Similar foods in different hemispheres

A brazilian friend arriving back here after a short vacation in Brazil brought some sweets called cocada with her. Upon her explanation that it consists of grated coconut with sugar, I suspected already that it sounds like something Indonesians might have.

But upon tasting it, i could confirm it with 100% certainty that: it's geplak :D

It's just that geplak usually comes with less uniform shape, and also super colourful :P

It's funny how far apart Indonesia and Brazil are, yet, with the same ingredients growing in our area, we are bound to have similar foods.

I remember too now that I didn't like geplak. It's too sweet for my taste.
But, now, tasting this cocada, I wish I could taste geplak instead...

Home sweet home.

Swimming

In Indonesia, swimming is considered a sport+leisure activity. I usually go with friends and or families, spend some fractions of the time swimming, and the rest of the time is spent by chatting, playing/fooling around with others. A swimsuit is the only basic necessity for a girl. A boy could even get away with plain shorts.

Here in Italy, swimming is a sport activity that is taken seriously. Wearing swimsuit and swimming cap is a must. Swimming pools are divided into lanes (we have this too, but only in pools specialized for athletes/competitions). People have to choose a lane, and swim in certain direction only in this lane. There's a line drawn in the bottom of each lane, virtually dividing each lane into two sub-lane to guide you. Every time you have to swim in your right sub-lane. So, a perfectly ordered lane will be full of people swimming one after another in an ordered long circle.

And, oh, boy, we begin to think everyone is a pro swimmer here. Since not only everyone would reach the end of the pool after around 10 strokes, they would continue this circle lap after lap after lap endlessly without breaks in between.

It was really mesmerizing seeing this continuous circles of people, powerful-splashes one after another, roaming each narrow lane.

But, that was until we indonesian girls swim there :D

We do follow the line and lane rules of course, mind you. But since we enjoyed ourselves very much, we stopped to chat in the corner of our lane almost each time we reached the end of the pool :D
Apparently this disturbed the continuous circle of Italian serious swimmers in our lane, since after some time we noticed that we had our lane for ourselves, hahaha.

Oh, well, at least we all enjoyed ourselves ;)

Escalator: Where do you stand?

Having only 5 minutes to run getting some snacks to nibble at the cinema, I ran as fast as I could through the crowd in Paris Van Java Mall, Bandung, Indonesia last weekend. The supermarket is located in the UG floor, and I could only find an escalator nearby to reach it.

But, whooops, my sprint had to come to an abrupt end.

Despite the width of the escalator that would allow huge shopping carts be transported comfortably and despite that no one who were on it was actually carrying one, my path was totally blocked.

It wasn't really so crowded actually, there were fair distances between those people, -all flocking in groups of family, friends, etc-. But the people in each group were all standing occupying the whole width of the escalator.

Of course being the ever optimistic girl that I am I tried to make my way asking for permissions to pass through the groups one by one. But after 2 or 3 groups of people I gave in.

The escalator is quite lengthy since it is designed to transport shopping carts: the escalator downward angle can't be really steep. And watching the number of groups I would still have to excuse myself from just to make my way was already exhausting me.

People were standing left and right, laying to the handrails. All casually talking with each other and watching around. I felt guilty already that I would interrupt their lovely chats if I really tried to make my way further.

So, there I was standing nervously, watching at my watch, waiting for the escalator to smoothly, elegantly, and super slowly bring me the UG floor. Fantasizing if only I could just use the handrails as in those action movies to slide through that darned lengthy escalator. Wishing that somehow the escalator would just miraculously understand my hurry and increase its speed. But of course it's just in my mind.

And I remember an escalator in Munich, Germany.

Where, although the escalator was steep, half the width of that escalator in PJV, so fully packed that each step was occupied, and most of the ppl have their luggage(s) with them, there was a straight, empty path in the right hand side of the elevator for anyone who were in a rush and would like to run through it.

It's not like there was any huge sign board as those in the highway that order people to stand in the left side and leave the right side empty as a fast lane.
But everyone, dutifully and obediently as all the Germans are, would stand in the left side and only the hurried ones take the right side of the elevator.

That straight, vacant, dedicated path walled by a line of people with their luggages in the left side and the handrail on the right side which could clearly be seen even from some distance was a beauty. A sign of cumulative social awareness of each people standing there to other people needs. Even though its just about that small space in the escalator step to your left.

Well, I wouldn't blame those people I saw in PJV actually. I mean it was in a mall on Saturday afternoon. What's the hurry? Only I was being unfortunate that, as always, it was so close to the movie starting time and I still was somewhere else and haven't got any snacks to smuggle to the cinema :D

And to be fair, the escalator that I mentioned in Munich was located in a rail station. Where indeed there must be a bigger number of people in a hurry you can find than when you are in a shopping mall.

But still I have to admit, unlike those Germans, it wasn't really that automatic for me to be aware that there is such need to give way in an escalator so that its not the case that I could stand anywhere I like in an escalator :D

Kudos to you if you are like them ;)

Chinese vs Malayan

I played quite much in the online game which is based in Malaysia lately, xdo.
The gameplay is mostly just the same as the other dance games I've played.
However, it's the community who plays the game thats interesting.
The players are mostly malaysian *duh!*,
although I often meet some immigrants from the US version of the game too like me ;P

These malaysian ppl, it's so interesting that in one sentence they can use english, chinese, and malay words all at once xD
I enjoy so much reading their forums lol.

But aside from that quirk of the language, what I want to discuss here is how they are so sensitive toward races issues.
Not just once that I'm being asked in game, "what ppl are you?"
to which of course i could only respond, "huh?"
turned out they were asking whether I am a chinese or a malayan >.>
or in another case, they asked "what race are u?"
I was kinda flabbergasted getting such a question at the first time.
Isn't that a very racist question????
I'm used to play in the US version, where I think it's a commonsense that racial issues must not come into discussion.

Since I had to respond, as an indonesian of course I answered, I'm indonesian.
To which they still insisted on asking, "yeah, but are you chinese?"
ermm...hello?

I never really remember there's any such identification of races in Indonesia.
I mean, well, indeed we have cultures, javanese, sundanese, batak-ese(?),etc, but it's not that we will ask for such a culture identification at the first time we meet someone.

Well, apparently in Malaysia, such identification matters.
What scary is, they often had arguments abt it. Chinese ppl vs Malayan ppl.
I dont know how it often started, but then it always come to associating each other with animals, mainly pig >.>

prolly because pig is considered as the worst animal evah? (aww, poor piggies >_<)
prolly because Malayan is identical with moslem ppl who dont eat pork and Chinese ppl have quite a culinary tradition using pork?
They usually mention abt that eating habit in the argument, with the chinese ppl promoting "bak kut teh" (whatever it is, I suppose its an extremely delicious chinese dish using pork?) and that everyone should eat it.

However, its scary scary scary....

Witnessing such rude arguments happening more than one occasion,
I grow my respect to the founding fathers of Indonesia.
They all were emphasizing on the unity of Indonesia.
They were not using certain religion as the base, even though its the majority religion.
They decided the use of Bahasa Indonesia, as the language of the country which unites everyone from every regionals despite each having their own regional traditional language.
I'm so proud abt this language thing also when I'm with my Indian friends.
Because they have various regional languages just like us. However, they don't have that one language which formally unites them. As a result u can get Indians talking to each other using English since they came from different regions in India.

I still have some more thoughts, but at least for now I will conclude this post with, I'm proud to be an Indonesian.

A-Ce-I, Aku Cinta Indonesia~ xD

Ngutang Pizza di Itali

Hihihi, kok tiba2 banting setir jadi bahasa indonesia, yah :D gapapa, deh, sekali-sekali. Lagian susah juga kayanya cari terjemahan yg pas buat kata ngutang :P

Tapi kalo crita yang satu ini, nih, kaga ada culture crashnya. Soalnya... ternyata bisa, bo, ngutang pizza di pizzeria Itali! Macam ngutang nasi bungkus di warung di Indonesia ajah. hihihi.

Malu banget ini sebenernya ceritanya ^^;;>
Jadi tadi pulang dari kampus, males masak, lumayan laper, tiba2 jadi dapet ide buat beli pizza take away ajah. Pizza Calabrese, yummm! (toppingnya mozarella, bubuk cabe, bawang putih, olive oil. Aneh, ya? sumpah enak, tapi ;D) Jadi mampirlah daku ke Pizzario di deket kampus yang emang strategis juga deket ma setopan bis.

Udah, ni, daku pesen, "Mbak, setengah pizza kalabrese buat bawa pulang, ya, mbak, ya". (Pake bahasa itali atuh originalnya). OK. Menunggu lah daku disitu. Beberapa lama, setelah mbaknya trus mulai bikin pizza, baru lah gw tiba2 punya indra keenam buat nyari dompet gw. Soalnya hari itu lagi pake rok jeans tanpa kantong. Jadi dompet yang biasa berasa nempel di pantat sebelah kanan ngga ada.

Cari punya cari... nggak ada!!! T_T
hueee...paniiiiik! mana kantong receh yang tadinya ada pun justru gw inget gw keluarin dari tas sebelum berangkat tadi.
Tas udah posisinya di lantai + gw jongkok2 ngadul2 segala isinya.
"Mbak, mbak, maap, mbak", kata gw akhirnya setelah yakin itu dompet nan tebel dan gede ngga mungkin bisa nyelip2 dan ngga keliatan di tas gw. Yang berarti gw ga ada duit buat bayar ni pizza >.< Si mbak-nya nengok, doski lagi sibuk bikin pizza pesenan gw T_T

"Mbak, dompet saya kayanya kelupaan di rumah, deh, mbak", tampang gw udah berasa kaya mo nangis aja, muka berasa panas, pasti merah banget,deh, ih. "Bisa dibatalin aja, ngga, mbak, pizzanya?". Hueeee, maluuuuuuuuuuuuuu >.<

"Oh, kenapa? ngga usah. Bayarnya ngga usah sekarang ngga papa, kok. Tinggalin nama aja di kasirnya, ntar bayarnya besok ato kapan kamu maunya aja"
"ha?", rada bengong, ohh, bisa?, "oh, gitu? ngga dibatalin aja, mbak?"
"Ngga, ngga papa kok, tinggalin nama aja. Bayarnya kapan kamu mau aja"
"Bisa gitu?", masih keukeuh ngga percaya. Di Indo aja daku kayanya ngga pernah deh ngutang di warung. ngutang ke temen yang gw suruh bayarin dulu buat gw sih pernah ^^ (ato sering? :P)
"Iya, ngga papa", si mbaknya udah mulai senyum2, tampang gw bingung banget kali ya? ^^
"ohh...", gw akhirnya ngangguk-ngangguk balik nunggu lagi.
Maluuuuuuu...
Trus gw tulis, deh, di kertas nama gw, alamat, no telp, gw kuliahnya di jurusan apa, nomer mahasiswa gw. Biar mbaknya yakin gituh gw ngga bakalan ngga bayar. Maluuuuuu T_T
Pas akhirnya selese tuh pizza, daku kasih, deh, itu kertas. Tapi mbaknya cuma, "oh, ngga usah, cuma butuh namanya ajah kok". Terus doski bikin bonnya, ambil kertas kecil, nulis nama gw, trus bonnya diceklek (formalnya: diokot xD) ke kertas itu, sambil ngembaliin kertas berisi info lengkap gw, "Udah gini aja, kok".

Hueee, daku antara seneng dapet pizza nan wangi, malu + tengsin beraat, tersepona ama mbaknya yg baek hati... hiks hiks hiks

Jadi...begitu sodara-sodara pengalaman pertama (semoga yg terakhir juga, plz plz plz) daku ngutang pizza di Itali T_T
Btw, berhubung gw terkesan sekalihh, plus pizzanya emang enak banget ;D, ini nihh pizzeriaku tersayang itu :
Pizzario Via Della Resistenza 9 / A, +39 461 811555
Delivery bisa, loh. tapi kayanya ngga sampe indo, deh :P

Asian guy stereotype

Ok, again about stereotype. Just played some dance earlier. And there was a random chinese player played with us. He mostly then talked in Chinese language to our friend who was also a chinese. At some point of those long conversation in weird characters then our friend laughed, he said that this person was asking how about the american girl players in the game (I am playing in US server), do they have big tits? *excuse my language, im just rewriting what he said*, to which us gurls responded, ewwwwwww.
But then our friend just went on and said, oh, come on, that's just typical an asian guy. I thought u dated one before, he said to my friend, who is korean-american. She just responded, well so what, asian guy is just like normal guys, just like .
Well, I'm with her. I have no idea before that asian guy has that kind of stereotype: liking big ****?
Wait but im Indonesian, which is Asian too, and so is my bf. Does that make him in that stereotype too? And, come to think of it, does Indonesia really considered as part of asian ppl? I mean it seems when ppl r discussing abt asian, then its chinese ppl that comes up [1] [2].

Local regional stereotype

Hmm...I kinda forget it already that culture clashes do happen often too locally, I mean among Indonesians. I recently had it on an Indonesian gathering.

The talk went about the stereotypes of every region. Someone said that there's this malaysian study regarding them which is circulated through mails. I have no idea whether this is the afromentioned thing, but the description quite matched what was talked in that moment. Copy pasted from there this was the topic :
Orang Jawa misalnya berperwatakan lembut dan lambat, orang Sunda - periang dan penggoda, orang Batak -kasar, orang Padang - licik.

translation : Javenese people for example, has gentle personality and do things slowly, Sundanese - cheerful and flirty, Batak - rude, Padang - tricky.

OMG, now that I read that, that's so creepily matching the event at that time, we were consisted of 3 javanese ppl, 1 sundanese, 1 batak(ese?) person, and 1 padang(ese?) person.What were the odds?

It wasnt really a long talk actually, most of us just laughed it off. But, then one, from Batak, went on and said, "but it's true, Sundanese ppl is indeed flirty", to which of course the sundanese one showed her disapproval. Yet, the one who said it stood firm for her stance, "Yes, it is true, I know it myself". and there went the atmosphere from friendly laughs to us still trying to laugh awkwardly between the two arguing ones. The sundanese went on expressing that it might be a stereotype but one can not then simply just judge every Sundanese will act like that; and that such a comment was unacceptable, in a bit angered, serious tone, and the other one still stayed calm while repeating her opinion, that she just simply said what she thought as right, what she believed as the truth. And that the opinion abt the stereotype of her was indeed true, and so was the stereotype abt sundanese.

Phew, what a situation, I have to admit I was really scared that it would end badly. Luckily it all went normal after that...well, at least, for me. I dont really remember how it ended. But there were no catfight for sure ^^

So, yeah, that was quite a creepy cultural clash that I wish would never happen again. At least not when I'm around, plz.

Disclaimer : Despite copy pasting those opinion abt regional stereotype in this post, I have no intention at all to support such an opinion. I think everyone's different. And it's one's acts that defines someone, not which region he/she comes from =]