Highlights: fly to Yogya, visited Pak Parjiman and his in-laws, saw Nina & caught up with my old host-family, the Rochmadis (=.

Highlights: Turned in trip report, lunch with Maj Nolin, finished 13-page turn-over for next Indonesia FAO, cashed $1,200 check for airline tickets through first ½ of my trip, calculated all the per diem I should have gotten & haven’t yet, quick dinner with new friends

Highlights: worked all day straight on my trip report, and finished by midnight. Conversation with Eli about the Walisongo, didn’t get out of the house in time to cash a check at the embassy, so I’ll have to do that tomorrow, and push my trip to Yogya back a day.

Highlights: worked on Semarang-Cirebon trip report all day, taking a break long enough to run up to the Blok M travel office and check on tickets for my upcoming trip.

Highlights: finished my turn-over file for Doug & future Indonesia FAOs, organized my upcoming trips a bit, kept writing. Talk with Eli again. My friend Henni in Ubud, Bali was hit with a few hundred dollars worth of unexpected costs by her university in order to graduate by this summer, so I’m helping her with that.

Highlights: Cirebon harbor, Keraton Kanoman, train to Jakarta

Highlights: arrived in Cirebon at 3am, worked on computer a little bit, Keraton Kacirebonan & personal tour with princess Echa, Keraton Kesepuhan, Masjid Agung & sitting with a group of men for about 3 hours. Grave site of Sunan Gunungjati, dinner with pak Angel, Rudy and our 2 becak drivers. At that point Rudy was getting a little too comfortable with my charitableness, when he popped up & bought cigarettes for himself, offering packs to the others, and putting it all on my tab. Sate & noodle soup dinner for 5 still came to $15.

Highlights: Nina went home to Yogya, e-mail, hanging out with mom most of the day, until my train for Cirebon left at 8pm.

Highlights: e-mail, Nina driving lessons, hung out talking with Nina’s mbah ibu (grandmother), mom,,, and when dad came home the ladies disappeared, while dad & I chatted until midnight.

Highlights: Nina to join me, Gereja Blenduk, kota lama, Lawang Sewu, Sam Poo Kong, Kampung Laut, Simpang Lima & Lumpia, banjir, bus to Demak, Masjid Agung, bus to Blora, ride to Cepu.

Nina took a bus up to join me today, and we toured around Semarang and Demak together. This will probably be my last opportunity to visit her family in Cepu as well, so it was a worthwhile effort to get out there.

The Blenduk Church is a landmark for the Protestant Christian community there. Built in 1753 by the Dutch, it is still active. The people I spoke with there say 200 people regularly show up for Sunday services and Wednesday meetings. The church is part of the Western branch of Indonesian Protestant Churches, which has its headquarters in Jakarta.
The Church has a list of every preacher dating back to 1753 carved in marble and displayed on a wall. Preachers were all Dutch until 1954, when the first Indonesian was nominated to lead the church. Christianized names such as Augustinus, Willem and Theofilus continue to be used by the Indonesian preachers. The current preacher, Dra Nyonya M. Nanlehy, was appointed in 2004 and is the first woman preacher in the church’s history. She continues to be well received, into her third year of service.

(insert pics of Gereja Blenduk)

(insert pics of Gereja Blenduk)

(insert pics of Gereja Blenduk)

“Kota lama” is the old quarter of Semarang. This signature part of town was once the primary harbor area. Silt buildup has pushed the coastline back several hundred meters. Old Dutch buildings sit in near ruin and utter disrepair along streets that were once grand. Exposed brick, where plaster has been washed away along the bottom 5 feet of most buildings, makes the bulk of these large buildings look nearly condemnable.
Part of the run-away damage is a result of frequent flooding, which locals say has been occurring on a more regular and destructive basis over the last ten years. Locals were quick to point out that illegal logging in the mountains to the south has contributed significantly to the amount of flooding. The timeline of worsening “natural” disasters corresponds to the fall of President Suharto, who used timber sales in part to pump up the national economy on an unsustainable basis. It also shows the inability of the four Presidents who followed him to curb the trend of reckless and illegal logging.
Semarang sits at the foot of the 3428 meter, mountainous slopes of Ungaran. Mountain rain waters rush through Semarang now; the surrounding cachement land is unable to absorb it. To demonstrate the point, there was foot-deep flooding on roads in over half of old town and along the road to Demak while I was there. It rains everyday now during the wet season (Nov-May), but only for a few hours. Semarang does not have the infrastructure to solve this problem soon.

(insert Kota Lama pics + flooding)

(insert Kota Lama pics + flooding)

(insert Kota Lama pics + flooding)

(insert Kota Lama pics + flooding)

(insert Kota Lama pics + flooding)

I visited the now abandoned building known as Lawang Sewu, meaning 1,000 doors. This once grand building was the former Dutch administration center; it was then used as military headquarters by Japanese forces from 1942-45; and then became Indonesia’s military administrative headquarters for the Bojonegoro Division until 1998. After President Suharto fell from power, TNI moved out, and the building has been empty since.
The building is home to thousands of ghosts. Indonesians take superstitions about ghosts seriously, and large numbers of Indonesians claim to have personal experience seeing ghosts in specific places. Many people died here during WWII. Bullet holes still mark several walls. Also, hundreds of workers died in the effort to lift the 5 ton water tank to the top of the water tower. It fell several times, crushing many beneath it. Their ghosts reportedly haunt the building. In dark corridors, I was invited to snap 2 pictures with my camera. The first shot was clear. The second showed specks. These specks were “obviously” ghosts, and my picture was considered proof. I’ll let you decide (=

(insert Lawang Sewu pics)

(insert Lawang Sewu pics)

(insert Lawang Sewu pics)

We visited the Chinese temple Sam Poo Kong next. Sam Poo Kong (known as “Gedung Batu” during the Suharto years), is one of the most significant Chinese temple complexes in Indonesia. It is located where the coast and harbor once was, but after silt buildup and geographic changes, now sits over a kilometer away from the water. New parts of the complex are still under construction, indicating how recently it has been able to expand beyond the base temple. Chinese dragons and characters appear once again as well. (during the Suharto years Chinese were forced to change their names to more Indonesian sounding names, no Chinese characters were allowed, and Chinese celebrations were banned in public.) The openness of today shows how far the Chinese community has come in the last 10 years.
This complex celebrates a Chinese version of history that few Indonesians seem aware of; specifically in contributions to the spreading of Islam in Java. The Lonely Planet version of the story explains that Chinese Admiral Cheng Ho, a Muslim eunuch of the Ming dynasty, led his fleet on 7 expeditions to Java in the early 15th century. He is credited for spreading Islam on Java as early as 1405 as well. This is the part that seems to run afoul of the Javanese version of events, as most Indonesians credit the Walisongo (9 pious leaders) for spreading Islam in Java during the 15th century.
It seems even harder for Javanese to imagine this legendary version of history, considering the perception that the large majority of Chinese in Indonesia today profess to be Catholic or Christian. According to the Chinese, Cheng Ho became a saint, and was renamed Sam Poo Kong. This complex is in his honor, and is located above a sacred cave where he once prayed.
As I walked through Sam Poo Kong temple, I recognized the familiar tone of Pancasila; much like Taman Mini puts across in Jakarta. Three main temples display the six authorized religions living harmoniously together (Islam, Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism). If you didn’t know some 80% of Chinese describe themselves as Christians here, you would think the Chinese community is more evenly divided. Reliefs on the wall behind the temple accentuate the long tradition of cooperation between Chinese and Javanese. This temple seems like a carefully constructed attempt to build an image of Chinese fitting more positively into Indonesian history, and upholding the familiar Pancasila ideology of the state.

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

(insert Sam Poo Kong pics)

Nina & I invited our taxi driver / city guide to eat lunch with us

Highlights: trip to Semarang

Semarang is the capitol city of Central Java. It’s a major port city, and a hub for goods exported from / imported to Java. It’s pretty far off the beaten tourist path however. I only saw a little of the mountainous southern half before it got dark.

It’s impressive how different home construction is here when you look at the banks of the river, with small, simple homes and warung clustered along its banks.

(insert pics of river houses in Semarang)

Roads are congested and typically 2 lanes across. Vehicles constantly swerve around each other, spending almost equal amounts of time in the lane of opposing traffic. When it comes to right of way, might makes right; meaning busses usually make efforts to swerve back into their lane only when facing a larger truck. Scooters and cars must hug the sides of the road to squeeze through on their side of the road. Many large vehicles, like buses and trucks, simply prefer to drive straight down the middle of the road, as if there was a third lane.
Organized chaos (= ha ha. I’m gonna miss this place when I leave.

Highlights: IM conference with mbak Dewi & ladies group, arranged travel

This morning, one of my language teachers from DC (mbak Dewi) organized a little conference call on Yahoo IM. Apparently there’s a ladies group of Indonesian moms that meet on-line every week to talk about stuff. They were interested in hearing from an American who speaks Indonesian, and ask about my experiences & impressions of Indonesia. It was a touch overwhelming having multiple questions fired off,,, while doing my best to give thoughtful answers to each… but overall it was fun. We chatted almost 3 hours. Spanning 13 time zones, it was past midnight for those in DC and the Indonesian community in Philadelphia. Dewi explained that some were itching to ask about Nina, and how it’s been for me, dating an Indonesia girl. They were polite though and danced around the subject gracefully. Ha ha.

I’ve been adjusting & changing around my final travel plans. It’s tough trying to maximize my limited time remaining. Right now, greater Southeast Asia is on the docket: Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, as well as several interesting places within Indonesia I haven’t gotten to yet like Kalimantan, Toraja, Batam…

Nina’s birthday is in 2 weeks. I was hoping to be traveling by then- but I can push my plans back a little, and take advantage of the meantime a bit.
I’ve yet to visit a few places on Java: Semarang & Cirebon, and it won’t take much time or money to get there, so I arranged travel today.

Highlights: Happy Easter! I walked to the nearest church & sat through Easter service. Turns out it’s almost exclusively attended by North Sumatrans from the Lake Toba area. I didn’t expect churches to break down along ethnic lines so distinctly, but I guess there are several ways to explain how that’s a normal phenomenon here. Indonesia officially recognizes six religions: Christian, Catholic, Islam, Hindu, Buddha & Confucious. Christian churches here are somewhat non-denominational. When I asked what branch of Christianity, I got blank stares. Just Christian. Lutheran, Episcopalian, Calvinist, Methodist, Mormon, Baptist, Orthodox, Pentacostal, Anglican, Christian Science, Jehovas Witness, etc… (there are over 1,000 denominations in North America alone); they have no idea what the difference is. Christian is Christian here, which is different from Catholic.
(insert Easter video + pics) [3]

After church, I had lunch in a warung on the side of the road in Cipete Selatan (my district in South Jakarta) as I was walking home. I sat for about an hour, talking to an interested group of kids about America; describing some of the similarities and differences. The group kept growing over time. Ha ha.
(insert video & pics of Warung in Cipete) [3]

After lunch, I met up with some Betawi friends from the other day, and invited them to play pool for a few hours at Citos.

When I got home, Vita came over & asked if I would help her with her English homework. (= happy to help.

(insert Easter video + pics)

Highlights: worked on blog all day, then ventured up to Blok M for dinner. Ended up buying a round of 30 sticks of sate & drinks, and sharing it with a group of guys on a sidewalk corner, talking about America and Indonesia for a few hours. Interesting conversation. (= I enjoyed it as much as they were tickled to get a free dinner (= the whole thing cost $11. ha ha.

Highlights: sat at the computer updating the blog, litteraly all day long. Eli’s family came over to hang out for a little while (= Vita challenged me to a game of _____? while her younger brothers watched The Little Mermaid. I’m glad they feel comfortable enough to come hang out at the house sometimes. Vita wants me to visit her school next week.

Highlights: planned the remainder of my trips. Lots of traveling & not much time! Frustrated that the tax return which was supposedly sent out on 30 March hasn’t hit my account yet. And while on the subject of money, the Marine Corps has reimbursed me for less than half of what I’ve paid out so far on all my trips, and I’m running up debt here- so I’m trying to figure that out. Friends from the Betawi wedding last weekend invited me to hang out with them, so I visited the zoo for a couple hours, and then rode the public van to block M, talking with a Betawi ankot driver and his friends about how life is for them here in Jakarta. Interesting insights on thug rackets. He has to pay 5 different groups of thugs 1,000 Rupiah every day to keep from getting beat up, or his van smashed by iron pipe-weilding city thugs. I was in the front seat as he made 3 drive-by payments. At Blok M, his friends run a snack shop. He has to make “security payments” to different groups on a daily, weekly & monthly basis. All of these are payments for the same thing: protection from the organizations you’re paying.

As I was chatting with my friend Destri on-line, we figured out my blogger problem: it won’t let me access blogger from my Indonesia server. Huh!

Highlights: Met 2nd Lt David Haines, who is working on his Masters from Cambridge on a military study-abroad program. Took him to the embassy to see Maj Nolin and get him a country security brief. In the meantime I got to hammer out some helpful details from my trip report. Watched Casino Royale tonight.

Highlights: worked to organize all the photos I’ve taken so far, and get my blog updated. For some reason, I can’t access my blog account. Blogger won’t let me log in. I killed several hours trying to figure that out. =/ Eli came by this afternoon to repay the 2nd half of the loan I gave her for her mom 3 months ago… for the Arisan. I’m so proud of her for paying that back! She paid half (1 million Rupiah) on time, when I got back from Vietnam, and this half, she has 700,000 Rp ($70), but needs a little more time to come up with the remaining 300,000. still, I’m very impressed & happy she saw that through. We got to talking about Vita, and the opportunities that getting her through school will someday open up,,, which led to tangents about parenting & how daughters are traditionally treated different than sons. Eli says she won’t let Vita discover boys or start dating until she’s 20. (= ha ha. “Good luck with that!” I said. The fear is that ‘boys will say anything, and sweet talk girl with sugary nothings, knock them up then runaway.’ Ha ha… in so many words. My response was, learning to socialize, interact & even date boys is an important part of life learning for her… and I wouldn’t want to shelter my daughter from all that. She has to learn to sift through boys BS for herself. Mom & dad can’t do it all for her.” But what do I know? I’m not a dad yet. (=

Conversation flowed through social norms here, then snowballed through very interesting tangents that spanned religion, history, culture, and somehow we pulled it all back to what we can hope for in Vita’s future.

I was amazed that Eli was interested enough to sit & talk about this stuff with me for 3 hours! It was great! Normally, it’s been my experience that women run away whenever men start talking about,,, things where a formalized education becomes handy. I don’t mean that in a pejorative sense. I think there’s a social norm here which suggests that men are entitled to have opinions about weighty things, and women aren’t. To be more fair, I bet the sticking point is that I’m male, so it’s somewhat inappropriate for women to have discussions like these with men who aren’t their husbands. Perhaps women sit around & talk about these things here,,, but I’ve yet to hear about it, or see it.

Nina’s dad loves to talk shop about politics, religion, social issues like corruption & economic conditions of police, teachers, health care in the Javanese countryside. I think it’s great & enjoy talking to him. Mom & Nina usually disappear in 10 minutes. It’s happened on at least 8 occassions, even after trying to coax opinions out of them. They sit quiet & smile. Drives me nuts. It must be a Javanese cultural thing.

The one subject I could get women to talk about was relationships. In most cases, the subject always finds its way back to concern over what’s “appropriate”. Figuring it out as you go doesn’t cut it here. Boy-girl situations have to have a precedent, and all those precedents fall clearly along “appropriate” or “not appropriate” lines. Indonesian society openly judges which is which. It’s like blackjack: advice comes free at a lively table, whether asked for or not.

Highlights: I finished!!! Woo-hoo! 31 pages long, this monster. Whew! ran up to the embassy to turn it in. Going to a friend’s opening night at a new bar downtown tonight. Ok- well that didn’t happen. Jet lag got me.

Highlights: working on putting the finishing touches on this trip report since I woke up at 3 am. Betawi wedding happening across the street, so I took a break to watch that, then back to the grind stone.