« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »

June 13, 2006

i'm back in KL until friday when i leave for Indonesia, staying with my friend As and her family again. and unlike the first time i stayed with her, when i felt grateful but also slightly overwhelmed and terrified, now i just feel grateful and happy that i get to see her and her family before i leave. not that i don't feel overwhelmed, which i probably haven't stopped feeling since i've been here. coming for only 7 weeks, and splitting that 7 weeks between two different cities makes this a little like summer camp, all your time is spent either making new friends or saying goodbye. only summer camp in another country in another language and with no counselors to show you how to get around
anyway, i got to bring buah pala (pickled nutmeg, which Penang is famous for) and t-shirts with cheesy pictures of seashells or the Penang Bridge to my friends in the restaurant today, and last night i finally got to sing karaoke, which here is not usually in a bar with a DJ like the US but in individual rooms that you rent out with a TV and a microphone. the track list included a song in English by the winner of last seasons Academi Fantasia (like American Idol, but hosted by the Malaysian equivalent of David Letterman), a song by P. Ramlee who is sort of like Frank Sinatra crossed with Woody Guthrie and probably the most famous singer here (for instance there is a road named after him in Penang), Malaysian 80's pop, a Japanese pop song and Cat Stevens

Posted by diparker at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)

June 06, 2006

Jogja

also, and much more seriously, i'm sure everyone has heard about the earthquake in Jogja. two of my professors at U of M live or have families that live around that area. they both are fine, but they have been to Jogja since the earthquake to help, so they have seen first hand the kind of loss people have suffered there. i don't have any direct contact with any organizations there, but another U of M student, Jenny Epley, who is currently doing research in Jakarta, posted the info about this organization on her blog:

The Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University in collaboration with KYPA (Yogyakarta Committee for Aceh Recovery) is building five public kitchens in three villages in Bantul (Dusun Bulu, Desa Trimulyo Kecamatan Jetis, Dusun Sompok, Dusun Ngrancah, and Desa Sriharjo Kecamatan Imogiri) to provide food for around 2,100 people. KYPA in particular has relief effort experience from its post-tsunami programs in Aceh.

Donations may be sent to the following account:

Name: KYPA QQ BANTUL
Bank Name: Bank Mandiri, 13705 KK Yogyakarta, Gedung Magister
Account Number: 137.005.6666668
Swift Code: beiiidja

Contact Person:
Maria Ingrid
Graduate School, Gadjah Mada University
Yogyakarta 55281
Indonesia
PHONE: +62 274-520318
FAX: +62 274-564239
MOBILE: +62-81328058352
EMAIL: ingridita@gmail.com

(her blog, http://lautjenny.blogsome.com/, also has news articles about the earthquake from both American and Indonesian English language newspapers, if you want to get a better idea about what things are like there, and if you want more current information i'm sure you can also find it on the website for the Jakarta Post)

i might also be able to give information about how to give money to my professor who could get it directly to the earthquake victims, or possibly have a better idea of what organizations working on the ground could use our help, so send me an email if you want me to try and get that information for you

Posted by diparker at 08:07 AM | Comments (1)

an incomplete report of my dept so far

i got a present the other day, 10 Kyat from someone i know who works at a Chinese restaurant i go to sometimes down the road from my kampung. he wanted to give it to me since it has a picture of General Aung San, the leader of the Burmese resistance movement against the British, whose daughter is now under house arrest in Myanmar and is the leader of the resistance movement against the current regime. of course, despite have numerous lectures on Myanmar's political history just last semester, still couldn't remember Aung San's name until i looked it up on the internet later (here's a wikipedia article about him by the way, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San)

i just gave him a lame postcard (i'd already run out of one dollar bills, and anyway George Washington is not quite as close to my heart as i'm sure Aung San is to my friend from Myanmar.) it had a picture of some trees in michigan, snow covered, but, as far as i know, without any significant political history

anyway, its one of my favorite gifts so far, which, although i've only been here for a few weeks is saying quite a lot, since it seems like everyone i meet wants to give me a present. for example, last wednesday i got to go with one of the families from the kampung i've been staying at to their cousin's engagement. engagement's here are nothing like in the US, the whole family and extended family is involved. when i was picked up by my friends from the kampung in the morning a cake was immediately placed on my lap, as every adult in the car with the exception of the driver had to be responsible for at least one cake, which were used later as "hantaran", or gifts given at the engagement from the girl's family to the boy's. the boy's entire family is also involved, arriving in the afternoon, at which time the two fathers discuss when the wedding will be and how much the boy's family is going to give to the girl's family to pay for the wedding. usually the couple has already talked about this and told their parents, but they still make a big deal about the discussion, doing things like renting microphones so that everyone can hear whats going on. after that the hantaran are exchanged (both families bring gifts, although the girl's family always has to give at least two more) and the boy's mother (he has been sitting alone at his house this whole time) goes into the girl's room and puts the engagement ring on her finger, while all the relatives take hundreds and hundreds of pictures

the party lasted all day, however i, again, despite having had the opportunity to learn this lesson at nearly every house i've been to here, had not brought extra cloths to change into after showering, which people here do at least 2-3 times a day since it's so hot, whether or not you're at your own house at the proper showering times. instead of just letting me change back into my old cloths, the girl's aunt invited me over to her house nearby where she went through her closet until she found an outfit for me, baju kurung, which isn't cheap and wasn't necessary since the formal part of the party was over and plenty of people were changing into casual outfits. i kept telling her that it was alright and that she didn't need to worry about it, which she kept replying to with "don't worry, its new!" when i finally told her that i just felt bad about borrowing her cloths and making her go through all the trouble she told me that she wanted to give me a gift, making it the 4th baju kurung outfit i've been given so far, and the 8th article of clothing in general. and that time i didn't even have anything as stupid as a postcard to give her

possibly my favorite gift, though, even better than the 10 Kyat, is from, i guess my Nenek angkat (Nenek, in Penang, means great-grandmother, so she is the mother of the person i call Tuk--grandmother, and a title used for older women--and the grandmother of the woman i call Mak Cik--auntie, and a title used for women to old to call "sister" and not old enough to call Tuk. Angkat, when talking about a person or a family, means adopted). last Friday and Saturday i got to go to another kenduri (sort of means party, but more serious and with more ceremony--it's the Malay version of a slametan for people who know a little about Javanese culture. so the engagement "party" was actually an engagement kenduri). this time it was for a perkawinan, or wedding. friday night, when everyone came over to the brides family's house for dinner after the official wedding ceremony at the mosque, and while the bride was busy changing into elaborate outfits from Thailand, Java, India, and a bunch of other countries from all over the world to get her picture taken (one of the wedding traditions here, at least for Malay families in Penang, i'm not sure about other ethnicities or other states), her Tuk, my Nenek angkat, offered to put inai (henna) on my fingers. the adat (tradition) is for only married woman and the bride to wear inai, but people don't really follow that much anymore, so at this wedding most of the girl cousins who were old enough to sit still for the hour or so you have to wait for it to dry were wearing it. the next day the girl watching the desk at the hotel complimented me on my inai and asked me how much it had cost. when i told her that i got it for free from the grandmother of the bride at the wedding i went to last night i guess i felt pretty besar hati about it ("besar hati" literally translated means "big liver" or "big heart", but the saying "besar hati" means something like proud, but a good kind. i think at least, i've also heard people use it to mean generous, so if anyone who knows Malay better than i do wants to correct my use of this phrase feel free)

actually though, this is maybe not quite my favorite gift. my favorite gift came from my friends who work at the restaurant in KL. sometimes, right before the restaurant closed they would make a little food to take home for dinner, and one day when they knew i didn't have anyone to "jalan-jalan" with later they made an extra bungkus (packet, in this case it means food wrapped up in a banana leaf or wax paper and newspaper) of nasi lemak for me, and the woman there who i address as Kakak (sister, what you call women older than you but too young to be called Mak Cik) gave me the first mango that i had in Malaysia

Posted by diparker at 07:48 AM | Comments (0)