Note: This is part of a series about my experience in living in Yogyakarta and Central Java. Yes, it took me a while to write about it because when I came back, I took the liberty of letting this experience settle first so I can reflect on it myself. Then I shared this with the people who are closest to me: my family, friends, and boyfriend. I can’t promise or say how many parts/episodes will be of this series. But I’m sure it will be more than just this one.
Disclaimer: No part of this series is written with the intention to offend anyone (let alone those with whom I share a little bit of the same blood). I write this based on my OWN experience and observations as a Jakartan, a Javanese, a world citizen, and more importantly as a person.
So, here we go!
Preface
I resigned from my last job for various reasons. First and foremost, in the second quarter of my second year of employment with that project, I started to feel like it was not going anywhere. I often found myself doing things that were not supposed to be done at work. But when I looked around me, they were all doing the same thing. Chatting, browsing, listening to music from my headphones were some of the things that I did, while still managing to look ‘hard at work’. Soon enough this became the norm. My workload was becoming less and less. I started to get stressed out by lack of work. However, at the same time, I was not ready to send out job applications. Don’t think I didn’t try. I did. But I felt it was not the right time, just yet. The environment at work started to become un-conducive – one way or another.
Secondly – which was also partly caused by the first one, I started to get restless, and all I could think was traveling, or living out of Jakarta for a period of time. I was sick of the traffic, I was sick of my workmates, I was sick of the lack of work, and I was sick of the condition where it required me to sit in traffic for a minimum of 2 hours and to spend 50K on transport everyday, just to get to work that was no longer rewarding. Then I could not stop thinking about Yogyakarta. About Central Java. Those two places have a special place in my heart. I wrote a bit about this in my previous post.
The Conspiracy of the Universe
So I decided that it was time to go. I told my boss I resigned – very honestly. And to Central Java I went. I stayed there for almost two months between August and October. And I came there not without a mission. I planned to immerse myself in as much culture as possible. When I said that to myself, I was thinking of Javanese culture in the form of arts like dancing, batik course, visits to museums, etc. And the Universe always has its own way to conspire to make your hopes real. But it also has its own ways to make it REAL, some other way (i.e., not the way it’s really planned).
I didn’t end up doing a dancing course like I initially wanted to. I did take a one hour batik course and I made an oversized batik handkerchief, which I now put in my bedroom. I didn’t end up living in Yogyakarta close to the action (Keraton, Museums, Chic Café & Resto). I lived instead, in my aunt’s home in Magelang, about 45mins driving from Yogya. I also did a volunteer work with a local NGO. In short, I didn’t do much related to Javanese cultural art, but I learned something about the art of living in Central Java.
Through my interaction with people, I learned how it’s like to live there. I learned how it’s like to be a Javanese but people knew that you were not born in Central Java. I learned how it’s like to be a Javanese, but still seen as a ‘foreigner’ by people you met on the street. I learned how to live as an outsider in my parents’ hometowns.
Javanese People in Yogyakarta and Magelang
‘People’ is what makes up a nation, a region, a culture. To make me sound academic and intelligent, I can say that living in Magelang/Yogya was an ‘Anthropological Experience’ for me. I interacted with different people on the street, in the market, in the neighborhood, on the bus, and in a work setting. So, even though what I will conclude might not be representative of all Javanese people (in Magelang/Yogya), it was pretty accurate for my own assessment.
Based on my observations and interactions, Javanese people in Magelang/Yogya are not straight forward. With this I meant not only in how they speak up their minds, but also in the way they think. Most of the time, they ‘go around in circles’ before coming to the one point that really matters. And this is manifested in so many aspects of their lives. In their writings, in their public transportation system (more on this later), and in the way they behave.
There’s a saying in Javanese ‘alon-alon waton kelakon’, which roughly means ‘it’s ok to be slow as long as you get it done’. And true that. Life went on a very slow pace in Magelang. Yogya has more multicultural vibe/exposure but it’s not that much faster than Magelang. As someone who was born and bred in Jakarta, this slow-pace living can somewhat be stressful too.
Another thing that caused a bit of confusion for me was the way they use cardinal direction to navigate their way. As a Jakartan, I was used to only ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘straight’. I can’t even tell where North, East, West Jakarta are. My knowledge of Jakarta is somehow stuck in between South and Central Jakarta. So when I came to Yogya and people start saying “Go east until you see the first traffic light, and then go south,…” I could only stand with a blank face trying to make a mental picture of a compass in my head, but really couldn’t tell which one’s east, west, north, and south. At first I would tell my friend “Don’t speak to me of north, south, east, west. I wouldn’t understand anyway!”.
Luckily, I was not that stubborn so I slowly learned that (when in Yogya) north is where Magelang is, south is the Parangtritis Beach, west is Wates, and east is Solo. And from there I could roughly tell where places are relative to the places I mentioned before. (I swear, when I came back to Jakarta, my friends laughed at me when I slipped and told them where a place in Yogya is by saying: “Oh, it’s in the South, in a village, near Jalan Parangtritis”.)
I’m not saying that this is bad. I’m not saying that this is wrong. It is just how they are like and it works well for them. I’m the one who did not fit in, and so I came with a conclusion that I can’t live there – at least not until I’m retired. This conclusion was also confirmed through a deep and long conversation with one of my cousins who was born and bred in Central Java and various other places in Java, and lived there as an adult, before migrating to Jakarta in her mid 20’s.
But overall, I still find them trustworthy and friendly (too friendly, in fact) especially if you talk to them in Javanese. Even people in the tourism industry are still more trustworthy than those in Bali, let alone Lombok!!
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As I said earlier, the way Javanese people in Yogya/Magelang think is manifested in so many aspects of their lives. On the next post I will talk about how it affects their public transportation system (and the human resources running it – again, the people!). So, watch this space. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this figure:
