Old Friends, Temples, Batiks - A trip to Indonesia

My memories of Indonesia go back to 1963 when I read that, under Sukarno's bungled economic policies, the price of an egg had risen to Rupiah 300 (or was it 30,000?). An egg in Sri Lanka cost only one tenth of a rupee at that time. I wondered how someone could mess-up an economy to that extent. Later, the massacres of 1965 and Suharto's rape of the national economy further disillusioned me with the country. So, when I received an invitation for a plenary speech at a conference in Central Java, I accepted mainly because of Gunawan.

In the past couple of years, I have been Googling to find old classmates from my days at the American University, Washington DC, 1984-85. We had been a small, diverse group of international students and our foreignness had brought us closer. With my career coming to an end, I had an urge to find them and, if possible, see them again. 

Gunawan came from Indonesia and had returned to Jogjakarta, his hometown. A trip to Java would mean that I'd have the chance to see him again. Jogja isn't an attractive city. Hot, humid, crowded, polluted, with broken sidewalks and kamikaze motorcyclists. If not for Gunawan, I certainly would not have gone there.

When he came to see me at the hotel, he still seemed the smiling, roly-poly, not very sociable character I knew nearly 30 years ago. In Washington DC, he preferred to lodge off campus with an elderly lady, and freely admitted that he only ate boiled rice and chicken wings. He is 57; I thought he was much younger.

This is Gunawan's family. Wife Mercy, son Sandy (21, a college student), and daughter Roslyn, 17, in high school. Ironically, although I spent two days in Jogjakarta, I did not go to his home by invitation. I was taken only after I reminded Gunawan that I would like to see his family.

Gunawan has taught at Sanata Dharma University, a Catholic institution, for more than 30 years. He has never left Indonesia since his return from the American University. How starkly different our lives have turned out to be!

In Jogjakarta, I bought two beautiful batiks. Indonesia is the birthplace of batiks and the skill later spread to Sri Lanka and many other Asian countries. Sri Lankan batiks mostly display local events such as the Kandy Perahera and flora and fauna. These batiks are unusual in their bold colors and surreality. 

During a visit to the local Sultan's Palace, I saw striking examples of Dutch architecture (below). The Dutch ruled Indonesia and Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) at the same time and this is what Wikipedia says about the migration of Javanese and Malays to Ceylon. "The Malays of Sri Lanka (also known in Sinhalese language as Ja Minissu, Javanese) originated in Southeast Asia and today consist of about 50,000 people. Their early ancestors came to the country when both Sri Lanka and Indonesia were colonies of the Dutch, while the second wave (1796–1948) came from the Malay Peninsular, when both Malaya and Sri Lanka were in the British Empire.

Most of the early immigrants were soldiers, posted by the Dutch which later continued by the British for colonial administration to Sri Lanka. Other immigrants were convicts or members of noble houses from Dutch East Indies (present day Indonesia) who were exiled to Sri Lanka and who never left."

Going by their family names, a Gunawijaya (with its Sanskrit origins) would be Javanese and an Amith or a Dole would be Malay. My wife Fawzia, whose maiden name was Hannan, could probably trace her ancestry to the Malay Peninsula. 

Below is a colorfully striking ceiling at one of the pavilions of the Sultan's palace. I saw similar ceilings on a visit to Bali last year.

In contrast to the ceiling was this kerosene stove used by a previous Sultan, whose culinary skills were noteworthy. I had not seen a similar stove since the 1970s, when they were common throughout Sri Lankan homes. The center bottle was filled with kerosene and fed the two burners on either side. I always wondered if the bottle would explode due to the high heat. These stoves have now disappeared from Sri Lankan kitchen, having been replaced by gas cookers.

The colorful school uniforms of these students are so different from the white uniforms worn by Sri Lankan students and the casual clothing of typical American students. In Sri Lanka, a hot and humid country, students are compelled to wear ridiculous ties.

I assume the veiled students are Muslims and those in skirts are Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus.

After two days in Jogja, I traveled to Borobudur, the site of the famous Buddhist temple. Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world, but it had also been Hindu and Buddhist, and thanks to Dutch and British influence, a significant Christian population is evident. Churches are everywhere. VS Naipaul, in his Among the Believers (1981), a travelogue through Islamic countries, contrasted the sulky Malaysian Muslims with Indonesia's smiling faces. But, all is not peaceful. A church in Solo (close to my conference site) was bombed last month and I am told that photos of the suicide bomber has appeared on Facebook pages as a hero.

Borobudur is located in rural surroundings. Unlike a typical Buddhist shrine in Sri Lanka, which would be dominated by a cone-shaped stupa or dagabo, Borobudur is stocky and cubical, akin to a Hindu temple or kovil. I found that Hinduism and Buddhism had flourished in the 9th century, when Borobudur was built. Hinduism came first so the Buddhist shrines may have been built where Hindu places of worship had existed earlier.

A sunrise view of Borobudur was much hyped and I paid Rupiah 175,000 to be woken at 4 am, wrapped in a silly piece of cloth, and escorted by torchlight to the temple. It was a ripoff. The sun did not appear, and soon after 6am, hundreds of local tourists were wondering around, minus the cloth and at a much lower fee. Anyway, Borobudur is worthy of a visit if one already happens to be in Central Java, and I probably shouldn't be grumpy.

Borobudur at dawn

A bas relief in very good condition. Not all the figures were of Buddha and other holy me and women. Animals, farmers, and scenes from ordinary life were also depicted, especially at the lower levels.

The cube shape of Borobudur. All solid rock, gray, apparently transported to the site. Such a contrast with Sri Lankan Buddhist shrines.

With another visitor, I later hired a horse cart and toured the surroundings. I was in for a shock at the "Buddhist" temple at Mendut. From the outside, it resembled a Hindu shrine. After entering the temple and descending some steps, the large Buddha statue that came into view was unlike any I had seen in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Hong Kong, or Japan. The Buddha is usually depicted seated with folded legs (in a "lotus" position) or lying horizontally, apparently on his deathbed. But the Mendut Buddha sat comfortably with splayed legs, the first such statue had seen. I felt it was a vulgar.

Looking up, this is what I saw at the Mendut temple, a conical building in which the roof narrowed as it rose. I have no doubt that this was a Hindu temple which was converted to a Buddhist shrine. As far as I know, Buddhism was not spread by the sword, so why should Buddhist images be imposed on a Hindu Temple. How did the local Hindus react to this? Did the splayed legs belong to a Hindu deity on which Buddha's torso was superimposed? 

When  told the carter that we would like to see some Batiks, he took me to Studio Mendut nearby. It sold batiks, handicrafts, and paintings. The gentle Nur, who displayed the batiks in the absence of the Japanese owner, was generous with her time, so we got got to see and wear 100-year old heirlooms (priced at Rupiah 4 million) and buy colorful printed sarongs (above photos) for about Rupiah 100,000 each. In Sri Lanka, men wear wrap around sarongs and women, kabayas. They are draped differently. In Indonesia, I found that the draping was a lot more graceful and stylish. Nur showed us repeatedly how these sarongs should be draped according to the wearer's gender. 

On the following morning, we again hired the same cart to tour the village. We clip-clopped along narrow roads, passing rice fields, coconut groves, and fields cultivated with chillies, beans, and other cash crops. Tobacco plants, looking rather unhealthy, were scattered around. Water seemed plentiful. A small mosque appeared every 400 meters or so. We passed a village of potters and stopped at a tofu factory straight out of the 19th century. The floor was mud and men worked with crude utensils on a wood fired, clay stove. Cows were tethered in the next room.


The villages reminded me of Sri Lanka. The pot-holed roads, the coconut, jak, breadfruit, and teak trees, the green paddy fields, entire families riding on motorcycles. Somehow, the people seemed friendlier and more graceful than the folks back home. Laid back, killing time with nothing much to do. A decent house could be bought for about HK$200,000. I could easily settle down here. 

On to Salatiga, the location of the conference. The elevation is around 600 meters and I expected cooler weather. All I got was a heavy downpour and an unfriendly hotel (The Wahid). The city may have been a hill station for the Dutch rulers but is decrepit now. I went for a walk one morning and found broken sidewalks smelling of urine.

The conference was titled "Teacher Education in the Era of World Englishes" and the organizers, wisely, had invited three nonnative speakers of English, including me and Suresh Canagarajah, as plenary speakers. Suresh was my classmate at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanks in the late 1970s and again at the University of Texas in the late 1980s. When they invited us, the conference organizers did not know that we were both Sri Lankan. As a result, the attendees were treated to a feast of Sri Lankan English accents.


Suresh is a charismatic speaker and is a much respected academic, having risen to an Endowed Professorship at Penn State University. The photo shows me with Suresh and his daughter Phoebe, who is 17. Suresh and I had last met about 10 years ago. SeeingGunawan and Suresh made my Indonesian trip even more fulfilling.


The photo was taken at the lovely Kayu Arum Spa, probably the best thing about Salatiga. In the three days I spent in towm I visited the spa twice for sensuous, healing Javanese massages.