Marriage?

When I taught the intermediate class last period, I found an interesting statement to comment. It says that "Marriage should be the first priority in life". Awww, that was so "general mind", eh?

Most of my students stated their disagreement, saying that marriage is not the first priority, but should be the second or third. The bottomline is, it is not the first priority, but still in the top three. The reason was, the social construct oblige them to do so. People do not want to grow old as in-eligible bachelor. As single elder living only with a group of cats, sitting in a rocking chair and wearing their sweater all the time.

Jiah! What is so wrong with the social construct? Putting all those ideologies of marriage life and happiness. When you remain unmarried, you will automatically fall into the blackhole of misery. When you marry, you will have all the happiness in the world. And suddenly society assume the robe of almighty, bestowing happiness and misery to people.

Then what's with all the divorces? Then what's with all those successful bachelors and bachelorettes?

Regarding the priority thingy, is it true that marriage should be in our priority at all? Well, got no right to judge people's choice though. But, aren't there more important things in life??

Memento from the Public Lecture

When I went to the public lecture by Prof. Chua Beng Huat, I expected to find a great deal of information about Cultural Studies. The Cultural Studies for Dummies. A very impossible expectation, really, for almost all attendants in the public lecture were experts. At least, they know and have studied more about Cultural Studies than me.

The notion that Prof. Beng Huat delivered to us was challenging though. He challenged us to conduct a research of Cultural Studies in Asia by giving some researchable topics. Mostly the topics he presented took root in the popular culture.

One of the discourses that got my attention was the discussion of Indonesian sinetron. We cannot deny the fact that Indonesian sinetron rules the film marketing in South East Asia, at least in the Malay speaking countries, which include Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Southern Philippine, Southern Thailand, and Southern Vietnam. In this point, nothing can topple its domination yet.
The basic reason of the domination, Prof. Beng Huat explained, was the fact that most people wanted to see someone different from themselves. They are tired with themselves, and thus also despise seeing their own reflection as a leisure time entertainment. For example, Singaporean are tired seeing fellow Singaporean with a familiar problem and presentation in their TV Screens. Same thing happen to other countries. They wanted to see something “alien”. By seeing “alien”, they will not be able to identify themselves to the characters they are watching. When the characters do stupid things, they will be able to justify that it is done not by their fellow citizen, but by the neighboring countrymen. When the characters do something amazing, they also keep the distances, and thus providing dreaming space to the audience.

Listening to his explanation, it raised a big question mark within my mind. The same phenomenon also happen in Indonesia as well. Does this mean that the characters in our sinetron actually do not portray Indonesian? Does it mean that sinetron occupies a domain of itself? Excluded from the real cultural boundary existed in reality? Since most of our people also watch sinetron so that they are allowed to dream of experiencing the glamorous lifestyle being portrayed in the program?
The next big question that popped up in my mind was, does this mean that we are experiencing some kind of cultural identity crisis? That we need to represent ourselves in something that is not us?

On one hand, this phenomenon is nice, in terms that at least in one thing, Indonesia can prove its rule and dominance. On the other hand, this is terrible, the identity crisis is terrible. This could mean two things. First, it might be the beginning of a bigger crisis. Second, it might be the climax of identity crisis problem of our nation, which will give us a new direction to go.

Which one is which, it is up to us to decide. I would certainly vote and hope for the second one.

My Unborn Child

When I sat quietly in my room, your image came across my mind. And slowly but sure, my tears rolled on my cheek. The palpitating bosom came upon me, and I couldn't breathe for a moment.

I remember every moment that I spent with you and your mother. I reminisce the time when we decided to pick a name for you, right after we found out that you are a boy. Your mum insisted give you a western name, while I really wanted to name you Seto. Yea, Seto, after the main character of Burung-Burung Manyar by Mangunwijaya. He stroke my soul the first time I read the book. A very strong character who believed in himself. Ready to face the consequences of every path he took, even brave enough to admit his mistake when he knew that he is wrong. And at the end, he remained unmarried and took care of his lover's boy.

Herbumi, your last name came from two Javanese words, Her and Bumi. Her means water, and bumi means earth. The combination of those two elements will create and nurture life itself. From the womb of mother earth, the seed will find the warmth and grow into life. However, without the water, any seed will not be able to grow bigger. This is where her takes part.

Those philosophies formed your complete name. Alexander Setadewa Herbumi.

Your mother and I talked about you the whole time. We were really expecting you, full of love. We planned everything, everything. Our friends knew all about you, pouring their hearts to you. Supporting me and your mom.

I sacrificed my time to take care of you, considering my busy schedule back then. I was still in my sixth semester, got so many classes and assignments. Teachings, projects, as well as having my SPD classes. But I didn't feel tired at all. I did them all for you, for my son.

I already imagined how will I spend my life with you, how will I play together with you, teach you how to be a real man, have a conversation about man's problem. I might not be perfect, but I will try to be the best dad you ever met.

But God's plan is not our plan. We arrived into that fateful moment, and POOF! All of our dreams faded away in an instant. You were gone. I might still be young and restless back then, but I do care about you. People might say that my problem was over with your departure from our life.

Ah, what do they know? It was one of the biggest loss in my life. My child, my son! And at the same time I lost you, I lost your mom as well. We were drifted apart by the loss, the tears created a great rift between us.

Well, who am I lamenting here? But I couldn't help but recalling you. Chanting your name in every second of my prayer. Revisiting you in my every dream each night. What I can do right now is only praying for you, realizing that even though you are gone from this material world, you will not forget your parents. I believe with my own heart, that you will watch over us. And you went first to prepare special place for us, and that one day we will be together again. In eternity.....

Bye, Seto.....

Nostalgic Moment

It was in the Interpreting class, and I decided to open the class by playing an Indonesian song. What my students had to do was interpreting the Indonesian lyric into English lyric. And the song was “Sekitar Kita” by Krakatau. A quite old song, dated back to 1997. Wew, it was 13 years ago. Actually the real reason of choosing the song was because it is not a mellow love song, and it is full of social message.

When I played the song, my mind returned back to elementary school. The song hypnotized me, arousing many memories of my childhood. It is a jingle for my small group of friends back then. No, even when we gather, sometimes we still sang the song.

I remembered when we still donned the red and white uniform, thinking nothing other than study and play. The moment when innocence was still in the air. All we know were friends and foe, black and white.

A small group with the name that is not changed up to now, which FYI a bit embarrassing right now, The Greatest Kids. Hehehe! But we are no longer kiddos, we’re grown up. One of us suggested that we keep the name, since we have to maintain the “kiddos” side within ourselves, to balance the suffering of the world with the cheerfulness.

Acted like a group of superheroes, we decided to create a code name for each of us. Silly idea, but we worked that out. In fact, we still remember those names we created from parodizing the name of famous figures. I assume the identity of Michelangelo Bakarroti (a parody of Michelangelo Bounaroutti) myself. Caessar, the first ranker of the class, took the coat of Chriskapurbarus Colombus (taken from the founder of Puerto Rico). Cing-cing, the tough girl as well as warrior princess wannabe, went with the code Ledeng Van Betetman (this one is a bit tough, Ludwig Van Beethoven). The princess of the class, Agita, was given the honorary title of Marie Mencuri (taken from Marie Curie). The most feminine girl among us, Liana, inherited the name of Hellen Kolor.

Ah, the memories! But the song was ended, and I had to reassume my role as the lecturer in the class. My memories faded. I was dragged back into reality. The song still lingered In mind, though.

Slama dunia masih berputar,
Perbedaan tak pernah pudar,
Terbawa keangkuhan manusia
Tak ingin membagi rasa…….

Silly Complaint

I happen to stumble on a ridiculously hilarious comment in readers' letter at KOMPAS. It was about the movie Inglerious Basterds. Yeah, the one with the Brad Pitt.

The lady who wrote that (and again, it is always lady who wrote those silly complaints!) emphasized on the children. Yep! She went to the movie theatre and saw that some parents brought their children to watch the movie. The movie itself, turned out to be vulgar and violent. Well, it is a movie about WW II, for God sake!

To make things worse, this lady claimed that it was the responsibility of the censor board to make the movie suitable for all audience. Ummm, knock knock! Have you heard about film rating? PG-13? 17+? M?

I agree that those violence should not be watched by the children. But it is completely the responsibility of the parents, not the responsibility of the censor board! @(*#^@*#&*&#(%#%#%$% What were you thinking, lady? Putting all the blame into the government and leave the stupid parents innocent? The parents should know that it is not a film for children, and thus they should leave the children. However, they should also give extra guidance to the children.

Imagine if the censor board cut all the violent and vulgar scenes.. It will be like watching porn without all the sexual acts. Hehehehehehe!