Elephants and Temples: Exploring Ancient Monuments in Yogyakarta

The stupa on Borobudur. There is a seated Buddha in each.

Half the adventure of visiting Yogyakarta was just getting there.

The weekend after Idul Adha was a long one, and as I don’t have a habit of bumming around Jakarta on long weekends, I decided to try to scratch an important item off my bucket list: Seeing Borobudur in Yogyakarta.

Yogyakarta (pronounced “Jogjakarta,” or just referred to by expats as “Jogja”) is the cultural center of Java. It’s also literally at the center of Java, which means it takes some planning to get there. It wouldn’t be too hard to plan, I thought—I had heard about a train that left at night and arrived at a fairly inconvenient time in the morning (3 am or so). Not perfect, but the best option, and suitably adventurous. Since it was a short week, we were fairly busy, and my travel buddy and I didn’t end up trying to book tickets until Wednesday for travel on Friday.

Finally, on Wednesday, we tried to book the train tickets through the Embassy’s travel agency (one of the best perks about working there), but we learned that they weren’t allowed to book them. It’s not possible to book them online, either. We had to go down to the train station in person.

When we got to the train station in midday, we were stunned to find a line of people about an hour long. Not able to wait that long, we began to ask around about the tickets to Yogyakarta, to find that they had long since sold out. Not just our inconvenient train, but the convenient train and all the other local ones that happened to count Yogya among their 100 stops. Defeated, we decided to bit the expensive bullet and go by plane.

We didn’t have any luck with flights, either. We spent all day Thursday searching, but every single flight, both on reputable and disreputable airlines, was entirely sold out. No economy, no business. I couldn’t believe it. “Is there a festival or something in Yogya this weekend?” I asked my Indonesian friends. “No, it’s probably just Idul Adha,” they posited. Apparently, even with the holiday solidly behind us, people were still returning to the village to see their families. We had unknowingly been caught up in an Indonesian holiday.

The only thing left was the bus, but no one, not the all-knowing Lonely Planet, nor our Travel Agency, had a single phone number for a bus company. Finally, we asked one of our Indonesian friends.

“Oh, noooooo!!!!!” she exclaimed. “You can’t take the bus, you just can’t. You just can’t.”

“Have you taken it?” we asked.

“Yes…. But you shouldn’t! It’s not safe. Please don’t take the bus. Promise me,” she insisted.

Desperate, we continued to press her for a phone number, and she finally relented. It was 5 p.m., and we knew that we had to leave that night if we hoped to have enough time in Yogyakarta to make the trip worth the time spent to get there.

I called the number several times until I got a response. “Bisa bicara bahasa Inggris?” I asked. Do you speak English?

Of course she didn’t. And it didn’t help that her voice was masked in white noise, so I could barely hear.

After a real struggle with my then-nascent Bahasa Indonesia, I managed to make out the name of a bus station and a time at which a bus would leave. We hurriedly returned to our respective homes to pack and catch a cab to the bus station.

The entire time, with failure to get to Yogyakarta not an option, we had a fourth solution, one that both of us were reluctant to pursue: hiring a personal car.

My driver out to Taman Safari was a guy named Enno. Super friendly and always helpful, he had texted me earlier in the week to ask if I needed a driver for the long weekend. I had joked with him (sort of) that I wanted to go to Yogya, and he guffawed in disbelief, because it’s a very long drive. That was the end of that conversation. Driving to Yogyakarta is probably the worst way to get there, save perhaps a donkey cart.

Yet, there we were, my friend and I, stuck in traffic with the meter already very high, on our way to a bus station in East Jakarta that I had minimal confidence that the taxi driver actually knew. I called the bus number again just to confirm that the bus was leaving at 8, and all I could make out was “Sekarang! Sekarang!” which means “Now! Now!” Nothing about the situation was comforting. So when Enno called me out of the blue to ask how much we would be willing to pay to go to Yogya, we were relieved.

We settled on 3 million, or about $300. It was about the cost of 2 plane tickets, but we were so desperate to actually get on the road that night that we were willing to pay it. Enno said he would come to my house immediately. We turned the “cab to nowhere” around.

By the time we got on the road, it was 8:30 p.m. To my luggage I had added a pillow and some snacks. Enno, bright-eyed, was ready to drive through the night. It would take us 12 hours to get there. Yes, you read that correctly. TWELVE HOURS. This is why driving to Yogyakarta is almost universally ill-advised.

We told Enno that he should feel free to pull over and take a nap anytime he felt sleepy, and that getting there safely (not getting there fast) was most important. My friend and I took turns staying awake and keeping him company, though in reality, he stayed up longer than I did. We drove on winding mountain roads, past cows and through villages. We stopped several times at gas stations for caffeine for Enno and twice for him to take a short nap. No one slept well that night.

View on the drive to Yogyakarta

At 6 a.m., the sunlight began streaming in through the windows, and a roused myself to see bright green rice paddies on both sides of the car, and people selling fruit by the roadside. We were still hours away, but stopped at a local gas station and mosque (many gas stations have small mosques) for Enno to pray and to eat some fried noodles for breakfast. By 10 a.m., we rolled into Yogyakarta, a big town that, on its face, didn’t seem as special as people had described. It took some exploring before we found its charm.

*    *    *

Joglo Plawang Villas

We checked into Joglo Plawang, an absolutely stunning hotel with individual traditional joglos, or bungalows, built into two sides of a river valley. The two sides were connected by a quaint bridge. It was quiet, with only the sound of burbling water, a perfect getaway. The common spaces were richly appointed with traditional art and architecture, dark wood carvings and golden accents. The only problem was that it was about 15 minutes from the center of Yogyakarta—by car. Good thing we had a car.



Entrance to the ancient water temple, hidden among private homes



As hard as we tried to explore on our own, we somehow gained a guide. He promised to show us Taman Sari, the old royal water temple, but wanted to show us a local treasure first, hidden among homes in the neighborhood. Entry was by small donation to a very old local man holding a box. It was a much more ancient water temple, unmarked and far less crowded. The walkway had once been a shallow, underground canal by which the Sultan would travel by boat, and it ended in a partially underground and partially exposed complex where he would spend time with his consorts. It was now drained of water, and looked eerily reminiscent of an old slave house, like Goree Island in Senegal.





The ancient water temple, now drained




Taman Sari

 

We then went to Taman Sari, which was still filled with water and had small fountains. It was not as ornate as I had imagined it might be—I think I was expecting a Balinese water temple, which are quite different.



Entrance to Taman Sari



Toward the end of the day, we went to Prambanan, the oldest Hindu temple complex in Java. Dating from the 9^th century, there were at one point 240 temples of different sizes, all surrounding a main temple to Shiva. Neglect and the 2006 earthquake have caused many of the temples to collapse, leaving nothing but carved rocks strewn about. With the help of UNESCO (it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site), some of the temples were restored. While some remain closed for renovation, including the main temple, it’s possible to climb the stairs of many of them to the shrine at the top.





Prambanan at Dusk

 


Prambanan



The sun was setting and the rain beginning to sprinkle as we explored the complex. The area was nearly empty, as the park was about to close. The shrines crowning the temples were dark and ominous—there were no candles or offerings to brighten them—but the view over the valley was stunning.



View at Prambanan from the top of a temple





We had an early night in anticipation of an early morning. At 4:30 a.m., we set off in the direction of Borobudur in order to get there just as it opened. Unlike Prambanan, there was a big visitors’ center—one fitting of the top tourist attraction in Indonesia. Entry was much more expensive, and there were a number of bules who had arrived before us. There was a free coffee and water station, and all of the bules were wrapped in a batik sarong in order to respect the Buddhist tradition.




Borobudur

 



Borobudur was absolutely mind-blowing. We arrived in the fog, which burned off as the sun rose higher, spreading golden light on the ancient structure. If there was ever a moment to make you feel like Lara Croft/Tomb Raider, this was it. Borobudur is a nine-level stone super-temple; there are six square levels topped with three circular levels, and each level is adorned with magnificently intricate carvings teaching Buddhist principles and universal values for daily life. There are over 1,500 such panels, at least 500 of which have not yet been deciphered.



Leading to the top is a ring of stupas, which look like massive, latticed stone bells, and crowning the top is one massive stupa. There are over 500 Buddha statues perched on the walls, peacefully meditating. The temple sits atop a hill, providing clear views for miles in every direction. It is apparently the largest Buddhist temple in the world.

Borobudur didn’t always look like this. It is believed that it was built in the 8^th century, but, like Prambanan, neglect over the centuries caused it to be overgrown by vegetation and it began to crumble. When Sir Thomas Raffles “rediscovered” it in the early 1800s, he asked the local village to begin to put it back together. UNESCO, with the Indonesian government and the support of other governments (including the U.S. government), helped to lead a major renovation in the late 1970s, and it was then named a UNESCO World Heritage site.

A couple of shots as we walked clockwise around the levels starting at the Eastern Gate, to respect the Buddhist tradition:





As time went on, the tour buses pulled in, and we decided to make our exit.



I had heard that you could take an elephant ride at Borobudur, and after a bit of sleuthing, we figured out that you could sign up at the hotel in the Borobudur complex. All I wanted was to ride an elephant through a river because I have an irrational fascination with elephants in water. And so, for about $50, we hired elephants for an hour, and slowly wandered into a nearby village, feeding them with caked palm sugar that tasted like pralines, and feeding ourselves on the sugar as well. We lumbered down to a river, where the elephants cooled off and ate from the riverbanks, and we were splashed as the elephants used their trunks to spray their flanks. It was a perfect way to spend an afternoon and round out the day before our 14-hour drive back!

Durian Tasting

Durian is probably Southeast Asia’s most famous (or infamous) fruit. Varying in size between a cantaloupe and a watermelon, it looks like a spiky jackfruit. In fact, the name comes from the Bahasa Indonesia/Malay word duri, or thorny. While there are many differences between these two fruits, the most immediately noticeable one is the smell.

Do not mistake this jackfruit for a durian--not that you could!
The smell and taste are completely different.

Durian smells like the bottom of a trashcan. One that has been rotting for months. The smell is pungent, carries, and lingers. In Singapore, a city where durian is the most beloved fruit (their concert hall is shaped like a durian), durian has been deemed so smelly that you can be fined $500 or more for bringing durian into public transport or a hotel.  On my 3 hour flight from Aceh to Jakarta this week, someone brought an open durian on the plane, and it was so strong that half of the plane was covering their faces with their shirts or headscarves and looking around for the culprit. The stewardesses had to take the durian and store it in the back, which only mildly helped. Meanwhile, I was giggling and covering my face, too.

An open durian, with segments

But if you can get past the odor, the flesh is creamy and sweet, reminiscent of sweetened condensed milk. It is at once stringy and custardy, almost spreadable. Each segment of the flesh has one large seed.

Most people can’t get past the stench. I’m one of them. I grew up disliking durian; my mother loves durian, and would buy it frozen from the local Asian market. My father and I never let her in the house with it; she had to eat it on the back patio. She loves durian because she grew up with it; her village, Segamat, is famous for its durians.

So when I found myself in Segamat a couple of weeks ago, I knew that I had to hold my nose and try the durian. My uncle drove me to the durian market, where workers were unloading durians from the back of a pickup truck into milk crates. There were several different local varieties, and one of the fruit sellers picked one of each for me to try. I found this wildly ambitious—I can barely eat one piece of durian, let alone several.

As the fruit seller cut them open, he explained how they collect them. My mother had always told me that people die every year from durians falling on their heads. Pretty unfortunate way to go, I think—meeting your demise from a heavy, spiky fruit.  When I asked him about this, he said that the durians only fall twice a day—at midnight and at 5 a.m. The durian collectors, wearing helmets, go out to the orchards (they grow on trees) after these times to collect the fruit. They are then brought to the market; some are sold locally, but most are immediately shipped to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Hong Kong. After all, durian is best when eaten within a couple of days. Here, I had it almost fresh from the tree.

Amazingly, the durians that were opened for me didn’t reek like the durians I had smelled before. Their smell was more subtle, which made it easier for me to try them. And the first variety, which was much smaller than the durians I had seen in the U.S., tasted delicious, like creamy, sugary coffee. The second variety was more similar to what I had tasted before—a sharper, more fruity flavor, with a stronger smell. I didn’t like it much, but ate the whole piece because I didn’t want to waste it. Meanwhile, my uncle was busy packing the segments of durian into Tupperware he had brought with him. I managed to grab another segment of the coffee durian before it was packed away, and then took photographic evidence for my mother. After all, no visit to Segamat would be complete without tasting the local delicacy!

Snapshots from Malaysia

A Buddha of Prosperity at a temple in Muar, Malaysia

Antique gramophone in a trinket shop in Malacca

Old tools used for boiling metals to make jewelry. Jewelry store in Malacca.

Rooftop in Segamat. Rooftops feature dates of construction; this one mysteriously just says "19 0."

Mailboxes in Segamat, Malaysia

St. Paul's Church, Malacca. Originally built in 1521 by the Portuguese, it was taken over by the Dutch in 1641. When the English arrived in Malacca, the church was no longer used as such; the English built a lighthouse in front of it and used the nave to store gunpowder.

St. Paul's Church, Malacca

St. Paul's Church, with a statue of St. Francis Xavier. The British lighthouse is directly behind the statue.

St. Paul's Church; These are old gravestones written in old Dutch, Portuguese, or Latin.

Engraving on a gravestone. Time flies, they say...

Why take a photo of just the statue when you could take a photo of this guy AND the statue?

A typical Malacca lunch; rice balls (foreground), steamed chicken (background), and ice chendol (middle) for dessert. Rice balls were initially developed in Muar because fishermen didn't have utensils with which to eat their lunches. Rolling the rice into balls made it easier for them to eat their food! Rice balls in Muar are larger than the ones in Malacca. The ice chendol had coconut milk, coffee, green rice flour noodles, sweet red beans, and fruit--all over shaved ice.

Malacca, and the Malacca Strait. Many buildings are built in the Dutch style (it was a Dutch port), and are thin and long; taxes were determined by the width of your storefront, not how deep a building was, incentivizing this kind of structure.

Malaysian Chinese breakfast: a cup of coffee so thick you could probably stand a spoon in it, and various bao (roasted pork bao, sweet red bean bao, sweet lotus bao). Bao are made of fluffy rice flour dough and filled with sweet or savory things, like chicken, pork, or sweet pastes.

Tombstones at St. Paul's Church, Malacca

Discovering My History

My mother's graduation photo from the University of Malaya

I start this post with an apology to my mother, who didn’t want me to write about this. It’s quite un-Chinese to talk about your family, but it was such a rare experience that I simply had to document it.

*    *    *

What does it feel like to go home to a place you have never been? For some inexplicable reason, it felt important to do this now: to discover my mother’s history, walk the paths that she walked, eat the food she ate, and see the house where she grew up. She has not been there in over 30 years. The trip was as much for me as it was for her—documenting through photo and video how the town has changed so I could show her.

There are many durian statues here

I am proud of my mother’s history. She grew up in a town called Segamat, in Johor District, about an hour and a half northeast of Malacca. Segamat is best known for its durians, which may just be the foulest-smelling fruit on earth.

Her parents ran a jewelry store. My grandfather made all of the jewelry, and my grandmother worked the front of the store—the first woman in the town to do so, making her the target of cruel commentary. But my grandmother was a quintessential feminist, and realized that she was as capable as any man of managing sales, and that working in the front of the shop did not mean that she was immodest or depraved. The family of nine (there were seven children) lived in the apartment above the shop.

The jewelry store still exists, but moved a couple of doors down. My uncle--an uncle I had never met or communicated with before I arrived in Kuala Lumpur--still runs it with my aunt. We caught up during a long car ride via Malacca to Muar, where we paid respect to my grandfather at a Chinese temple. When he passed in the late 1980s, he was cremated and his ashes stored at the temple, where monks and nuns pray daily on behalf of the family.

Shrine in the jewelry store to honor my grandfather

The temple was smaller than I expected. My aunt met up with us, and together, we purchased a large bundle of incense that we split among us. Lighting the incense in an enormous urn at the front of the temple, my uncle taught me the proper way to pray to Buddha—holding the incense straight up while your hands are in prayer position, so the incense extends past your fingertips. Then pray, waving the incense vigorously up and down.

We prayed to the Buddha of Prosperity and then made our way through the kitchen to the back stairs. As it was the week before Chinese New Year, the kitchen table towered with food, but mainly mandarin oranges. All of the food that the monks and nuns eat is donated by the community, and oranges are given as good luck at the New Year. (The word “orange” in Chinese is “kum,” which has the same sound as “gold,” making it an auspicious gift….not to mention one that’s more affordable and delicious.) I couldn’t help but wonder if the monks and nuns ever tired of oranges. Not that they would complain, of course.

At the top of the stairs was what looked like a library guarded by another Buddha of Prosperity. There were floor-to-ceiling rows, much like an old library, but the difference was that these were not shelves per se; every six inches was a box containing ashes, marked only with a name panel. Per Chinese custom, we prayed to my grandfather; during Chinese New Year, one must pay tribute to one’s ancestors. We then prayed a last time to Buddha before continuing on our way.

*   *   *

We made one stop before continuing to Segamat. My uncle pulled the car up at a house in Muar’s suburbs. It was my aunt’s mother’s house—in other words, another grandmother, but one related to me by marriage, not by blood. The house was bustling with women—all my aunt’s sisters, who rushed around unwrapping food to put on the table.

My uncle had told them that my mother wanted me to taste food from the street stalls, or warung—so they bought bags and bags of street food and laid it out on the table. There was satay, and noodles, and fish cakes grilled in leaves (otak otak), and curry laksa, and fish, and fried rice, and dumplings, and a delicious dessert called cendol that has always been my favorite. Shaved ice, bits of fresh fruit, grass jelly, and other sweet bits are covered in sweet coconut milk, making a really refreshing dessert on a hot day. The table was teeming with food, and about 15 of us crowded around, talking over each other. “Oh!” said one auntie, watching me eat. “You know how to use chopsticks!” The surprise was genuine. The family couldn’t believe that an American, even one that was part Chinese, would know how to do this. I had to laugh. “Well, at least you still have Asian values!” she said.

I’m still trying to figure out what this means.

It gave me pause to sit at the table, surrounded by people that I didn’t know, who welcomed me so easily into their family, and who made the effort to put together such an elaborate meal. And then I realized—this is my family. It’s maybe not a family I have ever thought about before, and not one that I’m “directly” related to, but in Chinese culture (and many other cultures, but not American culture), this family was part of my own, and I was part of theirs. I was the American niece who had come to visit. It is probably the most profound lesson I have learned in years.

*   *   *

On the way to Segamat, we passed several bridges that had been destroyed, but seemed well-preserved. “The Japanese,” my uncle explained. “The British bombed the bridges during the Japanese invasion in World War II, but that barely slowed them down.” It’s fascinating history in itself, but was all the more striking because my mother was born during that time, in a bomb shelter, while the family was hiding from the Japanese. I grew up hearing about the Japanese invasion, and here was the evidence, right before my eyes.

What my mother had called a village was now a full-blown town with a Toyota dealership and a Domino’s Pizza. So it goes over time, I suppose. But while the town had expanded, remarkably little had changed in the old section.  I took an afternoon to explore it.

2 Jalan Awang, my mother's home and the original
jewelry store

I wandered down to 2 Jalan Awang, where the jewelry store used to be, and where my mother used to live. It was now a bustling coffee shop, with cold marble bistro tables and ceiling fans. Many of the fixtures from the jewelry store remained. Hardly a table was empty; men drank their thick coffees laden with sweetened condensed milk, chatting animatedly. Through a service window I could see the semi-outdoor, expansive kitchen out back. My mother used to sit at the table after school and talk with my grandmother while she prepared the evening meal. I saw the stairs that the family climbed to reach their apartment. And as I sat sipping my coffee and savoring toast with kaya (coconut spread) in what used to be my mother’s house, I nearly began to cry. My uncle was sitting with me, though, so I maintained a stiff upper lip. I figured it was what my mother would have done.

Afterward, we stopped by the Durian Market—no visit to Segamat would be complete without eating one of its famous durians—but I’ll save that experience for another post.

Inside the coffee shop, which used to be the original
jewelry store

The next morning, we took a short drive to see my mother’s school. It used to be called the English School, because it was built by the British and the curriculum was entirely in English. It was (and continues to be) very competitive to be admitted, even though it is a public school. Pushed by my grandmother, who was deprived of an education beyond primary school, my mother excelled in her studies at the English School.  As a result, she earned admittance to the only university in Malaysia at the time (the University of Malaya), one of only 150 students across the country to do so, and the first girl from the village to ever be admitted.

The school has been painted from white to a “hideous” yellow and brown (according to one of the teachers I spoke with), and has been significantly expanded. The beautiful, original building in which my mother had her classes now serves as the administrative building, but elements of the original classrooms remain. When I showed my mother the photos, she reminisced about being “naughty” and throwing rambutan peels from the second floor on a teacher’s car below.

Other things have changed, too. The Malaysian government, which has long put into place laws, regulations, and quotas that favor ethnic Malays at the expense of ethnic Chinese, decided that English instruction in the schools disproportionately disadvantaged Malays. As a result, all instruction is now in Malay, and my mother’s school is no longer the English School. Yet, since the legislation was enacted, it has had little effect; the Chinese continue to outperform Malays in the education system.

My mother's school

Without going into too much detail here (though I could), the situation in Malaysia is such that ethnic Chinese are so limited in what they can do (limits on property ownership, government employment, business ownership, university ethnic quotas) that many, like most of my mother’s family, have left. In trying to make the country “fair” for Malays (who comprise, by far, the ethnic majority), it has become unfair for everyone else. And so my mother became a part of the massive brain drain of well-educated Chinese.

*   *   *

I left Malaysia the next day with gifts from my uncle and aunt—a red packet for Chinese New Year (it is customary to give younger relatives envelopes with money), some jewelry from the store, and an old graduation photograph of my mother. They also gave me some birds’ nests to bring to my mother, a very valuable gift.  Their generosity was overwhelming.

The new jewelry store at 10 Jalan Awang

What I also left with was far less tangible—a sense of belonging, a recognition that I am part of a much larger family, a view through my mother’s lens, and a profound respect for my mother and the long road she traveled to arrive where she is now. People claim that the American Dream is a thing of the past, but my mother is a testament to how it lives on. Now, I have seen where my mother began, and can contextualize her journey—from leaving Malaysia, to getting a PhD in the United States, eventually settling here and building a comfortable life in the Washington, DC area.  My mother worked tirelessly to get where she is now, and to make life easier for me. Seeing that firsthand was a profound reminder not to take the life I have for granted, and that I owe it to her to pay it forward, and do the same.

Saving Babies



Chart showing Exclusive Breastfeeding practices in different countries. From UNICEF.



As of January, I switched from working for the State Department on forestry and health to working for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on maternal and child health. The work has been fascinating, and I have been learning about USAID’s programs here, as well as helping to manage them. I’m also becoming well-versed on best practices in perinatal and neonatal health—like exclusive breastfeeding and Kangaroo Mother Care (to be explained later). These sorts of best practices appeal to both the nerdy policy wonk and the crunchy humanitarian aid worker in me.

In the U.S., discussions I’ve seen on the baby formula/exclusive breastfeeding/combination debate have tended to focus on questions of what is better for a child’s IQ.  In Indonesia, the debate is, well, not really debatable.

It goes like this: to mix baby formula, you need to use water. And when you’re in the village, access to clean water is a rare luxury. The result? Formula mixed with e. coli, or other waterborne diseases. The babies fall sick, and are ill-equipped to fight off illness because they did not receive antibodies from their mothers’ breast milk. Those children, due to their sickness, often suffer from diarrhea and malnutrition, leading to growth stunting at best, and death at worst.

Let’s compare this with the poor mother who cannot afford baby formula and only provides breast milk. The child is protected from pollutants in the water, is provided antibodies it needs to develop a strong immune system, and also forms a strong physical bond with the mother. The data prove it: Breastfed babies are six times more likely to survive than babies who are not. Like I said—there’s really no debate here.

The problem is that, the way baby formula is marketed, many women believe that it is better than breast milk. After all, why would there even be a market for it if it weren’t better?  To complicate matters, where there have been natural disasters here in Indonesia, donors have flooded villages with donations of baby formula, and mothers become used to using it. And when mothers are not breastfeeding, the milk eventually stops being produced, and the baby has no choice but to rely on formula.

Ibu Robin Lim from the
NGO Bumi Sehat says this
translates as, "Exclusively
Breastmilk, Dude!"

Recognizing this problem, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) here have been trying to push the “ASI Ekslusif” agenda here for the first six months of a child’s life, and then in combination for up to 2 years of age. ASI is an acronym for breast milk, and this means “Exclusively [providing] Breastmilk.” The Indonesian Ministry of Health is also on board, and the President’s Office has recently taken up the issue. Soon, there will be a national law promoting exclusive breastfeeding and limiting the methods that baby formula manufacturers use to promote their products. In the past, it was given out at health centers for free. Soon, this will not be possible. This law is a part of a national initiative to improve nutrition in Indonesia, which is supported by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the World Health Organization, the United Nations, and NGOs.

The other best practice that I have been working with is Kangaroo Mother Care, or KMC. It is a technique to help low birthweight babies (notably, premature babies) to gain weight—and survive. To date, Indonesian health centers have prioritized buying incubators for these babies. But in the village, electricity is unreliable, and incubators are expensive to acquire and maintain. Meanwhile, research has shown that when a baby is consistently held, skin-to-skin, to a person for 24 hours, 7 days a week, s/he gains weight at the same or better rate than in an incubator. The person doesn’t even need to be the mother. So the father can have the child wrapped to his chest for a while, then the aunt, and then the next-door neighbor. Also, while incubators theoretically provide a sterile environment for the weak child, the risk of hospital infections remains very high, and it appears that these children still survive at the same rate when not in an incubator.

So what does this mean? It means that there is a no-cost solution to improving premature child survival. No electricity or fancy equipment is needed. But what is needed is behavioral change. Health professionals in Indonesia continue to rely on incubators, and some have made nods to KMC by permitting the mother to hold the child for short periods of time. However, “intermittent” Kangaroo Mother Care does not have the same success rates—it must be constant.

USAID, through its programs, is helping to provide training to health workers on Kangaroo Mother Care and Exclusive Breastfeeding. One USAID program hosts “Kelas Ibu,” or “Mother Class,” in villages to teach mothers and expectant mothers about the importance of breastfeeding and birthing with the assistance of a midwife.  It will take a long time for mothers and health professionals to accept these practices, but I am proud to support USAID’s efforts from the national to the village levels to improve the health and survival of women and children. I’m hoping to get a chance to conduct some site visits over the next couple of months to see this work firsthand!

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Happy Chinese New Year 2012!

In Malaysia, people say, "Selamat Tahun Baru Cina." Tahun Baru means "New Year," and Cina (pronounced "Chee-nah") means, well, China, or Chinese.

Interestingly, in Indonesia, people say, "Selamat Tahun Baru Imlek." Why "Imlek"? Indonesians prefer to say "lunar" rather than "China/Chinese," because--I am told--the Chinese population doesn't want to be known as Chinese. Massacres in the past, related to Communist suspicions and business success, have caused the Chinese to be wary about standing out. And so this very important holiday can be celebrated with a little less trepidation, they call it by its more pan-Asian name, the Lunar New Year, even though in Indonesia, it appears to be mainly the Chinese who celebrate it.

Wishing you luck, prosperity, and good health in this fortuitous Year of the Dragon!

A Chinese New Year shop selling lanterns and other paraphernalia in Segamat, Johor District, Malaysia

Selamat Tahun Baru Cina 2012! Melaka, Malaysia

Same same...but different

I will confess that I haven't been writing much about the culture here in Indonesia. I think it's because it is surprisingly familiar. This in itself is remarkable, I guess--of all of the countries where I have lived or worked, most of which are in Africa, it was easiest for me to acclimate here, like easing into a pool of warm water.

This isn't to say that I'm not endlessly fascinated by some of the things I've seen--such as the popularity of colored contacts among women here, or how they wear form-fitting clothes that leave little to the imagination, but wear a headscarf. There is no clearer indicator of the development of a middle class in Indonesia than the growing prevalence of orthodontic braces among adults. And it's interesting to watch the city trains in the morning, with people piled on top for a free ride (or used to--a couple of days ago, to deter these riders, the government suspended concrete balls above the trains that have the potential to kill. So now, if you want to ride on top of the train, you have to try not to fall off AND try not to get slammed in the face with concrete).

My comfort here is undoubtedly due to my mother, who is from Malaysia. Malaysia is, in some ways, culturally similar to Indonesia. As a result, without being fully aware of it, this culture permeated my childhood and my household.

The food is the same. The creamy rice porridge with chicken that my mother gave me when I was sick as a child is a typical Chinese breakfast that we call "chook" in Cantonese (it's otherwise known as "congee"). Here, they serve the same porridge, and call it Bubur Ayam. It's served every morning at the canteen at the Embassy. Beef rendang, a dish in which beef is stewed in coconut milk and spices, is common to Malaysia and to Sumatra, Indonesia's large western island. Mie goreng (friend ramen noodles), Kwetiau (fried flat rice noodles), and Pisang Goreng (fried bananas) are all dishes that I ate growing up. My comfort food has always been noodle soup with beef, fish, and shrimp meat balls--and you can find this dish, Mie Bakso, in every warung, on every street corner here.

The language is familiar. My mother doesn't speak much Malay anymore, but I somehow grew up with the sounds. Malay is very close to Bahasa Indonesia--their relationship is akin to that of American English and British English. It has been surprisingly easy for me to pick up the sounds, the tones, the rolling "r" of the language. I figure that it must be from the stories my mother would tell me about her time in Malaysia--and even the way that she rolls her "r."

In my job, I work with a number of Indonesian staff. On the first day, I met the senior local staff member with whom I would be working most closely. As she turned around from her computer to greet me, my mouth nearly dropped open.

She looks exactly like my mother. And when I say exactly, I mean exactly.

This has meant that, when I have found myself in international negotiations on major issues, I look over to my right, and there is my mother, at my side. I always jump, and then remember that it's actually my colleague. I also have to restrain myself from wanting to hug her all the time. We've become very close, and I have since informed both my mother and my colleague of their respective doppelgangers....so my colleague won't be surprised if I am overcome and end up hugging her without warning.

Most remarkably, though, is that I blend in effortlessly here. This was never the case in Africa. Everyone around me, for the first time in my life, looks like me. This means that I can blend in, fly under the radar. My experience in Indonesia is different from most of the expats I know because, by virtue of the way I look, I'm treated like an Indonesian. This means I can usually get Indonesian prices at markets, and I don't have to worry as much about being taken on a "bule" (pronounced "boo-lay", it means "foreigner") route around the city. And by the time I open my mouth to speak my stilted, textbook Bahasa, it feels like I've already been accepted--into what, I'm not sure, but it feels like I've been let in.

And then, like clockwork, the Indonesian person I'm talking to asks, "Where are you from?" When I tell them the U.S., they look quizzical and say, "But...your face. It looks like an Indonesian."

I can't get over how hilarious this is every time I hear it.

And when I tell them my mother is from Malaysia, they always exclaim, as if they knew it all along--that I'm not reeeeally American, just sort of.

*  *  *

I've never been to Malaysia. Being in Indonesia, with its proximity in geography, culture, and language, makes me feel like an expatriate American who has never been to the U.S. but has been sent to work in Canada for several months. Canada and the U.S. share many commonalities, but to an American, Canada's just not home.

This proximity to my mother's native country left me wracked with guilt; why hadn't I visited, despite being a short, direct flight away? And so, I reached out to my mother, who contacted an uncle of mine that I have never met, who still lives in her village and runs the family business. I now have a plane ticket in hand, ready to discover my mother's history--and therefore, mine as well.