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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Sinking in the Swamp, Drinking in a Bar

You all know the titles of these blogs are just my way of amusing myself, right?

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So this weekend I made a last minute decision to go with Nicole to Jakarta to visit our Obie friends Lindsay and Eric. We always have these grand plans of going clubbing when we get there, and this time we had a goal of epic proportions: STADIUM. Stadium is a nightclub in Jakarta that is apparently open for 4 straight days. As in you could enter after work on Thursday and literally not emerge until the following week. I've heard all kinds of insane (and illegal) things go on in this 5-story pulsating behemoth of a party, and one person even told us it's "not possible" to experience Stadium unless you are on drugs. The Lonely Planet forum on Stadium is hilarious, with gems like this:

Stadium was my 2nd home for about a year. Then I came to the realisation I needed to maintain my severely diminished seratonin levels. So I don't venture out kota way as often now.

 We were willing to take the risk of not fully experiencing Stadium and mostly just wanted to see the mythic black hole of dance to make sure that it's for real.

But when Saturday night rolled around, what actually ended up happening was this:

Or a version of that. The above pic is actually from the time we were exiled to Jakarta because our local volcano was exploding. This weekend we just played Settlers of Catan all weekend, which is a significantly more nerdy game than SET that revolves around 'resource acquisition'. I have to say that we probably had more fun that we would have at Stadium. And the mystery remains... one of these days, I WILL go.

Other funny thing that happened in Jakarta: Amazingly, my cab from the airport had a customer complaint and suggestion sheet laying on the backseat which was translated into "English" for my convenience. This is what it looked like:

Why wasn't "kidnapped" on the list? "Threatened at gunpoint"? I mean, if blackmail makes the cut why not just go all the way. I also noticed that my most common complaint wasn't listed: "Proposed marriage by driver". Or even more common: "Took 3 hours to drive 5 kilometers." All though that one is not really the cabbie's fault I suppose.

Jakarta must be the only city in the world that has complete stand-still traffic going in AND out of the city. Traffic experts predict that the city will be completely gridlocked by 2014 and there are constant rumors that the government of Indonesia is going to move to Borneo. The real question is, will Stadium move to Borneo too?? And will people go all the way across the country for an epic clubbing experience? I better get there before the whole city disappears... if only there weren't so much damn traffic.

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