The Virgin

It's a new life, and a new blog to go along... don't worry, you can still access all the old favorites here, and there!

go ahead, click it for the very first time: http://virginjournal.wordpress.com

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Pak Min's Chicken Soup from Klaten or Why Won't a Food Magazine Publish a 900-Word Essay about Chicken Neck and Donuts?!

This blog is also available in an audio format! I couldn't upload it to this page (technology will always elude me), but I'll be happy to email the mp3 for your entertainment :)

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I'm sick. So I've positioned myself at the Dunkin Donuts directly across from Sop Ayam Pak Min Klaten, or Mr. Min’s Chicken Soup from Klaten. Though chicken soup is a Jogja specialty, this just-out-of-town style has an unbelievably fast turnover; they open at 2pm and are often sold out, or habis of their delicious soup by around 8. Many a time I’ve tried to buy Mr. Min’s Chicken Soup from Klaten only to be confronted with big red-lettered ‘HABIS’ signs. My logic tonight is that since I'm not hungry now, I will be able to watch the soup store while I use the internet and then make a mad dash across the street as close to the time of habis-ing as possible. Of course now that I am in Dunkin Donuts I realize this strategy is flawed because surely I will only know if Mr. Min’s Chicken Soup from Klaten is going to be habis by the 'HABIS' sign that will eventually fill the front window (does it have to be such a BIG sign? and two of them?). There is also the conundrum of the donuts; eating a donut will delay the time at which I want to eat Mr. Min’s Chicken Soup from Klaten, thus placing me closer to the ETH—estimated time of habis—and yet their multi-colored reflection in the nearing night-time window is so tempting.

I eventually decide that the time is nigh and (cleverly getting a donut to go) rush over to Mr. Min only to realize that I was little prepared for the moment at hand. The menu is unreadable, and instead there are bunches of small plates with different categories of chicken in them—I have forgotten about this peculiarity of Mr. Min’s since Jogja style chicken soup is usually of one variety. In my haste to obtain the goods, I point to the two top bowls this and this and, after an awkward moment where I realize I don’t have enough money and have to fish around in my bag for change, am on my way back home, Chicken Soup from Klaten by Min secured.

The first soup contains large chunks of a dark colored meat that at a glance look like liver, but the consistency is not dense enough. I settle for flavorful ‘dark meat’ but on reconsideration decide it may be congealed blood, if chickens have that much blood. Dessert by DD: Honey-glazed chocolate.

The next couple day are a bit of a blur; in between 104 fevers, coughing up strange material and vomiting every last iota of pocari sweat out of my body, I manage to see a doctor (and see Die Hard—ain’t being sick great?!). On the first day of meds I’m finally in the land of the semi-lucid, and when my next-door neighbor offers me a donut from the local bakery ‘Kuki Donuts’, it’s enough to get me to leave my room, a veritable struggle. As I bite into the doughy goodness, I understand why Indonesia has a Dunkin Donuts in every hospital—because when you haven’t eaten for several days, what could be more delightful, more hopeful, than a frosted cloud of sweetness with sprinkles? All of a sudden there is sweat pouring down my body and I realize (1) that it’s awkward to sit at a table with five other people and be visibly dampening your clothing and (2) my fever has broken.

The next day, I’m not sure that the anti-biotic isn’t making me more ill, but in a different way. Again I’m unable to eat, but mostly because my body refuses to process anything in a normal fashion. Gross. At around 4pm, I’m starving and the memory of that divine donut is fading. I remember my genius in buying two soups from Mr. Min from Klaten, and gleefully dump the congealed refrigerator goo into a pot for reheating. While I’m stirring the essence of poultry, cilantro, and a yellowish lime, I try to identify the parts of chicken swimming around in my peppery broth. (A fun and absolutely commonplace game for the American foreigner in Indonesia. Just the other day at lunch Nicole ordered something that seemed quite normal but showed up with small pieces of furry-looking translucent material covered in hot sauce. I popped one in my mouth. Intestine.) I closely examine the chunks until I conclude that this is a chicken head, split open with half an eyeball still visible in each socket, and the sliced segments of chicken neck, commonly known as ‘crab food’ in my homeland.

Though not usually slight of stomach, I’m hesitant to push my luck today, and toss the chicken head in a bag, half-eyeball still glaring. The neck turns out to be the most delicious part of the bird, a fact my mother knew long ago, but I have somehow overlooked until fate and Mr. Min intervened. After scraping the last bit of tenderness from gritty spine, I wonder why I haven’t caught more crabs in my life. This thought is quickly replaced by a calculation of how much energy it might take to walk the one block from my house to ‘Kuki Donuts’—it’s no Severna Park Donut Shack, or Gibson’s apple fritter, but I swear there’s still magic in those sprinkles.

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What we Mean

After almost two years, I have quite a handle on Indonesian, and recently have started taking Javanese lessons (which is a whole different ball game, oh my god). But sometimes I think that even if I were fluent, I would still have miscommunications and conversations where one party does not believe that we are actually speaking in Indonesian, like this one last night at the pharmacy between me and the pharmacist:

[in Indonesian] Hi sir, I am looking for allergy medicine. I have very bad allergies, so bad that I wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble breathing.

You have an allergy and can’t sleep?

Yes.

What allergy?

Everything, but mostly mold. Usually there is no reaction on my skin, just a respiratory problem. In the states, I used to take Claritin.

Oh yes a respiratory problem, I see. Well, we have Claritin. [starts to turn around, but then hesitates and then grins sheepishly] Can I try in English? Maybe I understand better in English.

[In English] Sure, ok.

You have an allergy?

Yes.

Hmm. Ok.

And usually in the states I take Claritin.

Oh, I see. We have Claritin.

That’s terrific [retrieves Claritin].

I understand that this man probably had to study English at the pharmaceutical school and just wants to practice; but isn’t it cruel to make a sick person stand around longer while you repeat the exact same information?

Actually I would have thought the above situation endearing had my head not been threatening implosion. Much worse is the situation where someone does not listen because they expect that a communication is not possible. So I don’t know the word for “to stall” in Indonesian, but if I tell you that when my bike stops moving, the engine dies, can you try and understand? No, I don’t know the word for pillow, but if you wait for 20 more seconds I can explain that it’s the thing upon which you rest your head when you are in your bed (NOW I know the word for pillow and I won’t forget it).

I try to look at it from the other person’s perspective. As a business owner, he/she probably wants each transaction to be clear and hassle-free. So in that sense I understand not wanting to bear with my foreigner’s accent and patchy vocabulary.

But please, oh shopkeepers of the world, think about it—you only have ONE difficult communication today: with me! But after I leave your shop, I still have a day’s worth of possible mishaps. If you put a little bit of effort into our three minutes together, you can help a fellow human being (and you can sell an item, something that you never seem very eager to do). Just pick up the toothpaste and ask me, Is this what you meant?

The glitch is obvious when there are two (or even three) languages to negotiate. But don’t we have to give a little bit of ourselves with every conversation, even in our native languages?

Recently, I read Chang Rae Lee’s Native Speaker, a truly terrific novel about a Korean-American whose line of work forces him to keep secrets about his identity. The novel talks a lot about the immigrant experience, but I felt that the larger message was about how we all struggle to describe ourselves to our loved ones.

Wondering what my strange Xmas present means

Language is inherently limiting; when we bottle our emotions into the small packages of words, something is always lost. And so we struggle to understand our friends, our loved ones… what are the nuances in a statement of forgiveness? What was the exact moment that frustration turned to anger? When we care about someone, we try to reach across the gap between spoken language and feeling and get closer to their inner pulse.

It is harder to make this same reach with a stranger, though it is usually on a much smaller scale and with much less emotional strain. Sometimes, of course, we do. The owner of the mechanic shop was happy to stand with me while I talked around and around the machine’s idiosyncrasies until he could propose a solution. And I did, eventually, get my pillow; I just had to ask a different employee.

The U.S. is not a monolingual country, though some people would like to believe it so. I expect that living in a city when I get back, not all of my interactions will be in my native language with another native English speaker. But there, mine will often be the default language. And that time, it will be me reaching across the gap, over the counter, and asking, Is this what you meant?

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I Hate Twiggy

Remember cultural tip #6 from my textbook waaay back when I first started taking Indonesian lessons? No? I’ll remind you:

Cultural Note #6: “Commenting on somebody’s physical appearances is somewhat customary in Indonesia, and not to mention as one of the best ways to show warmth/friendliness. It is wise not to be upset if someone comments on your body, like ‘Wow, you look fat/thin!’ In this circumstance, you can respond by smiling or you can also tell a bit joke (about being fat), like ‘Yeah, I can hardly find a T-shirt at the store!’

Ok. This is nothing new to me… when I was in India, my host brother (sorry Bharat but you know it’s true) used to say to me after a long weekend vacation, “Wow Britt you look so much fatter!” I usually did not respond with a ‘bit joke’ but instead with, “Dude, you canNOT say that to an American girl!”

Here I’ve tried to just let it roll off my back and for most of the two years have barely given a second thought to comments about my fatness/thin-ness which usually do not correspond to my actual body weight at all. However, for some unknown reason, this month has been the month of commenting about how fat Britt is. An unprecedented number of Indonesians have recently come up to me and said, “Waaaaaah tambah gemuk! [Wooooowwww you got fatter!]” while grabbing some gelatinous segment of my body to demonstrate in fact how much fat is there. Most popular method: extending the pointer finger and thumb to ‘gauge’ my upper arm like wowwww look at all your arm mass! Those are my guns, son. Get up off.

It’s strange timing because I look pretty much EXACTLY the same as I have all year, and if anything thinner than last year. And since I know it’s just a random comment on their part, I shouldn’t let it bother me. Except, come on people. Honestly, you KNOW that’s a rude thing to say to an American woman. And #2, please remove your fingers from my belly fat. If I’m not allowed to show my skin in public, you are certainly not allowed to pinch it for measurement purposes.

I keep thinking it will be nice to get back to a country where I’m not an enormous obese giant (although they have a point: While shopping the other day, I picked up a pair of pants that went a little more than halfway across my hips. They were labeled XXXXL). But then I remember all of the wack American beauty standards.

For example, how did we go from this standard of beauty...

...to this one...

...in less than 10 years?

And why haven’t we gotten bored of the Twiggy look? I guess we added plastic breasts at some point, but the barely pubescent thinness is still there. At least in Indonesia, being fat is considered sort of a positive thing. To get fatter means you are happy and prosperous, stress-free, while a skinny person might be short on money, ill, or emotionally burdened.

So I guess I should take “You got so fat!” as a compliment. I just wish they would phrase it a little differently. Attention Indonesia: next time you want to comment on my tambah gemuk please just say, “Wow you look so much more like Marilyn Monroe than Twiggy!” And don’t even think about jiggling my tummy rolls. Thank you.

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