Dream Chaser

"Somewhere beyond the night sky, Dreams do not sleep," you said. Gazing at a dim star, listening to you, I tried to force a sincere smile.

I looked at you, drenched in moonlight, And I realized my feelings for you. I want you to be happy, because, Shouldn't love hope for the best?

"So, if we just keep moving forward To the sunrise, everytime we wake up, And not staring back at our shadows, We'll be there, where dreams are true."

I saw you smiling bright with someone else. I told you I can't be at ease with you, And can't innocently be my own self, but What is love if it isn't heart-breaking?

If I said, straight-forwardly, "I love you", What would you do? Sometimes, I'm scared. I fancied our hearts felt the same thing As we're listening to the same song.

I turn my back on my lengthening shadow. The newly-born sun is blinding at first. I know I haven't changed good enough, But, I start walking to that direction,

To you, Dream Chaser.

Creative Writing: Final Article - "To Chiang Mai with Love"

Okay, so here's our last post for Creative Writing Course :( We were to write a feature article on topic of our choice, and our group, Alterium, decided to write about a lecturer of Bahasa Indonesia in the Thai Chiang Mai University. The following is our own writing, not yet edited by our lecturer, so grammatical errors and unpolished language may still show up here and there.

Credits:

Specially hearty thanks to my group mates Nurbani Trisna Wardhani and Okky Wicaksono, without whose helps, contributions, and supports this article would not have been possible.

And a final thank for our lecturer Labodalih Sembiring for teaching us creative writing this semester.

Photos by Hesti Aryani.

To Chiang Mai with Love

Alterium

Hesti Aryani’s fiancé has, quite accidentally, led her to find another love of her life, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

She first followed him to Thailand’s ‘city of culture and education’ settling things for his educational stay. But the two-week visit turned out paving the way to what she’s been doing, and loving, for two years: teaching.

Hesti is now actively teaching Bahasa Indonesia in Chiang Mai University (CMU). The first Indonesian native teacher there.

CMU Language Institute hosts her courses, which mostly about Bahasa Indonesia beginner learning at levels 1 and 2. Held either at 5-7 pm or 6-8 pm on weekdays, enthusiasm is seldom too low, with as many as thirty students could flock to each class.

They also have Bahasa Indonesia for tourism classes on some occasions.

Bahasa Indonesia is taught as an implementation of the government’s promoting Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community 2015. Every Thai university student should master, or at least learn, another ASEAN language for career possibilities in other ASEAN countries. CMU Language Institute makes available courses on other ASEAN languages. Burmese and Vietnamese languages are to name a few.

More recently, Hesti assumed a place in the teaching team in CMU’s English department. The Pekalongan-born had been a student in her alma mater Universitas Gadjah Mada’s counterpart and graduated in 2011.

---

Hesti fell in love with the northern Thai city during her first visit. And she fancied studying there too, with her fiancé.

However, while no graduate scholarship was available then, a twist of her life awaited already.

She met with the director of CMU Language Institute, who, apparently, had long longed to open an Indonesian class. Her fiancé, Wahyu Kuncoro, was offered a teaching post for that class in plan, but his full scholarship contract restricted him from working.

“Then the director asked me,” she said. “I really was interested, but I had yet to graduate.”

Another rendezvous and an educationally-attractive CV later, “He [the director] then decided to give me a deadline until November 2011,” a six-month period to finish her bachelor thesis.

Quite sadly, she came home with this excitement to her not-so-excited parents telling her to finish her undergraduate study first.

And she rushed her bachelor thesis all the way from May until August. But the ‘really hard time’ ended up sweet. Her parents blessed her with their full support, because of which and a fiancé’s waiting for her there, she took off to the Buddhist Kingdom.

---

The special status as the first native Indonesian teacher in CMU not only had its perks, but also minuses. Preparing the teaching materials was one.

“I couldn’t just teach Bahasa Indonesia, so teaching material preparation was the first snag in my teaching career.

“The challenge was that I only applied what I got from TEFL, Teaching English as a Foreign Language. So I put into use several language teaching methods in my classes,” she explained.

And the language gap she’s trying to bridge was a barrier for her too.

“I hadn’t been able to speak Thai,” Hesti recalled and recounted her first classes, “so it’s pretty challenging for me.”

She was trying to use English as the ‘introductory language’ to communicate with the students. But it still proved problematic. They understood few of the English words. Not too many more.

Substantially, Indonesian words are longer chunks than the more digestible Thai bite-sized words. And memorizing Indonesian words isn’t the thing they’re best at.

On a smaller scale, the sounds ‘R’ and ‘L’, abundant in Bahasa Indonesia, are also hard for them to pronounce.

Plus, as Hesti sees, it’s in the nature of CMU students to try learning languages as new things. Not too much more. She told us how out of her thirty level 1 students, only ten continued to level 2. Let alone to level 3, which was “why we haven’t had level 3, because of the insufficient number of participants.”

But, not everything was in the blue.

Bahasa Indonesia employs alphabets in its writing system, while also sharing similar sentence structure with Thai. These two ease Bahasa Indonesia learning for Hesti’s Thai students.

She also appreciates the politeness of the students, fashioning her classes conducive.

“Perhaps culture in Thailand is more valued, so they respect teachers or lecturers very much, or people older than they are.”

---

Those all are surely precious pieces of experience, something Hesti sought from the very start. Then a fresh graduate, she was also after a prestigious, university-bound occupation.

The teaching post answered her with what she had wished for.

CMU is the first provincial university in Thailand. It has also consistently ranked among the Quacquarelli Symonds’ top 100 ASIAN universities in the last few years and is reputed among the country’s elite.

The four campuses have bred notable alumnae, from an award winning writer, a mayor of Chiang Mai, a governor of Bangkok, deputy prime ministers, until the current Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra.

And she turned down the idea of what she’s doing now is a display of love for her country as a cliché. At first. She admitted that scheme did develop on the way.

      

 “After I in Chiang Mai was proposed offers or works requiring me to promote Indonesia, I felt this was my chance, and I gave time and space to express what Indonesia is.

“So, after seeing various problems that Indonesia had not yet been too popular among CMU students, then from there came an undercover mission, another mission that I personally aspired to glorify the nation.

“It may sound like a cliché, but I think whoever when abroad or in the country meeting foreigners will be an ambassador for Indonesia.

“Whether you like it or not, we have to show our love toward our homeland, that we are knowledgeable about Indonesia,” she told us.

And these words of a teacher of two languages are not meaningless. She has been the spearhead of the openings of both Indonesia Study Centre and Indonesia Day. Again, she was the only Indonesian in charge.

However, as much as she was alone, she was never on her own.

The Indonesian Embassy, though had been rather unresponsive at first, granted Hesti a fund of 150 million rupiahs to spend for her projects. They also supplied reading materials for the Indonesia Study Centre. Meanwhile, Indonesian church missionaries helped her with cooking free food for visitors in the Indonesia Day, among others.

CMU itself has been very supportive toward the Indonesian courses.

“They designed [advertisements] all around the campus, even in the downtown, with giant screen LCD in Indonesian,” she said.

But, most importantly, she had her fiancé with her, who always got her back. He had been encouraging her to be meticulous toward her works.

“He was really helpful when we were holding events about Indonesia, showed up in my classes to be a native speaker, so my students could practice using Bahasa Indonesia.”

---

Love is always in Chiang Mai’s air for Hesti.

“I’m happy [to be in Chiang Mai], happy because I feel welcome.

“Indonesians in the educational and Bahasa Indonesia worlds, especially in Chiang Mai and Northern Thailand, are still very few.

“My presence can be very appreciated by them [locals] with how many mass media come to CMU to cover the Indonesia Day event, or other Indonesian events, or just to interview me about my opinion on how to teach Bahasa Indonesia to students in CMU.”

She couldn’t remember even once being despised either verbally or attitudinally.

And in this city, Hesti came to realize that she loves her present job than what she’s been dreaming of doing. She had hoped to be a diplomat, and she was once offered to work in the Indonesian Embassy in Bangkok too. But seeing how things were done there didn’t charm her very much.

“So I decided early to focus on what I’ve been doing, and that is teaching.

“Not yet,” was her answer to her homeland-bound leave. “My fiancé Mas Wahyu has obtained an offer for a doctoral scholarship somewhere, which is not Indonesia, nor Thailand.

“After finishing my graduate study, we’ll be back to Indonesia, one or two months to get married and then I’ll follow him.

“I don’t know where.”

So, will love lead Hesti’s way once and again?

“We’ll see.”

Creative Writing: "Bag It!" Movie Review

Is Your Life too Plastic?

I’m typing this with a plastic-cased laptop. Maybe when you woke up this morning, you turned off the lamp with the plastic switch. And maybe you were changing the channel with the plastic remote. The TV was plastic, too, I suppose. Oh, don’t forget our all time favorite, the plastic bag!

What does Jeb Berrier, a middle-aged soon-to-be father, an average middle-class American, have to say about it? Bag It!

You’ve guessed it! The so-named movie is about Jeb’s attempt to reduce, or even to stop using, plastic (any kinds). But, worry not! This guy, who isn’t a tree-hugger, is none of our usual angry environmentalists seeking the deconstruction of civilization.

He first takes us back to the history of plastic bag in particular, which was yet so worldwide just five decades ago. The pluses and minuses covered, he departs on a trip around the world for a way to cut plastic bag use. An epitome would be Dublin, Ireland, which puts fee on plastic bags, resulting a decrease of 90% of plastic bag consumption.

Well, this isn’t the only sound statistic put forward here. The director, Susan Beraza, presents jaw-dropping numbers such as that 300,000,000 plastic coffee cups used (and thrown away) everyday in the U.S. only. Funky and cheerful music back-sounds such facts, still narrated by our Jeb, and this tones down the inconvenient, stressing truth, while also sings out the irony of the society’s ignorance, or perhaps even approval, of it.

Bag It! tries to tell us that we’re not powerless in this war. The crew follows Jeb to groups of people living outside the plastic bag, one of which is in Germany. But, the authority does not give in. The movie unveils the fact that American Chemistry Council (ACC) rolls out millions of dollars in order for plastic bag to stay in circulation. When nagged by Jeb through emails and phone calls for months, they just keep avoiding him, and we know what that means.

The cartoon-like graphics interspersing the movie takes us to a rather personal part of Jeb’s life. His wife, Anna, is conceiving a child. Later we will see the birth, but in between, Jeb demonstrates that using home products, dubbed ‘safe’, such as soap and even rubber duck, deteriorates his health in just two days. The cause, you-name-it chemicals in virtually everything does harm to human body.

This documentary then dives further to the oceans, especially Pacific. Plastics pollute our water bodies, and the central Pacific has been a giant ‘landfill’, to which gather tons plastic waste. Animals might eat them, if they don’t decompose. Well, they don’t! Let alone decomposing, recycling is according to Bag It! a ‘myth’. Only some plastic bottles are recyclable, in a low rate. Some others of a certain type are not even recycled at all.

So, bag it! Reduce our use of plastic, the movie invites us. Just like how the movie brings this serious subject in a light tone, so can we begin with little things around us. And just like our everyman host Jeb Berrier, we too are not powerless in contributing to the health of our aging planet.

Will You be Happier?

Will You be Happier?

In awkward pauses in our chats,

I take a look at you, secretly.

I like it when you have your ponytail.

You seem cute, and cheerful.

I want to look strong for you, too.

I’m trying to be the person

You can always rely on.

But weakness can’t always be hidden.

Can I love you well enough

That you can be happy?

While we’re waiting for the class,

I let the music play from my cellphone.

A song sounds wordless, at times,

But someone special will give it meaning.

Maybe that’s why I often miss you.

This is something you understand, right?

Do you think I should just give up?

Please help me go through this.

Have I loved you well enough?

You aren’t smiling, you’re frowning

It’s not a miracle that will come true.

But that’s fine, simply because

As long as I’m waiting for something,

I can be hopeful, and walk on.

I remember you once told me,

“Just cry a little. It’s all gonna be easier.”

Would the tears ever stop flowing?

I wanted to trust you, you know?

Do I love you well enough now?

Lie to me, fake a smile, just this once.

I’ve let you down, twice, or more.

I’m such a loser, am I not?

But, anyway, thank you, thank you

For letting me be with you for a while.

Our graduation is approaching, and

I’m afraid that when we’re parting

All I can say is a sad ‘goodbye’

And not a sincere ‘I love you’.

Will anyone else love you better?

I don’t want that to happen, but . . .

Creative Writing: Food Review

I’d Love to Have One ‘Shadow Theater’, Please, on Plate

And it began with the strumming of the traditional gamelan orchestra, solemnly heard from the Kura-kura (Turtle) quarter of Gadjah Wong Restaurant, Jogjakarta. The young waitresses had been so kind as to walk me there.

We made our way through Gadjah (Elephant) area offering a colonial feel and the lush garden in the complex. Another section was Bebek (Duck) part, downstairs, offering a more contemporary and jazzy atmosphere.

The mysticism of Javanese shadow theater was being chanted in those melodious thumps of the brass instruments. The interior—all wooden—and traditional decorations glow intimately Javanese under the dim lighting.

But what even immersed me more was yet to come, soon.

Distracted away from her friendly smile, my eyes traced the gracious movement of a waitress serving the Curry chicken rice I ordered. And the shadow theater could have come to life here, on my plate.

The brownish biryani rice was flanked with slices of tropical fruits, just like all the eccentric puppet figures tacked aside ready for action in a performance. And the sail-shaped cracker backdrop hid three kinds of sambals (chili sauces) and a loaf of naan bread. Spotlighted on the center were the chicken chops, shimmered in curry sauce and parsley.

This exquisite dish was of great pleasure for the palates as the Javanese shadow theater to the eyes.

The rice was a perfect and as soft complement for the chicken, which was juicy in texture and finely mild in flavor. Meanwhile, the pungent, fresh fruits could quench thirst, although they might taste too sharp on the first bite. But, no worries, the crispily bland cracker and naan bread were ready of any help.

As I was enjoying this delicacy, as well as my self, so much, I forgot to take the sambals. And, you could bet on what sambals would do to your meals.

Priced at between Rp. 35,000.00 – Rp. 120,000.00, this restaurant was a full recommendation for both locals and foreign tourists. They serve traditional Indonesian, Italian, Indian, and other dishes such as Australian tenderloin and Norwegian salmon. Vegetarian cuisines were also on the menu; Vegetarian curry and tomato soup were among them. However, it’s quite unfortunate that the beverages did not vary as the meals did, although wines, both local and imported, were available.

The gamelan orchestra was slowing down in tempo, as it tuned on the coda. And so was my ‘shadow theater’, as I crossed the spoon and fork on the empty plate, fading out into a memorable culinary experience.

Gadjah Wong Restaurant

Jl. Gejayan Soropadan 79-D

Yogyakarta

Tel. 0274-542815

Crying in the Rain

Crying in the Rain

You once said you wanted to cry in the rain

That no one would notice your tears.

On the way home, I looked back to this afternoon.

You seemed so happy.

Don’t you wish it could last forever?

Us, our friends, together? I do, you know?

The photographs where you’re smiling,

You’ve got new friends there.

But, you’re in pain, somehow, somewhere.

Aren’t you?

You once said you wanted to cry in the rain

That no one would notice your tears.

The rain starts to fall

Have you ever felt like you deeply cared for someone

But you didn’t have what it took to show it?

“Are you okay, my friend?”

I’m still afraid to press the ‘Send’ button

We’ve known each other for some time

Maybe I’m timid, maybe I’m a bit of a coward

And seeing someone else holding your hand,

Listening to you, that hurts

You once said you wanted to cry in the rain

That no one would notice your tears.

The rain starts to fall,

And I start to cry.

You’re holding back your tears,

Even in this rain.

I have to be strong, too, right?

But, promise me you’ll be fine, okay?

Once upon a Rainy Day

Creative Writing: Assignment 3A - How to be an Explorer of Your World

We are to compare Malioboro Street in, it turned out, 1920 and in the present. Working in groups, we produce one manuscript that was to serve as the draft for our individual blog posts. Our blog posts are to contain our own personal touch, creativity, and all.

Here, I list first the original manuscript, and my own version is after it.

As always, comments, good or bad, from anyone are invited and welcomed. Enjoy your reading!

A Grayscale Picture of Malioboro

                The past will not be forgotten. The atmosphere was calm and gentle. Every side of the town, you could feel the nature mixing with the town folks. The wind breezed from the tree like the tranquility of this city. That was the time when Malioboro was still an “untouched place”.

                There were no tall buildings by the road; there were only trees and many spaces for pedestrians to walk on. It seemed as if they were not afraid to walk around, because there were not many vehicles back then. It is so different with the “current” condition where just with one wrong step and a car might hit you, and you will end up in hospital or, even worse, graveyard. Or maybe you might get the second choice, not get hit by a car, but have your leisure pastime of walking around ravaged by the hawking of the vendors. You can call yourself lucky if you could get home with your wallet intact in your pocket.

And here's my version . . .

Malioboro: Then and Now

. . . And Much More

“We’re going to Fuk Ling Miau Shrine,” the coarse, aged voice spoke.

“Ho! Go get a pedicab,” Xiaoyu told me, handing me an umbrella. She raised hers covering this old man, who was a quite taller than she was, though as thin.

“No, no. We walk. Sitting all night; too tired wo, legs need stretched,” he protested, placing one careful step after another down the narrow stairway.

“But the rain is picking up, Granduncle,” her gripe was hushed with a grunt.

“Oei,” that’s how Granduncle always called me; he did not seem to remember or even to have known my name. “Buy Kekou-kele!”

“Buy what?”

“Coca-cola, la!” Xiaoyu giggled.

“It’s expensive here, Granduncle.”

Another grunt.

The queue line had got longer by then, though it was yet 9 a.m. The smiling clown stared at the queuing customers, who were hardly smiling. They looked rather confused, but some of the few children were hopping lightly, with smiling faces, like that of the clown. They knew what they’d have: Happy Meal.

The coke spilled out a little when I tripped over the “Caution: Wet Floor”. Not only was it wetter now, but also dirtier. It was a pretty sad sequence: I tripped over, knowing I might spill out the drink, so I tightened my grip on the cup. Unfortunately, the cup was made of Styrofoam, which would give way when clutched. My gripping it let out even more liquid out. What I did trying to keep the drink in did exactly the opposite.

“Oei, you eat this. Too cold for me,” Granduncle passed me his ice cream cone, only half the cream eaten. Eww. Xiaoyu didn’t eat the bottom part of her cone, as she used to.

“Come, give me that,” she took it from Granduncle’s hand, as if she could read my mind.

“Your great-grandfather told me stories of his life here on this road,” with this, and his overpriced Kekou-kele, Granduncle began his story that was, inferring from his deep gaze on to Malioboro Street, priceless.

“He once crying aloud to his parents because been scolded by one horse-carriage driver. Said he he surprise the horse the horse pranced around, almost turn around carriage. The ang-moh (Westerner) passengers got angry and . . .”

His voice recounted an old story longing for resurrection to life, longing for rehearsal but falling onto no ears interested or caring enough. However, just like children find their ways to dreams from bedtime stories told by their parents, I could see the past, grayscale world began to conjure up beyond the glass windows. I leapt out of the window into that world, the old Malioboro, faintly colored with tints of life here and there by each word that Granduncle gave breath to.

A boy, not more than 10 year-old, was running along the street after some of his friends, one morning, overtaking people who were walking sluggishly.

“Keep up!” he shouted to his other friends behind him, slightly blinded by the new sun. By then, buildings had not yet been too tall as if to delay the morning. Even the mountain, Mount Merapi, did not do so. It was to the north of the town. Or was it? The mountain was unseen this morning. But it was there, because the Sultan’s Palace had also to be there, to the south, not vaguely there, although it was only vaguely visible beyond the mists.

The boy could hear his panting getting heavier, despite the surrounding chattering. The sidewalk were crowded mostly by native Javanese and Chinese, while strange Dutch murmuring was heard from the street, behind the tapping of carriage-horse hoofs.

I am here! he thought to himself. He still had some energy left to wonder at what that boaster of a friend had to show off, and happiness out of excitement, not of Happy Meal.

“From now on, I would be a proud citizen on Malioboro Street! I’m not going to walk, like you!”

True enough, the boy thought, the bicycle was gleaming on its every inch. It could be like someone riding rays of light, instead of a bicycle.

“But can you ride it? It's so tall,” the boy woke up from his brief reverie.

“Of course, you shortie! Look at me!” the bulky boaster gracefully rose from a pedal stroke to sit on the seat and strode off to Malioboro Street.

“Can I borrow it later?!” one boy screamed, envious, anxious of being a proud citizen.

A car honked on a cyclist. The cyclist abruptly stopped, staring at the car that soon enough had gone out of my sight. The cyclist was soaked pretty bad. I could not quite tell whether it was from the rain, his sweating, or the splashing of cars on him. Maybe all of the above?

“See, can no do that now, eh?” Granduncle interrupted his story. “Now can do with cars, not bikes.”

Xiaoyu was nonchalantly staring at the upset cyclist, as if it were an everyday happening. Well, it was an everyday happening, and a luckier one, too. It could’ve resulted in deaths, right? The traffic was one level too crazy here, on this street, and in this city in general.

When in middle school, I had myself honked on by a certain car. I did pretty much what the cyclist did: suddenly stopping aside and staring at it, as though it would make the driver got out apologizing for the startling inconvenience. I had thought back then that roads were constructed by people on foot, not by cars. How could car drivers be so arrogant as to bark their ways through crowds of pedestrians?

They pay the road tax! You’ve got a point there. A very capitalist one.

That boaster was trying to get up. His bike was on him. Even as early as the late 1920s, honking had become a trend. The car beside him was honking on him so that he would hurry getting out of the way. High-pitched Chinese was heard among the rather slow Javanese from the crowd watching the accident. Some of those natives were in western clothing: short-sleeved shirt tucked into tight trousers or collared shirt tucked into knee-length skirt belted on the waist, to where their braided hair hung about. Some others wore traditional batik clothing, brownishly dark as if it were colored directly from trees that lined up the western side of the street. The noise, however, was kept low the breeze was as audible as the murmuring.

Many were watching for some time before continuing on, as if it were an everyday happening. It was not, I would guess, those days. Even birds perching on the electric lines observed it.

Apparently, that boaster had proudly, and carelessly, rushed his way north against the traffic mostly going south. He told Great-grandfather he had zigzagged through the horse-carriages, cars, and other bicycles, but got unlucky on that one particular car.

“You want to borrow my bicycle or not? I could have done it myself had I not hurt my knees! Go!” his eyes reddening above his spoiled chubby cheeks, the dude was threatening Great-grandfather, then years younger than him.

So, Great-grandfather raced further south, scanning for that ‘ugly dark-green car’, which was how the fat boaster scorned it. There were still not-too-many cars then.

The cars were all ugly! thought this boy Great-grandfather, and slow, too! But not all was dark-green. Most of them were black. I had heard before that black was preferred because it was cheaper to paint and quicker to dry.

The kid was cutting through the street, which also served as the imaginary north-south axis of the city, connecting Parangtritis Beach to the very south, the Sultan’s Palace in the center, and the glooming Mount Merapi. The Palace itself faced the east, impressing the Sultan coming from the west, where Vishnu, the Hindu creator god, reigned. He found the ‘ugly dark-green car’ and got set for his friend’s revenge.

Bang! Bang! The rear window of the car cracked. The driver was startled, and even more so the horse behind the car was. It was prancing about, neighing in all its surprise, almost turning around the carriage. The carriage had been so unstable it were momentarily standing only on one wheel. The lady passenger was howling, while the man had his gentlemanliness slipped away from his ridiculous look due to the ambush.

“Later . . . broken . . . stupid!” the boy could only understand those three Javanese words from the angry carriage driver. He spared no idle moment running away from the mad driver.

“You . . . pay . . .!” another unintelligible Javanese line from the Javanese car driver. But this time, he knew that line was on his heels. He rushed all his body away, including his tears. He began to sob among his panting, out of fear, out of regret, out of sadness of his parents’ only child creating such trouble.

“To here he run. Then it one floor only,” Granduncle continued, pointing out to the stories-high Beringharjo market. We had been out of the fast-food restaurant and walking our way south, to the shrine. I was daydreaming about one boy, who would later be one of my ancestors, running on this pavement. His tears fell to the ground, among his sweats.

It used to be known as Pasar Gedhe, opened just in 1926. Granduncle told us that his grandparents had pawned their jewelry, all made of gold, to buy a spot there. They traded gold. To there his father ran, to his parents.

I was agonized to think that this sunrise-blocking building was not this tall, back then. Had the other buildings been much shorter also? Had there no tall buildings along the street decades ago? How had it looked, the street? If the western side of the street was all buildings and alleys, lined with yet more buildings, now, how had it felt when it was all trees on their grounds?

“You still have my baggage, no?”

It dawned on me it was not in my right hand. Mini heart-attack! I had forgotten it was in my left hand. The mini heart-attack got me remember this.

Well, things were surely different, back then, when Great-grandfather, and all the people, could still dash his way through this sidewalk, relatively safely. Now? We had been having hard times pushing our way through the crowd. It was as if the heat, unappeased by the light rain, were not annoying enough without the street vendors hawking their goods. Most of them were pretty useless. Penis replicas were among them, carved in such details they might disturb you to nightmares. I hated it when I noticed Xiaoyu glanced at one, accidentally, I hoped.

“And your wallet, Granduncle?” Xiaoyu asked.

“Bring none, o!”

At least it wouldn’t get stolen here, on this street. Of course! How could they steal something that did not even exist?! Granduncle was pretty lucky, I fancied, needing not to worry about such pick-pocketing, which had been an everyday happening here.

Older Sister, having done praying, came out of Fuk Ling Miau Shrine, southeast of Malioboro Street. She told me Granduncle was saying prayers more than usual because he wanted to let the gods know that he was in a different city now, ensuring their protection and blessings for him.

“Sis, isn’t it funny to listen to old people talking about their parents? ‘Ve always been imagining aged people will lose their connection with their ancestors at some point and care only for their youngsters.”

“Some things don’t change, you know? Some things stay the same. They last forever.”

“This shrine no change since I first here,” Granduncle joined in. “This, and much more.”

“Granduncle, did Great-grandpa manage to borrow the bicycle?”