The Indonesian Twilight Zone

More strange things have happened to me in the past week than I can count.

Last week, a man driving a pedi-cab/becak with no teeth looked at me and said--at least I think he said--"You is the best." or "You is the boss." I'm not sure which was iterated. But it was pretty cool.

Last week, a different man--an old-ish man with no teeth and bright blue eyes--said "Mongo [Indonesian greeting], honey."

I have been adopted by a construction crew of men working to build or re-build a house on my street. Any time i walk by the house and they notice, they greet me with a rousing "GOOD MORNING MISS!" (doesn't matter what time of day it actually is). If I make the first move and shout hello to them, they absolutely lose it. All the men come out from wherever they are working and begin shouting things like "Good morning! Selamat pagi! I love you I love YOU! Hello hello hello mister!" It brightens my day.

Today as I walked to school a very, very old becak driver rode by me and said the usual "Ya, naik becak" (ride the becak), but he said it with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face, and was chuckling the whole time. It was almost like he knew there was no way I'd get in the becak--as i tell all the local drivers no on a daily basis--and he thought the mere idea of asking me to take a ride was the funniest thing since Mr. Bean (Indonesians LOVE Mr. Bean).

And on Monday, well, I truly entered the IndoTwilightZone. I had been invited to give a "guest lecture" at a university in my area of Malang. The lecturer--a Lombok man with really good English, spoken with an inexplicable German accent--had asked me to give a talk about American culture, society, and values with his 4th year English students. So I fretted and planned and created a too-elaborate PowerPoint and met Mister Zainul outside my house the morning of the lecture (he was driving the company Suburban utility vehicle). Zainul starts mentioning that there will be some musical performances at this lecture so that my students can share Indonesian culture with me just as i am sharing American culture with them. Okay. Sweet.

I arrive at the classroom (thank god it was a classroom and not a lecture hall, I probably would have frozen in fear) only to see that there is an elaborate set-up in the front end of the room--several mic stands, a keyboard, lots of electric cords. Okay, I reason, this must be for the traditional Indonesian music performance. Well, people start to pile in for class, and it's revealed to me that there will be an MC presenting this "event"--and the presenter is none other than a third-place winner in the recent season of Indonesian Idol! Woo! So Amelia--or something like that--is dressed to the nines. She comes to the stage, pumps up the audience, introduces me in a rather grandiose fashion. I try to act like everything's normal and begin the lecture. The students are pretty clever. Unlike my high school students, it appears that they can actually understand me when I talk, comprehend the more advanced lexicon, and can speak English spontaneously. It was truly surprising and really enjoyable.

But as I switched to a new slide and new topic, suddenly Indonesian Idol interrupts me and says "Okay guys, time for the break!" I assume this is a water/bathroom break, but instead a girl named Tharie is called to the stage and asked to sing. An older man comes on "stage" as the keyboard accompanist, and Tharie begins singing the Dionne Warwick song "That's What Friends are For" (ie 'keep smiling, keep shining, knowing you can always count on me, for sure, that's what friends are for"). Why in God's name do Indonesians even know about this song? At any rate, Tharie makes a dedication to "all her friends," counts me as one of them, and takes her seat. Two extremely shy jilbab-girls then come to the stage and sing Indonesian love ballads. I actually really enjoy these songs, they are far better than their American counterparts. And lastly, Indonesian Idol comes back to the stage and serenades me with a jazzy, almost sexy rendition of "L is for the way you LOOK at me, O is for the only ONE I see, V is very very, EXTRA ordinary, E is even more than anyone that you adore..."

Not kidding. Not kidding. Not kidding.

After the musical break I resumed the lecture, took a number of interesting, thoughtful questions from the students, and Tharie graced us with Natalie Cole's "Route Sixty-six." I then spent thirty minutes in a photo session. Indonesians think it is hilarious to take photos with Bules, so I posed for about 50 individual and group photos.

It was a day that entertained, shocked, and boosted my ego to unhealthy proportions. But damn, am I grateful for every second of it.