Homer in Java

There had been earlier talk at the lunch table. Opposite a young, recently married couple they might have been were zelni price, desirous of talk the Montenegrins say. For a short while there was a hope the pair might be brother and sister, perhaps platonic friends. She was too pretty for the boy, had better English and more spirit. Would a young wife smile quite as much as that and extend the conversation so far? Not for the first time that kind of allowance was found freely granted by a Javanese husband. (Being able to engage a foreigner at such length was something of a feather in the cap of a young Javanese husband.)

         Another beautiful head-scarf. It took so very little. Even a drab single-coloured scarf could work wonders. Well into the fifth year in the region, it was still difficult to fathom. What an array of benefits were involved for a woman first of all. The simplicity, the freeing from the tyranny of the hair salon, the wonderful eye-catching tented fabric like a Cleopatran head-dress and the child-like framing of the face.

        The pair had recently returned from an ocean cruise that took in both Alaska and also Hawaii. It was the first tale of this kind heard in Indonesia. In Singapore one would not have blinked an eye—that cabin-fevered hot-house was escaped at any possible opportunity. Flipping from Hawaii to Alaska was a novel combination, just the kind of breaking-of-mould adventure that was most highly prized in places like Singapore. But an Indonesian voyage of that scope?

         It was in Alaska that the young woman had bought the fine, delicately spotted long-sleeve tee that was partly visible beneath the fall of her scarf and that had been available in the hipster outlets in Melbourne five years before. Husband had not objected to a light touch on the sleeve.

         Was this serious dollars opposite then? A month’s cruise presumably—or at least an air ticket involved in order to join ship up north somewhere. Big money.

         Alaska had not really been that cold; summer, about ten degrees. Hawaii was hot like Java.

         Loaded but wearing the wealth lightly and taking lunch at Pak Muh’s at Beringharjo? One dollar meals and ten cent teas.

         The common Javanese poise even in the young here was impressive. There might be a seriously rich contingent that eschewed glitz and unfortunate Westernization. Quietly, unostentatiously wealthy, an old Vespa parked around in the back-lot of the market.

         A more straightforward explanation emerged: the young man worked on the ship, probably as a waiter. Many of the younger generation sought those positions for the rich remuneration. That was all. Sometimes it was not easy to guess.

         The luncheon companions with whom one had arrived had been badly neglected. A pair of East Javanese casual business partners, they were destined to be disappointed with the fare at Pak Muh’s. In Jogja Amy usually ate at the McDonald’s in the mall, always doing good trade. At the outset Jedid had made the joke about the sweetness of the food in Central Java. Being so delectable themselves, the Central Javanese girls cooking and serving merely in proximity to the food ensured it was richly sweetened.

         A vain plea had been made for the Easterners’ OJ to be “less sweet”. In the end Amy had tried neutralizing the sugar with a spoonful of sambal; until the colour of the respective glasses was compared it seemed another joke from Jedid. The bakso—beef meatball—soup was the same: barely touched by Amy. At another meal around on Sudirman a few weeks before the menu had confined Amy to chillied kangkung—mostly translated as water spinach. Easterners commonly had problems with the food in Central Java.

         The spicy Easterners needed to attend to some business and the Alaskan trippers excused themselves shortly after. (Among the Malay peoples leaving a table, and especially leaving a fellow alone, was a matter for regret that required an excuse and apologetics.)

         A little quiet time after lunch was not going to be had either. (Sundays were especially busy at Beringharjo and at Pak Muh’s.) Hard on the heels of these departures another family group and from the outset keenly eyeing the foreigner. The mother in particular could not hide her interest.

         Briefest side-glance suggested little of promise. Angled away from the newcomers and fixed with pen and paper they could be ignored for a time. The bench-seat with the back could comfortably fit only three. It was not clear immediately that the father had retreated to the passage-way behind where he intended to take his meal on his feet in fact.

         Impossible to permit of course. We bunched close. As the young daughter had the more accomplished English eventually she was inserted by her elders beside the foreigner. And away we went.

         A closer look at the outset would have immediately told this was another fine, warm and loving family. Everywhere one ventured in this region it was the same, families holding together excellently well. It was remarkable. Often a kind of picture-book cast from missionary pamphlets was suggested. (An odd English Wycliffe missionary had been encountered at a stall in front of Beringharjo the night before.) Watching the loving and devotion in all the small acts of sharing a cheap meal could utterly captivate a foreigner. In the cheap eateries in the Malay quarter of Singapore, in Malaysia and Indonesia, an outsider could share a long table and more often than not was invited to join the magic circle.

         Dodi was a phys. ed. teacher and taekwondo instructor: middle-aged, tall, erect and in good trim. Luckily for the wife he was not a philanderer, one could immediately see. The young first year university accounting student was a beneficiary of a settled, good union. More picture-book perfection incarnate.

         The family lived in a small town called Jumprit near Magelang; Borobudur was the more prominent marker. Near Jumprit again was a locally famous spring it seemed. Communication was halting. Dodi had a smattering of English too and father and daughter bounced off each other not very successfully. Pictures on the phone showed a kind of rivulet with old worn stone steps in one shot. Not a lake and something less than a river. The water at Jumprit had special properties, like the zam-zam at Mecca; “my Mecca”, Dodi had said, meaning his as a Muslim. (In Singapore once a Hadrami had suggested he went to Mecca to see “my Prophet”—Mohammed’s grave.)

         There was not only health-giving water at Jumprit. In recent time a farmer digging in his padi had unearthed some kind of elaborate stone carving. Word was the potential relic here at Jumprit might be larger than Borobudur. The archeologists were slowly working away.

         Jumprit was certainly worth a visit; it was beginning to come under the notice of foreign travelers. The Sugiharto six room house in Jumprit now had three empty rooms. A son was away in Canada on his studies and an elder daughter somewhere else working on a doctorate in chemistry.

         If the foreigner would like to visit the Sugihartos would be greatly pleased to host him. The rooms were vacant. No money. No money. A third time too that was reiterated: this was no fishing expedition for dollars from a rich foreigner. The matter seemed perfectly clear without the reassurances. This kind of earnest hospitality was not unusual in Indonesia and certainly not unusual for a Montenegrin witnessing. The high honour of providing hospitality in the Balkans generally went back to Homer and likely far beyond. Elements of it remained in modern day Montenegro. It continued to flare brightly there on occasion still despite the extensive tourist enterprise.

         Being on the receiving end in what was after all a foreign culture continued to catch one slightly by surprise, that was all. The Greeks, Serbs, Albanians and Montenegrins had nothing to teach the Javanese in regard to hospitality.

         In the extended offerings, the pleas and reassurances, what came to be added too again surprised only because of the uncannily close parallel. To have something of that particular kind plainly articulated here in the tropics in precisely the same familiar terms was what struck.

         Perfect strangers at a table thrown together by accident not twenty minutes earlier.

         Poor old Grandma Stana was fated never to see her eldest or favourite son again after their immigration. The old woman would be denied. In the years of absence while hope still remained Grandma Stana’s hospitality and generosity was even more strongly evident than usual, especially for strangers or wayfarers. Poor Gran never missing any opportunity, leaping with alacrity at the slightest chance and never failing. Thirty years after her death former orphans and the destitute in the village, a series of old women, took the young grandson’s hand to kiss in appreciation of the kindness.

         With three sons in fact wandering the sirok bjeli svjet, wide white world, all the old grannie could do was perform what acts of kindness were available to her on her side. Never tired in her endeavours; lost no opportunity.

        Dodi the taekwondo master—the daughter had been asked his rank—put the matter quite explicitly; rather baldly and bluntly and in the strained foreign language with no special force of feeling apparent.

         As a Muslim it was his duty, Dodi informed in a kind of school-masterly manner, to offer what hospitality he could. By this means perhaps, a fond father—and the mother too no doubt—hoped someone in Canada would extend the same to their son, Dodi suggested. (The wife and mother’s mute pleading, nodding and prompting the other two, flowed out from her like light on running water.)

         If a companion came additionally to Jumprit that was fine too, a small party could be accommodated. Three rooms vacant. Dodi originally hailed from Semarang, the capital of Central Java up in the north where Dodi’s parents still lived, a town that had been on the author’s radar for some while. Dodi had a car; he would happily provide a tour of his home-town three or four hours away. He went up regularly. Numbers and email provided. A king tide of generosity that one sincerely hoped might indeed ripple out in some fashion to the northern hemisphere.