Authenticity in Indonesia - Jenny

Brett and I set out to experience the authentic world...the real people, cultures, countries. After the first six weeks of traveling, an unsettling feeling was creeping in. Where was the connection with the locals? Our yearning to connect authentically with many people felt cheap. We are relaxing, vacationing, dining while the locals are laboring, going about their daily chores, sometimes even serving us, often just trying to make ends meet. And there is the obvious socioeconomic discrepancy that taints even the best intentions. When one is revered based solely on location of birth, and is seen as business for the tourist industry, a cynicism grows regarding any “meaningful” conversations. Also adding to the authenticity conundrum is the factor of time. In order to reap the rewards of a bilateral and equal exchange, some level of trust and relationship-building is necessary. And this sort of travel doesn't lend itself to this kind of time. If we become involved by donating money or doing volunteer work, the relationship seems more fair, but still not equal. So, we are realizing that the depth we seek may not be possible, but that we can still glean bits of connection with people everywhere we go.

The unsettling feeling doesn't stop there. Beginning in China, there seemed to be a loss of cultural soul. The Mao years stripped China of much of its character and historical traditions. But something greater than that was experienced. The elders seemed to have a resignation about them, while the younger generations seemed to have little concept of ancient Chinese culture, which appears to have been watered down by “modernity”, science, technology, and progress. Dances are staged. Works of art are replicated thousands of times over, and are being marketed as “originals”. Tourism and making the sale has stripped much dignity from the vendors, begging at every chance to not only make a sale, but to try to fool any would-be buyer into paying huge excesses over what an object is worth. Gone, I think, are the times when a traveler is invited into a local's home out of kindness, and the “find” of an original hand-made artifact is relatively non-existent. Travel, even in the smallest of towns, seems to be an industry.
Just as this world started to feel soul-less and staged, we landed in Indonesia. Still a place of richness, connectedness, authenticity. Not to be confused with pure authenticity. Bali and the Gili Islands were quite touristy. But there exists in Indonesia a pride, a deep familial thread, that binds generations and keeps the cultural torch burning brightly. In this realization, I think Brett and I began to see that our experiences will most likely vaccilate between true authenticity and the sickeningly commercial nature of tourism in all of its forms. But after Candirejo, Central Java, Indonesia, we know that authenticity and rich cultural souls still exist. Will travel in another 100 years reveal a world void of the richness and variation of “other cultures” in the face of globalization? I don't know. But I do know that it still exists in the present. And it looks much like this, during our homestay in the village of 4,000 people called Candirejo...

~I sit in a bamboo armchair in its broken yet functional seat in front of the home of Budi and Morni as the sun rises. The smell of wood burning from nearby kitchens preparing breakfast mixes with the cloud of dust filling the air from the neighbor sweeping the dirt in front of her home. With a short brittle straw broom she labors removing trash and forming clean lines on the ground, like I do with the vacuum cleaner. The small pile of litter is burned on site, and adds to the cloud. Two adolescent chickens race by my peripheral vision leading my eyes upward past the parked motorscooter, past the magenta flower-filled tree hosting the largest butterfly I have ever seen, to the random scattering of men beginning to congregate at the crossroads – men donning batik wrap-around sarongs, pressed button-down shirts, sandles, and peci, the circular felt hats that Muslim men wear. Music resembling a slow Arab folk song plays in the distance, joined by voices greeting each other with “Salamat pagi” (good morning), the occasional puttering of a 100cc motorscooter engine, and, is it? Could it be? Yes, it is...the whistle on the back of an incoming homing pigeon, signaling the upcoming pigeon competition.

Just last night we ate dinner at the simple home of Budi and Morni. They are 30 years old, and Morni is four months pregnant with their first child, a boy. Much of the food Morni prepares is fried in coconut oil...tofu with carrots and cabbage, tapioca, potatoes, and the ocassional chicken. Budi says they eat a chicken about every two weeks. I asked how they choose the chicken to be sacrificed...he responded “We take the slowest one!” After dinner Brett and I bathed in the mandi Indonesian-style bath, using a ladle to pour water from a well over our bodies in an outdoor concrete structure that shares the backyard with the chickens and goats. It is time, Budi, tells us, to go play in the gamalan orchestra, succeeded by a dance (or two) following the gamalan. Three evenings a week the villagers gather to play clangy repetitive trance-inducing music on instruments resembling drums, xylophones, and gongs. They invited Brett and me to play with them. 16 16 16 16, 56 56 56 56...I'm doing it! I'm doing it! Wait, where is 5, oh wait, 1, agghhh! We were the only foreigners present, and clearly not the best at gamelan. Next, we attended the first dance production – talented dancers in beautiful, jingly, elaborate costumes. Again, an all Indonesian audience of villagers, with lots of families and children running around. Our awkward, gangly whiteness stood several heads above the crowd. We got a lot of stares, and a lot of smiles. At a break the dancers left the stage, and the two hosts suddenly pointed to us and said something into the microphone about “the Americans” and “welcome”. The crowd of 50-100 Indos all turned to examine us.
Then we all three (Budi, Brett and myself) hop on his trusty little scooter to the next dance, a more “casual” production of locals with old worn costumes and a dirt floor. The characters came out with some semblance of order, but over the next hour would regress into a chaotic messy group of trance-dancers eating glass and fire, and falling on the ground lifeless, requiring full assistance to eventually get back on their feet . I asked the 18-year-old villager next to me of one of the men, “Is he okay?” She casually answered, “Yes, of course. The devil just took his soul.” Duh.
Not only was this finally the authenticity we craved, but the perfect paradigm of Indonesia. A Javanese village of Muslim farmers who pray five times a day in a mosque, who build homes and educate their children in ways influenced by the Dutch, whose art and dance is Hindu with relics of mysticism and animism, and whose cuisine and architecture bears a striking resemblance to the Chinese.

Authenticity revealed. The world is still pretty big.