Excerpts from Indonesia II

Indonesische bzw. betawinesische Weisheiten:

Muttermilch ist scharf. Sie kann für den Säugling gefährlich sein.

Die möglichen schlechten Wirkungen von Muttermilch für Säuglilnge:
1. Wenn sie auf die Babyhaut tropft, kann sie Hautkrankheiten verursachen.
2. Wenn sie auf den Babypipimann tropft, kann die Muttermilch später Impotenz verursachen. Falls das passieren sollte, dann soll die Mutter den Penisschaft des Kranken mit ihrem Zehendaumen drücken.

Diese Weisheiten habe ich von einer alten betawinesischen Masseurin erzählt bekommen. Sie hat mir sogar als Beweis eine so ähnliche Geschichte von ihrem Nachbar verraten: In der ersten Nacht nachdem dieser Nachbar seine Frau geheiratet hatte, stellte er plötzlich fest, dass es mit ihm in seinem Hochzeitsbett überhaupt nicht gut klappte. Seine neugeheiratete Frau ging um einen Rat zu seiner Mutter, und die Mutter zu dieser Masseurin. Die Masseurin erkannte sofort diesen Zustand und die mögliche Ursache. Sie empfahl dieser traurigen Mutter, die obigen Prozeduren durchzuführen. Diese Mutter führte das bei ihrem Sohn wirklich aus und danach war er wieder gesund. Also, wenn es wirklich helfen kann, warum nicht?!?

[...]



Ikan Lele (Catfish/ der Wels) wird heute immer noch mit Menschensstuhl gefüttert. In Cabangbungin, Bekasi (3 Stunden Busfahrt von Jakarta) zum Beispiel habe ich es selbst gesehen, in einem langen Fluss, der mit vielen "Hubschraubern" beschmückt wird.



zu dem obigen Bild: so sieht ein typischer "Hubschrauber" aus.Aber unter diesem ist normalerweise ein Fluss oder ein See (mit vielen ikan lele!). Da freuen sich die ikan lele, wenn die Menschen zu diesem Klo gehen. Maaaahlzeeeiiiiit.....




Eine Zitat von masakmasak.blogspot.com:


"I had to satisfy my cravings for this - Pecel Lele which is essentially deep fried ikan keli (catfish). The fish was nice and crunchy that you could even eat the bones. Topped with the crunchy batter bits, I was happy reliving memories about this dish which I once ate at Jakarta."

Excerpts from Indonesia I

Jakarta, der 7. Tag/Samstag

Die Zeit bleibt stehen. Jede Ecke behält eine alte Erinnerung. Gleichzeitig sehe ich alles auch ganz anders. Ich sehe überall (ver)alte(te) Gesichter; Kinder, die ich überhaupt noch nie gesehen habe. Es ist, als ob ich eine Zeitreise gemacht hätte [...]

Unser Haus ist der absolute Kitsch, mit vielen blauen Wänden. Das erinnert mich an Schwimmbäder. Mein Papa hat 2 Schlafzimmer mit Klimaanlagen ausgerüstet, trotzdem ist es keine richtige Hilfe gegen das Kitschproblem. Vor dem Haus in unserem Garten wächst ein schöner Guava Baum mit lila Blumen. Der Baum streut seine Nadelförmige Blüte überall in unserem Vorgarten. Es ist eine sehr idyllische Szene, die ich sehr bewundere [...]

Unser Badezimmer ist etwas besonderes. Die zwei Badezimmer unten (ich schlafe zur Zeit in meinem alten Schlafzimmer in der ersten Etage) sind sehr schmutzig: mit von Dreck verdeckten Boden. In dem Bad im Wohnzimmer gibt es eine selbst gebastelte ziemlich lange Toilettenbürste (!!!). Mein Papa ist sehr stolz auf seine Werk, dass er die Bürste in eine Ecke des Bades gestellt hat: aber ohne Schüssel!!! Also: ein verdrecktes Bad mit einer nackten Toilettenbürste in der Ecke. Ich betrete dieses Bad nur, wenn ich überhaupt keine andere Wahl habe [...]

In a land where halal food is very important, (the government even built a tall building for a halal food institute) there is no guarantee that the food you eat is not poisonous. They are absolutely halal for sure, but no one has any idea if your food can kill you. I wonder what these people are thinking [...]

I miss him so very much. No, never I am going to stop falling in love with you.

shrive

Your mouth could be a vicious beast, which can rip off the heart out of any body, any thing. So think deeply, express yourself carefully.

Your tongue could be a very sharp sword, that can cut off the head of any body, any thing. So watch the way you talk.

Oh please forgive me for I have sinned.

The God of Small Things

At a flea market he lives, chatting with everyone, everything he meets. With his microscopic lenses he wanders registering the world in his head: composing words and frozen live scenes. When the rest of us is too busy with everything gigantic and big and enormous, he scavanges neglected details from every nooks and crannies, puts them carefully in his big box to enrich his collection: towers of keepsakes and memories.

At a flea market he lives, enjoying forever sun beamed out from the loud crowds in his surroundings. He counts all the clouds in the sky and seeks for the greenest tree over the hill everytime he looks out the window. He distinguishes different colors of droplets of rain and paints his own rainbow out of them.

You would, wouldn't you?

Go to the ocean without water
Bathe yourself in its fanciful vapor
So you wouldn't lose your winged wishes
In the jungle of ripened rice fields

Delusions could be your redeemers
So go dance with their golden mirage
Choose your own shade of colors
Use their emotions for your private collage

Under this ancient tree
I will wait patiently
For you to come to me
Then no more I will be lonely

haste

Here is everything still in chaos. I have to tidy them up bit by bit.
I have no idea what is taking me so long to finish this one single chore, but I still need time.

I often have bad dreams of being left alone, being the only one left when everyone has gone away. Then I would try to catch up in order to be with the others again; but I just can't. I would run as fast as I can, run and run and run, until I wake up with sweat on my forehead.

I am still tidying myself up. Rotten memories under my bed. Fear on the dark corners. Anger on the ceiling, low self-esteem on the walls. Traces from almost three decades of life time. I have to tidy myself up and throw all self-destroying things away.

I still need time and no one would wait.

The Holy Flame

The burning tire keeps on rolling; setting in-gasoline-immersed-waste in flame. Everyone cries their fear, anger and despair out loud. With tears on their eyes they stand still..and hate. All that was precious was burned down. Now hate is their only treasure, that would be kept carefully, polished shiny, bequeathed ceremoniously. Until someday they forget why they are doing what they are doing. "Our fathers' fathers have been doing it the whole time, so this is nothing but holy!"

I've been

I've been trying to understand how the world goes
I've been craving to comprehend why everything happens the way it is
Why do I have to feel all the woes
Why can't I just have my peace

Fiends wear masks of angels
Friends are just shadows in a foggy forest
I made acquaintance with those masks of angels
I bathed in the shadows of that foggy forest

Without the slightest doubt
with overall trust and no pout

No one ever bothered telling me
masks cover genuine faces
A rock can shadows never be
No one ever bothered showing me their paces

I've been waiting too long
for a simple answer
to end my confusion

Peace out!

So I found this particular text somewhere and since then on it has become my behavioral guidance to deal with other people.

"If someone hurts, betrays or break your heart, forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your eyes. If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not because they love you, but because they teach you to love and open your heart and eyes to things you would never seen or felt before.
Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from it every thing that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people you have never talked to before, and listen to them. Let yourself fall in love. Break free and set your sights high. Hold your head up because you have every right to do so. Tell yourself that you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for if you don't, no one else will believe in you. You can make of your life anything you wish. Create your own life and then go out and live it."


Wow, it sounds great, isn't it?

I always feel like Mahatma Gandhi every time I read it, think of it, or practicing its wisdom. However it is not very easy to be so skinny and just eat the simplest food, wear the humblest clothes all the time. And it is especially not easy not to hit back if you are getting brutally slammed down. Don't you think?

Thanksgiving

Dear God, thank you for taking care of me all the way. Thank you for teaching me everything I need to know about this world. Though it can hurt so badly, it does make me wiser and broaden my horizon with every cut, every wound, every salt spread on it. And I fully realize that I am the master of my own lifeline. I will never condemn you, no matter how hard I have fallen. Dear God, thank you again for bringing me up into the person I am.
Thank you that I can always experience wonderful things that save me everytime from falling from grace. It was also you, who taught me how a single little act of thoughtfulness can brighten up my life in just a snap of fingers. I realize now I don't need any spell nor potions. My love, faith, family and friends are my magic. They keep my world intact. They are my fort to keep all harms away. Dear God, thank you for them and I pray that my magic will be forever strong.

toothbrushing is fun!

A Bond of Two Souls in Love between Thick Concrete Buildings

A text for my newly taken English class:

Marriage is still a very important issue for me. It’s not just an arrangement written on a sheet of paper like many of us nowadays think. For me it has big emotional and psychological values. Getting married means to make a commitment as a couple to cherish each other for the rest of our lives, and to be for each other in times of joy and trouble. It also means that we are doing everything with good intentions, and that we are not afraid of taking responsibilities for each other. It means that we want to have children and raise them together as a family. It means that we have chosen to love our partner for the rest of our lives. There won’t be a sentence like “I don’t love you anymore” or “I have lost my love for you”, because we both try to preserve and nourish our seeds of love in every moment we breathe. Marriage is more than just a piece of paper; it is a union, a bond of two souls in love.

It is a pity that this kind of thinking is no longer a modern opinion. People tend to get practical and forget how beautiful it is to live their romantic side. A marriage institution is becoming more a burden than a blessing, and a relationship means two people who like to be together because they are sexually attracted to each other. When the attraction and the fun are gone, and so is the relationship. No wonder it is more practical for them to move on and seek for new happiness with a new partner without the complexity of marriage. They can just leave everything behind and don’t need to take any responsibility for what they have caused in other people’s lives. Relationships are getting nomadic. People’s hearts are getting colder.

A marriage might have lost its importance in the hearts of many people, but I can still see a lot of individuals who still think conservatively. Not just heterosexuals but also homosexuals in their own ways. Many homosexuals also yearn to seal their love in front of everything which is holy for them or in front of everyone who is important for them. So in my opinion they are somehow still “old fashioned”. As long as there are still people out there who believe in the beauty of a marriage life, I still think that I shouldn’t lose faith on the warmth of this society.

My comment: a little bit cliché, don't you think?

annoying pop ups

To Trick Time

How time zaps with an incredible force. Like a hurricane, twirling and swirling rapidly, taking everything with it in every direction it wants to go. You just have to go whirling together under its compulsion. You have got no other choice. You can not just stay and sit watching the ongoing tumult. (Bless those buddhist monks for being able to part their souls from their bodies and to prove out Einstein's relativity theory!!! There is not a concept of time as an in-one-direction-flying-streaming object. TIMES are flying everywhere they like.
Buddhist monks are really the most ecologically friendly types that have ever set their tiny feets on earth. The reason is because of this thing they believe and brag to exist, the thing called reincarnation. It is all about recycling. If you can still use the departed soul, why dump it and create a new one? It is really a sick idea to be so extravagant. I think a God would not be such a wasteful guy. Nor girl.
Reincarnation also means, that you can live forever. So long as it takes. So long as this blue ball named earth still exists. Or maybe so long as that powerful Element sometimes called God still exists. What a wonderful thing to think of! Of course you also have to expect finding yourself as a worm after your death if you were not a good person in your first life. But hey, you get to live! Perhaps if you lead a life as a pious worm, then you would be able to be reborn as a human being again, and of course with a touch of luck, you could remember your past lives.
Almost perfect. It would be better if you could also be together again with the one you love. Oh eternal love! Perhaps if you love someone so very much, your soul would be so very strong to seek out your loved one and unite with him in your second life, or your third, or your thirty fifth. It depends on the strength of your love, perhaps. How should I know? I might have to go to Tibet and ask the buddhist monks there, before time(s) overrun(s) me.

Maybe you can think of something?

My Escape

to feel not good enough
to feel underestimated
to feel insecure
to feel inferior

I do not want

So I run beyond my boundaries to search for a new world, hoping to have a good luck and to be able to start a new life, where there are no such bearings, which I fear. So much.

And I have found my safe place, where everything is green and flowery and beautiful.

But now a shadow comes from my most frightened past. It capsules me in layers of its colorless fears. Then I realized: I have been fossillized. I am a crippled fetus crouching farther in a dark cave with no ray of light. I need to break through.

So I run and run and try to overrun that shadow and ignore all the screaming around me.

They won't get me, not again.

I do not want.

KultUhr

Was verstehst du unter dem Begriff Kultur? Heute habe ich ein Seminar besucht, in dem wir uns mit dem Kulturbegriff beschäftigt haben (eine ziemlich unwichtige Sache zu tun. Aber hey! wir leben doch in einer gedeihenden Gesellschaft, wo jeder seine Zeit mit überflüssigen Dingen totschlagen darf!!!). In den Zeiten der Griechen verstand man unter Kultur alles Edles, Schönes, und Wahres. In anderen Worten: Theater, Kunst (Bildhauerei), und Philosophie. Diesen klassischen, engen Begriff finden die Experten nicht mehr aktuell, denn heutzutage sollten die alltäglichen Kulturelementen mitreinbezogen werden, dh. Agrikultur, Erziehungssystem und so weiter und sofort.

Diesem erweiterten Sinnetwegen haben wir jetzt mehr Probleme, die eigentliche Bedeutung von Kultur zu definieren. Alltagskultur hat so viele Facetten, dass man keine Grenze mehr legen kann. Es ist schon klar, dass das, was in einer Gesellschaft schön, edel und wahr ist, ist nicht immer schön edel und wahr in einer anderen Gesellschaft, und dazu kommen noch diese alltägliche Gegenstände, und alltägliche Gegenstände stehen nicht immer unter einem positiven Schirm. Menschen in Deutschland bzw. Europa können die Ausübung von Zwangsheirat nicht akzeptieren, weil es gegen ihre Menschenrechtsverfassung ist, und deshalb nennen sie diese Sitte Unkultur oder sogar Barbarei. Umgekehrt können die Menschen in einigen Ländern das nicht akzeptieren, dass die Menschen in Europa Freudianer sind. Sie nennen das auch Unkultur und auch sogar Barbarei. Man streitet sich, ab wann man etwas als Kultur bezeichnen darf.

Meiner Meinung nach kann man das überhaupt nicht abgrenzen. Dieser Begriff ist sehr subjektiv. Sehr subjektiv wie die Geschmackssensoren auf deiner Zunge. In Indien ging eine brave Frau mit ins Feuer wo ihr toter Mann zum Verbrennen lag (ob diese Sitte heutzutage noch geführt wird?). In Papua, Indonesien, lässt eine Frau ihren Finger abhacken, jedesmal ein Familienmitglied stirbt (noch sehr aktuell bis heute). Sie halten diese Sitte für sehr normal und machen das freiwillig und sind sogar stolz darauf, dass sie das tun. Sie werden nicht zustimmen, wenn andere Leute aus anderen weit entfernten Ländern plötzlich zu ihnen kommen und erklären, dass das, was sie tun Barbareien oder Unkultur ist (das ist, wenn sie das verstehen was Unkultur oder Barbareien bedeutet; oder wenn die Experten sich Zeit nehmen, um ihnen diese schwierige Begriffe zu erläutern). Reibungen werden vorkommen, zunächst werden sie sich debattieren (vielleicht brauchen sie dafür auch Dolmetscher--Juchuu!! Noch eine Stelle für uns!), einer könnte außer sich vor Wut sein und schlägt einen Experten. Die Sache entwickelt sich so wie immer seit den Zeiten von Adam und Evas Kindern. Da haben wir einen "Clash of Civilizations", wie Samuel Huntington in seinem Kopfkissenbuch mal prophezeit hat.

Wer kann/darf die Grenzen zu dem Kulturbegriff legen? Unesco? Kulturexperten? Professuren? Soll vielleicht Kulturpolizei erschaffen werden? Soll Kultur stets etwas Positives bleiben? Was heißt positiv für welche Gesellschaft? Was ist eigentlich eine Gesellschaft? Na, hier haben wir noch mehr Themen zur Beschäftigung von Menschen in einem gedeihenden Land.

built-in illusions

I despise the way one searches for every possibility one can find if it doesn't work here then it would work there if it doesn't work there then maybe it would work somewhere. I hate the way one tells another how innocent one is although actually one has so many foul things in one's pocket and always ready to use anything required to achieve one's goal without concerning if it would hurt another and then still dare say that one is honest and respectful. I loathe the way one plays with another's feelings and emotions and gives another wrong (better) impression of the whole situation then lets the other think how great and how pretty everything is when everything is actually already out of control from the other side of the fence. I curse how one makes another so blind with the love one sells and make another willing to offer everything that comes to hand for that illusion one brought.

in trance

swing my hip with your gentle arms
trace my crystal sweat with your alluring fingers
embrace my curves with your airy being
move together with me in harmony
blast our passions into the sky
I'll taste your fiery dip in my mouth
stir your bowl into a hot ring
melt my tongue inside your joy

salsa me!!!

comprehension

rockaby baby on a tree top
when the wind blows
the cradle will rock
when the bough breaks
the cradle will fall
down come baby, cradle and all....

the world being introduced to a child

répondez s'il vous plaît

Together with my pillow
I have crossed the border of sanity
Way inside the world of my blanket
I have built a house out of tangled black threads
On the comforting island of my bed
I have raised a beautiful garden of weed

On and on with my tiger I stay on my boat
The sharks are playing merrily in the wave
Such a breath-taking sight to see!
What a paradise to be!

I have placed the no disturb sign on my door
So worry not, my love, the orgy can begin
Please have a seat and sip your drink
My flesh will be soon served too

Just beyond the border of sanity
in a house of tangled black threads
with a beautiful garden of weed
I invite you to come and enjoy my maze