A week in Jogja

Yogyakarta – a city of half a million people in central Java –  AKA Jogjakarta, or just jogja (pronounced “johg-ja”) is the cultural heart and epicentre of Javanese heritage and tradition. Given the cultural importance of the place, and the prevalence of language schools, this is where they send bules to learn Bahasa Indonesia (remember: bahasa = language). So here I am, in Jogja, on a 1-week language course. Cool.

Indonesian (or simply ‘bahasa”) is a fascinating language. As briefly touched on in a previous post, Bahasa is a modern language essentially invented in the early 1900s as a unifying language for Indonesia. Derived from Malay (i.e., the language of Malaysia), it is similar to Malay, except they control-alt-deleted the grammar out of it. Quite literally, there’s little, if any grammar.

By no grammar, we mean, there are no verb tenses, no verb conjugations, no articles, no gender, plurals are not used/important, pronouns are optional, and very weirdly, there is no verb “to be” (I know, how can that be? It just is – excuse the pun). By comparison, apparently there are approx. 80,000 words in Bahasa, versus a million in English. So ya, for every word in Bahasa, there are 10 or so varieties of that word in English (plus/minus, of course). Basically it’s caveman language. Which hey, makes it easy to learn (so they say anyway, we’ll see). Saya bule! Trans: “I am a bule” J Amy, “dia guru” = “she teacher”. Actually, there is no he/she (“dia” is gender-neutral), so it actually doesn’t even translate.  Crazy.

Making it even easier for us bules is the fact that Bahasa uses the Latin (or Roman) alphabet (i.e., the same one we use), and, pronunciation is more or less the same as English (no tonal stuff like other Asian languages – thankfully). So ya, on day-1 you can be reading out loud like a pro, with everyone nodding in agreement, just not having a clue what you’re saying. Kinda funny actually J

Jogya is decent place. As typical for Indo, lots going on. A highlight of the week was hitting up the Kranton, AKA “the palace”, which is the local sultan’s residence. For the 3-dollar price of admission they put on traditional music-dance shows, which are stunning. Funny though, in classic Indo style, there is no mention of the shows or advertisements for the schedule or related info. It’s all word of mouth. Like, why would you need to know when the show starts? One can only assume that if you need to ask, well, you really shouldn’t be there J

The classical traditional music of Java is the “gamelan”, which is essentially an orchestra of xylophone-like and percussion/gong instruments. Hauntingly beautiful music. If you want to smoke a doobie and contemplate reality, Javanese gamelan is for you.  The music is accompanied by the hallowed voices of several men and women producing a trance-like background melody. It’s all topped off by several sets of traditional dancing. It’s all very similar to the Balinese gamelan/dancing we saw in Bali, expect for one fascinating difference, the Javanese music and dancing is the slow-mo version. Kind of like tai-chi with gongs. Light up another doobie and enjoy the show J (joking aside, don’t do the doobie thing. Indo has the death penalty for drug (including pot) offences, which they are not afraid to use).

Then there’s the go-jeks. “Go-jek” could be the single best idea anyone anywhere has ever had. It’s an Indo thing. Basically it’s the motorcycle version of Uber. You download the app onto your phone, click a few buttons, and wham, a guy on a moto with a green go-jek jacket shows up to take you anywhere you want. They’re just buzzing around town like flies, and the app sends you the closest guy, so the wait is minutes. Five minutes would be a long wait. Price to go across town: a buck fifty, helmet included. If it’s raining….rain jacket included! J Brilliant concept. Of course, like Uber, all the taxi drivers and traditional bicycle-taxi guys hate them. But you know, you can’t stop progress. I used it every day to go back and forth to my language school. No looking back now.

Jogja’s real claim to fame is as a base for visiting the various temples in the region. The bid-daddy of them all is “Borobudur”, the largest Buddhist temple on the planet. If you’re sharp and have been keeping track, you are now thinking: wait, I thought Indo was muslim? Correct. It all has to do with the various waves of conquering religions from centuries past. Islam is merely the latest fade. In the past (we’re talking a thousand+ years ago), Java went through a Buddhist period, and even a Hindu period (which is why Bali is still Hindu today….one answer to this gigantic puzzle called Indonesia).

In fact, the region is also home to the largest Hindu temple in SE Asia, known as Candi (temple) Prambanan. I had an extra day so I rented a bike (3 bucks for the day, nice; decent bike too – Kona hardtail) and spent the day riding through rice paddies to check it out. Borobudur, while the true prize, is a drive, and I just wanted to get some exercise. Besides, Amy and I will no doubt be back to hit up Borobudur. So ya, Candi Prambanan was my target for the day. Built in the middle of the 9^th century, it’s your classically huge, elaborate array of stone temples in the middle of the rainforest, that upon first glance conjures up one word: “wow” (followed by: “cool”). It is fascinating to think that long long long before the Euros even thought of paddling over to North America, people here were building these incredible structures (by hand, which is most amazing). Makes our history seem trivial.

OK, just sitting here at the Jogja airport waiting for my return flight back to the big smoke (JKT). Got my oleh-oleh for the gang back at the office. Oleh-oleh is….ah, that’s another post (google it, if yer curious).

Sampai jumpa.