Kirimi saya pesan saat kamu sampai di rumah.
Saturday, August 06, 2011
Text Me When You Get Home
Friday, July 22, 2011
Jum'at Bukan Hari Pustaka
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
The Boso Jowo Slang Continuum
Parental advisory : explicit content.
Suddenly today I missed my hometown in Malang, East Java, and started to be in awe why are its people are so thick-headed and they love to pitch on swear words (misuh) in Javanese language or “Boso Jowo”. Perhaps not everyone has the trait, but a large portion of us surely do. A high tension, right before your eyes while their eyes open wide , and with monstrous tone, they bluntly shout the words to you.
“Jancuk koen kirik..!!” You f**kin puppy…
“Pancen nggapleki koen cuk!!!” You certainly act like a b*tch…
“Nggatheli tenan iku lik….” It’s totally idiotic, dude…
“Makmu!!!” hmm it means that we are as bad as our mother… *sigh*
Those are the common phrases that are used in common youngsters’ conversation in Malang and also Surabaya, especially those who came from some under nourished ugly gangs who often roam around the street to get some entertainment, or just to be disobedient. Particularly, the elders, the drivers of mikrolet (some sort of public transportation) and the illegal parking helpers are the most common users of those lines. This was probably due to traffic tangles. Not to mention the students too. And none other than most of the Arema football hooligans who are most likely responsible for the massive use of those “curse” sentences. That was why my parents were being so cautious that they didn’t want me to have a bad mouth and turn out to have bad conduct. They always persuaded me to study hard so that I could be admitted into notable state schools, which they believed the environment is rather clean. To some extent, it’s true.
But not until my 17th birthday that I landed in Yogyakarta to become skilled at tricking people, I found that the Boso Jowo there was very different. Yes, although Yogyakarta is also a piece of the Java cake, the language tasted sweeter than Boso Jowo in East Java. The people’s gesture was very courteous, not like some of the ill-bred fellow of Malang who stares frankly at you when they think you got bad taste of fashion, or when they just dislike you. A low tune with appreciation often came from several guys like those of local street food vendors, who served you with hospitality. So far, I only found one word that most possibly the roughest swear word in Yogyakarta : BAJIGUR. It might be a deviation to hide the exact word aspired to be spoken that is BAJINGAN (criminal). I guess that Bajigur is also a sort of a beverage I think. Yogyakarta version :
“Bajigur, manuke ucul…” Dammit, my bird flees…
“Walah, aku telat iki, wasemik, bajigur…” Oh, I am late, darn..
“Wong kuwi bajigur tenan nilep dhuwitku..” That guy is so-going-to-hell to steal my money
“Bajigur, kopine kemanisen je..” Crap, the coffee is too sweet dude…
“Bajigur..”
I don’t understand exactly why there are differences between Boso Jowo Yogyakarta style and East Java Mode, although there are also some variety inside the latter province. I presume Yogyakarta people tend to keep low tuned even they are being freaked out. But that’s the essence of the culture, to be polite and act well mannerly. And another hypothese is that we, the East Javanese kids are the descendants of Ken Arok, was the King of Singosari who once justified all means to get crowned. He also told to be arrogant, rough, and chaotic. While in Yogyakarta, the kingdom of once established as Mataram still portrays the grace of living in the realm of the King as the resemblance of order.
And without realizing it, my Boso Jowo had become more into that of the mannerly one, and my friends in Malang keep boo-ing me about this. Thanks to four years and a month living in Yogyakarta.
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
Tengah Malam
Friday, January 09, 2009
Holiday Tipping Point
The next trip of my holiday then was to Surabaya and Sidoarjo. I went to follow my parent’s suggestion to meet our relatives and greet them Christmas. So on December 27 we dashed through an alternative eastern Malang to reach Surabaya by car. We were in the course of an escape route from the traffic jam and enrolled Pandaan-Gempol road, it was little bit raining though. I saw so many changes in people’s daily lives on the street, there were so many drifter and homeless along the street bank of Gempol, district of Pasuruan; and the traditional market was getting hectic as there were not many goods could be sold. I heard from my friend who is native to the vicinity before, that the gasoline was running out and it caused low productivity therefore lowering the living standards of the people around there. Housewives were not used to single out the LPG stove for cooking, and losing gasoline was a terrifying event for them, as they were lacking of information of the LPG stove distribution by government as an energy conversion program, not to mention the instruction of the usage is less than expected. But I couldn’t say much as I was following the road.
The first arrival were to my relative’s house on Sidoarjo, where we just hung around for about 1 hour and enjoy fried shrimp that was very tasty, it was so garlicious and saltious that I couldn’t get stuffed easy. Then we crossed the thoroughfare of Surabaya main highway and I went on a nostalgic spree on the road, I wonder when the last time I squander my day there was. On our route northern way, there were zoo with the Surabaya statue in the front, the Mpu Tantular Museum, Tunjungan Plaza Supermall, JW Marriot Hotel, Cito Mall, Pelita Harapan University, and a block of an industrial complex. After the passage, what was amazing me out is a multifaceted road consisted of colonial-built architecture. It took us to the colonial era all the way until we reached Jembatan Merah, a red-painted bridge where there was a fierce bloody battle between Indonesian troops and the more sophisticated NICA (Netherlands) militia that later marks the icon of the region.
There were not much recreation spot inside Surabaya except those superficial hedonic mall which were too glamour and rough as they displayed hyperbolic lifestyle. And oh, we just stopped by on Jembatan Merah Plaza to had a window shopping on the garment and footwear groceries, it was not kind of mall stuffs but it was still fun though. I’d rather call it a trade center where we could find stuffs with reasonable price. Well yeah it was hot and humid there inside, but I tried to enjoy myself and had a walk throughout the groceries. I remembered it was a 5 stories edifice with the classification of garment and textile retails, footwear retails, and tailor kiosks. Not to forget the food centre on the basement.
Tired of taking a walk around, we looked for a place to fill on our hunger. My uncle recommend such a famous eating place called Depot Tambakjoyo Asri if I’m not flawed, it could fit around 70 customers, they provided Javanese cuisine, but the eating place was too full of Chinese ornament and atmosphere, as the owner was Chinese. The fabulous thing was it displayed retro ambiance so that we could felt the old colonialized Surabaya “Surabaya tempoh doeloe”. We enjoyed our food on a long table; there were lots of incredibly huge aged photographs and figures which pictured the former Chinatown market.
The journey continued on the Pura Agung Jagad Karana Hindu temple. It was situated close to the center of the town, and the temple design was so Bali-ish; it established up in a large area of the district. My family intended to have a slight worship there. My impression to the temple was it was so clean and seemed to be maintained regularly. It reflected by the regular shift of the keepers there and habitual activities of the Sunday school and religious services there.
The visit to the temple marked the end of our tour there, and on the way home we chose toll highway to reach Malang in a little while. We arrived then following the railway and decided to take a brief look at the location of mud-flooded county caused by the leakage of the Lapindo Corp.’s oil-drilling activities in Sidoarjo, East Java. The splash of the leakage produced a large amount of mud and so far had drowned 5 villages since May 27 2006; and presently still continues on. On the eastern side of the Surabaya-Malang passage railway, there was a long-built stumbling block all the way of the toll to block the mud flow. The block was kept by some workers and scrutinizers there, but none of them was the expert to handle the damage that may come.
Unexpectedly, the villagers who lost their homeland were picking the visitor charge if we would like to have eye on the spot. Me with my two accompanies went up the blockage construction while paid IDR 15.000 --for about one and a half US Dollar-- to the villagers as a donation. A light rain welcomed us to see the mud lake. In the spot of the smoky and humid burst, there was a forklift machine and I had no idea what the hell was the guy driving it was doing. On a sudden moment, some fellows who introduced themselves as the collapsed village member offered us some video CD for IDR 10.000 of a series of events of Lapindo oil-drilling outburst. I refused to purchase. It was such a tragic situation where they had to exploit their own ex-village to keep the source of revenue for living.
The situation had become static since the first outburst, and nobody of the victims escapes time to look for alternatives of living. There are still a lot of refugees and it caused social problems. On the other side, it wrecked down the intercity traffic, where a piece of highway road had to be fallen and destroyed due to the incident. For just about 30 minutes watching the situation, we left that disastrous area and couldn’t find any idea about how this might come into account. The scenery had change much so that I could not capture to a larger extent about what it was really happened.
So far then, I had fun all the time in my trip, I wonder what would be in those cities when I come back someday, let’s just hope Surabaya would not drown as well, I treasure lots of memories there.
Chillout Break Music
I left the edge of year 2008 with some invigorating chains of events. Just to hang around with my fellows have gotten my mind out of its tiresome thoughts. Before I ended up arriving at my beloved hometown –if I could said so--
I spent the night listening to Nilam group’s recital, I was so excited that they played a bunch of my favorite love songs, both western and Indonesian songs. I thought the best feat was when they played “Especially for You” formerly sung by Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan. The tone was synchronizing with the composition and I never thought that she had trained a lot till her vocal reached wider range, and seemed so crunchy. I and my friend who watched her applied a song to them for a request, which was “Selamanya Cinta” by D’Cinnamons. They stroke it very fine.
I thought the show would continue went on every Saturday night since then, as lots of KONA customers were contented to it. It was astounding that Nilam had developed such progress, where I thought she never found a feed to relieve her hobby. Now I’m glad she had a room for herself.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Catch A Glimpse!! Check Your Japanese Language Mastery, Officially!
I was tickled first when the Japan Foundation announced the application for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) or else is known as Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken at the early September this year. This is my first time enrolled in such exam. I excitedly applied for the test and had myself a test voucher to take with this month. I picked level 4 from the entire 4 levels. I just wanted to measure my capability on Japanese language and gain feedback from it in the end. The items required for the test consisted of moji goi or the mastery of kanji (the Chinese characters which adapted into Japanese means), choukai or listening exam that was consisted of only 17 items, and the final part was about bunpou or syntax and vocabulary in Japanese.
In the meantime, I didn’t exercise much due to preceding task of my KKN and preparation of my graduation theses which was absolutely exhausting and confusing. Nevertheless, the result was beyond less expectation that I failed to make it into strategically planned. When it approached the d-day of the exam, I hurried the tempo of studying accompanied by my seniors Hamidah and Isti; they supported me in giving studying resources and taught me on how to deal with grammar items. I borrowed kanji exercise book which it eventually more suitable for expert and I got myself bewildered by the kanji strokes which exceeds 15 strokes. It really shattered my mind out, hehehe.
My seniors told me that there was nothing to worry about, the exam would be just fine and they believed in me. What a supporting occurrence, while I was afraid to give much confidence regarding my very self. I had not greatly experienced in revising Japanese even though I had learned it since the end of my high school term. Chiefly, my aim to study foreign language is to affix my capability in literature, since I’m always interesting in writing and literature stuffs, thus I’m dreaming of translating foreign books and journalisms into Bahasa Indonesia, like the ACT bids me to join them someday.
The test was planned to take time on 8 am, Sunday, December 7 - 2009. However, there was some inconsequential fact when I prepared before the day the test was executed. I stupidly learn the expert kanji and forgot to engage myself with the simplest one I even couldn’t handle! I studied till late of the night accompanied by my friend, and we got stunned due to Spiderman 2 movie on TV. At the morning, I rised late and couldn’t make my time for breakfast. And oh, it was raining, but not hard, out there. I was dashing to catch a bus to take me to Fakultas Ilmu Budaya UGM. When I got there, I should hunt for my test location which was room D 111 of INCULS…. Oh what a tiring sprint…. And next? The test was seized late, for about 90 minutes and it just about took away all my fortitude. The class was rather small and convenient, with only 15 test participants inside it. I fortunately got to the first row of the seats and it helped me concentrate a great deal.
The test was best explained as remarkably gorgeous!!! I’m sure I’ve done well that time. During the transition among 3 sections of the exam, we the participants was given the time to take a diminutive break, and yeah I had sufficient slight break to breathe. To conclude, it ended at 12.30 pm, and well it was still raining at the faculty. But I’d rather satisfied with my work and I’m waiting for March 2009 to take delivery of my score result.
The JLPT is organized once a year, usually the end of the year. The Japan Foundation sought after institutionalizing the requirements to enter Japan by holding such test, so that they wouldn’t get “lost in translation” if coming to Japan or applying to Japanese company worldwide. This occasion also only take place in certain spots, like Gadjah Mada University Yogyakarta, University of Indonesia Depok, Bandung, Makassar, etc where Japan Foundation established its representatives.
The JLPT is welcoming everyone to register, not merely those who take part in certain academic institutions but also for everyone concerned for it. The score, if we pass the exam, could be used as a value-added means of your foreign language mastery, especially for applying for institutions that concerning about foreign affairs, literature, Japanese companies and representatives, or even continuing your education overseas to Japan. After all, learning foreign language is much of an investment to yourself and don’t even lead to a waste if you really fond of it, while we could gain our knowledge and wisdom much more.
Visit JLPT and Japan Foundation official web page.

