the tone of the speaker. We also don\u2019t use tenses (past, present, future) and our words are all gender-neutral.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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\n<\/span><\/span><\/span>Describe briefly a
\nregular day in your country.<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\nCilla:<\/b> A regular day in
\nIndonesia would vary widely depending <\/b>on what you do and which part of
\nthe country you come from, I think. I used to work from 12pm to 9pm, while
\nother people do the usual 9-5 office jobs. If you live in a busy city with poor
\npublic transport, better get up super early and be prepared for a crawling
\ntraffic! Public transport tends to have poor reputation in terms of safety and
\nreliability, so it is common to either drive or ride a motorbike (which is why
\ntraffic is often very ridiculous). Then when you finish for the day, you go
\nhome and do your thing, or you go somewhere else to do your thing. It\u2019s really
\nnot that different from life anywhere else, I imagine.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nTasya: <\/b>Welp. Our days starts really early, because if you\u2019re late only by half an hour, the traffic is horrendous *shudders*. School and work hours usually start at the same time, at 7 am which is why the traffic is so bad. Some school decided to take the initiatives, and make the school starts earlier at 6.30 to avoid the traffic ? School will usually be done at 3 or 4 pm, and most students will take extra courses outside of school to help with school work. The office hours usually end at 5 pm. When the students reach home, they still need to study for tomorrow\u2019s test and homework, before they are sleeping.  We don\u2019t really do clubs or drinking, even on the weekends, when we have weekend out, we usually just go to cafes or watch movies. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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\n <\/span><\/span><\/span>How does your country
\ncompare to others, especially the States since my audience is primarily
\nAmerican? Environmentally? Politically? Culturally?<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\nCilla:<\/b> I find this question
\nreally hard to answer, because I don\u2019t feel I know enough of USA to make
\ncomparisons without veering into stereotypes. I guess for a start, Indonesia is
\na tropical country rather than a four-seasoned one. We are younger than USA as
\na country, and only started moving into democracy in my lifetime, so we are
\nstill dealing with growing pain. For instance, we\u2019re still working on uprooting
\na culture of corruption in the system. As for the cultural comparison, I think
\nwe\u2019re often not as blunt as Americans tend to be. There will be individual
\ndifferences, but where I\u2019m from people feel it\u2019s considered polite to beat
\naround the bush a little rather than engage in direct confrontations.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nTasya:<\/b> Culturally, ours is more conservative. The norms and rules are very strict here. We can\u2019t drink and smoke, especially teenagers, because some school do random urine test (like mine was). Drugs are illegal. Some parents even not allowing their children to be in a relationship, and free sex is something that truly frowned at in our society. But we put our family highly, prioritizing them over anything. It\u2019s not rare to see 3 generations living in the same house, or meeting your very distant relatives that your parents still know well at parties. We also really respect adults, always use titles like \u201csir, mam, uncle, auntie\u201d and so on, even with someone with only a year difference for us. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
Politically, I think the current political situation is like the calm before storm. Our current president is pretty good at handling political affairs, he\u2019s also humble and close to his people. But the current governmental election really brings out the worst in everyone, whether they are supporters, oposition, or just sideliners in general. <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Joko Widodo Jokowi President of Indonesia<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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\nBriefly describe three
\nof your country\u2019s historical events that you feel are important.<\/p>\n

Cilla:<\/span><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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