Some English Speaking Indonesian Kids

When I go to the mall, I notice that there are some minority (because, there are not so many of them) amount of kids speaks English. 

And listen by their parents accent and looking into their family, they're definitely Indonesian family

That makes me wonder, why are these kids speaks English with their parents and siblings?

Some reasoning :

1. They are going to standard school, where lessons conducted in Bahasa Indonesia, so parents encouraged their kids to speak English and create the environment to speak the language at home

2. Parents have been speaking English with their kids ever since they're little, so their kids MIGHT understand Bahasa Indonesia (also might understand only a little bit), and they can't speak only very little - to almost none Bahasa Indonesia.

I think reason number 1 is OK, since it is important for the kids to learn English, but at the same time their kids are capable to speak Bahasa.

But personally, I think it is a pity for an Indonesian kids, who were born and raised and go to school, and live in Indonesia, for not being able to speak Bahasa Indonesia.

I mean, they live here ! And Bahasa Indonesia is the national language.

It is VERY important for these kids to be able to communicate, to speak their mind and ideas using Bahasa.

Only small amount of Indonesian are capable to speak English, and THESE KIDS LIVE in Indonesia !!

(how many times should I repeat those words ?? )

I find it ironic, to live in Indonesia, and not capable to speak the language.

Lots of people live in foreign country and they are struggling to learn the language of the country they lived in to make it easier for them to communicate and to live!

I know a family whose parents are Indonesian (they speak bahasa perfectly, and even can speak Bahasa Jawa!!!), and their kids are all Indonesian passport holder, living in Singapore and kids can't speak Bahasa Indonesia. Well, probably because they will never live in Indonesia, so it is not necessary for them to speak Bahasa.

But, what about those who lived in Indonesia?!?

Never ending question for me.

I wonder what's in these kids' parents mind so that they decided to speak with their kids in foreign language (English or mandarin) and enrolled them to International school (which is most likely to be mostly English speaking school), and not encouraging their kids to speak native language?

I don't know, whatever the reason, they only do what they think is the best for their kids.

I am not against teaching kids foreign languages since they're very little.

I planned to do the same with my kids, but their 1st language should be English, since they'll be living in USA.

I am planning to teach my kids some Bahasa Indonesia, at least they understand the language when they hear it, but my goal is for them to be able to speak. They will be half Indonesian, and they have lots of relatives in Indonesia, it will a good language skill for them.

And probably some basic Chinese, it is necessary, but not priority...Ha Ha Ha...

More than that, I also notice that teenage magazine in Indonesia are also full with Inglish articles, Bahasa Indonesia mixed with English. Trends !

Then, what am I doing here, writing my blog in English ?

Ah, I need to practice my English, and to make it easier for my friends and lover *wink wink* to read.

I was born, raised, and enrolled in private school, all conducted in Bahasa.

At home we all speak in Bahasa.

I grow interest in English from my parents, who bought some children's English magazines and books, and teach me how to speak and read and sing in English.

3rd grade is the first time we have English lesson in Elementary school, my fave lesson !

All the time, my English has been OK. 

I mean, I can read, write, listen and speak English.

Excellent ?

NO :D

I have accents, I made grammatical and pronunciation error, but most importantly, people understand when I communicate with them.

When I made mistake, people laugh, and I happily laugh with them.

Saya cinta bahasa Indonesia

June Reunion with Jojoba

Yesterday, I met jojoba friends at Pacific Place, a new mall (for me, at least !) in Jakarta.

I got there at 3, wander around with Edison, sat at Starbucks until 5, meet the rest of the groups, then headed to Kiyadon, a Japanese Restaurant, where we will sit and talk for the next 4 hours !

Left to right :

Christine-Andri, Ika-Cai", Rendy (Penju)-Levi, Subandi-Ledy, Tessa-Edison, Cindy-Reggy

All of them (except Edison) are getting married within 1 year!How cool is that ??

Topic of that day was of course : WEDDING !!!

I will go first by getting married this August,

follow by Cindy at the beginning of September,

Ledy's will be in the end of October,

While Christine's is the day after Christmas,

Siska might be on May 2011,

And last but not least, Rendy planned to marry Levi next year.

Super happy,

but could be better if more Jojoba are there.

June Reunion

June is a month full with reunion.

First is the grand reunion with family members, parents, uncles-aunts, cousins, and dogs :)

Then second is reunion with friends, meet up with Astrid, Kurnia and Devi at Cafe Hema in Kemang Pratama :

with Astrid, we already promised to wear red lipstick :D

Did I mention that she is a mother of two girls ?? 

Super slim, right !?

Astrid & Kurnia

Kurnia has one daughter, and currently living in Taiwan

 Kurnia-Astrid-Devi

Devi also have a daughter

I'm surrounded by mothers who have daughters.

I am so happy !

Anything (make sense) for the reproduction sakes !

I've been having back problem for quite a while now.
Like, I will have a hard time to straightened up my back after I sat for a while.
It hurts.

So, here in Indo, we know a therapist who do the reflexology thing.
And by reflexology is that she really press the points on your body, and it if you have some health problem, that point will hurts like hell !

She fixed my pinkie finger last year, when it was so stiff, I can't bend it over.
One therapy, and it's all good.

So today is the same thing, sitting down, and she starts by pressing my foot.
It hurts a little bit here and there, but I have high tolerance of pain (which she said that it means I have a strong mentality as well), so I was just sitting and looking on what she is doing.

Then she press my back, I can feel it, feels good, but also not painful.

Then she move to my EAR !
FYI, I have 8 piercings on my ear, 5 on the left and 3 on the right, and GEEZ, it HURTS like hell !!!
She said "what is this ? oh earrings ! so many earrings ! do you know that ear has so many nerves, by putting all these earrings, means u are blocking them.
Then she press one and said "this is for the back",
and pressing another one and said "this is for the reproduction" (!!!!!)

The word reproduction rings my ALARM !
I mean, I really want to have kids, so I need to keep my reproduction system went smoothly, right ?!

I took off my earrings, and she continue to press my ears, damn its so painful !
Like super HURT !
I can feel my ears becoming hot, and I can feel some blood flow there.
It is really hurt at first, but then the pain becoming mild, as the blockage has been taken care of.

So, Starting from today, I say goodbye to 3 pairs of earrings.
I will only wear 1 pair from now on (oh well, I might wear more once in a while)

This is for the sake of my reproduction system.
I'm sorry I've been abusing you for 12 years.
Please be good now.

Bye bye earrings, hello to a healthy reproduction system !
Yay to reflexology !

6 dogs inside the house...

We have 6 dogs at home.
And we kept them inside the house.
2 dogs are in the backyard, free all day long,
4 are inside the house, they are caged most of the time, but free for about 2 hours in the morning and another 2 hours in the afternoon.

We kept them caged, because it's too chaos to have 4 dogs constantly being crazy at home, esp they're not house broken, which means we have to pick up poop and clean up pee whenever they relieve their selves.

We hardly take them out for a walk outside the house, because they're all small breed, and our house have enough room to ran and chase each other around.
Those 4 little brats are pretty crazy, and active.
Comparing to muffin who is free 24/7, I think 4 little brats are doing quite a lot of exercise.

And since its Indonesia, where people are not so friendly with dogs, of course it's safer to have dogs caged, rather than if they ran away, and wandering around in the neighborhood, and got beaten by bad people, like ma has seen before.

She saw a dog got chained really tight on its neck, near the river in our neighborhood.
Its dying, ma walked back home, take some dog food and water, and give it to the dog.

Dog drank, but no strength to eat. Ma take off its chain and throw it to the river, so no one would chain him again.
The dog is full of fleas, everywhere, so ma called pa, and asked what can we do to help.


Pa said that they will take the dog to the vet in the afternoon, after pa come back from work.
If the vet could get rid all the fleas, and bring him back his health, we will find someone to adopt him.

At around 6pm, ma and pa go to the place where the dogs were laying before.
And they can't find him.
But then they saw some piles of leaves nearby, and they saw that the dog is there.
BURNED to death.
and not completely burned, but half burned.
As if someone is playing with fire to the helpless dog, and fire get bigger and burned the dog to death.

I will never know whether the dog is dead first and then got burned or the other way around.
Anyway, this story bring tears into my eyes.

I also have heard people telling me about people being mean to dogs, tied them to motorcycle and dragged them around the neighborhood, alive !, and others, it hurts me to hear this kind of story.

All I know is that our family has made the right decision to keep the dog inside the house, as we are not living in the country where people are friendly to dogs.

Keep your opinion about freedom of dogs, that doesn't apply in our country.

Sincerely yours !

Diary / Memory book from Elementary School Time...

During elementary school, especially when we're in the 6th grade, there is something popular called Diary.

This Diary is a thick book, really looks like a journal where people usually get their daily life written.

But in our school, it's different.
We give this diary to our friends, to fill.
They will write their name, birthday, hobbies, favorite food and drinks, what they want to be, and so on.

I have mine, and when I clean up my bedroom yesterday, I found it !
And I knew right away that I have to scan and put it on Facebook, tagging along my elementary school friends.

Here are some scanned file of my diary :

translation :

Georgiana Natasha Marinska Lukman (my full name)

Please fill in this memorial book

Rules :

1.Photo is a must

2. Address , phone number

3. Neat

4. Do not write in other's pages

Thanx!

Then, as an owner, I will write first, and below is my page:

As you can see, the date is on October 15, 1995

So I wrote down my full name, nick name, home address, religion, best friends, fave animal, fave drinks...Originally I have my picture there, but I don't know where it is now.

And some other of my friends pages :

Samuel's (Ucok) page

He got commented a lot, because his page is so funny.

He used to be so small, but seems like he is pretty tall now.

He wrote "kiss your parents before you kiss your gf/bf"

Dea's page

Julius Ali's page.

He is special. During 6th grade, he is sitting in front of me. That time, me and my deskmate, Paulus, used to be very naughty. I used to kick on his chair, and Paulus did the same mischievous things to him.

He has diabetes, and he passed away on April 18, 1996, even before the final exam of Elementary School.I remember crying so hard at his house. Now, I feel so lucky that I have him write on my diary.

Anas's page.

Here he already wrote down his boyfriend type, which is :

1. handsome

2. mighty and strong

3. caring

4. funny/comedian

Of course I tag his bf into this picture (his BF is Ritter, which is also our elementary school friend !)

And this page is a blast ! super funny...

There are some other pages,

but I will only put some here.

And yesterday, my facebook was so busy because of tons of comments coming from them.

It was super funny, and it made my day (and probably some other friends as well)

Kebaya in the making !

For the wedding ceremony at the church in Seattle, I want to wear kebaya.
So me, mom and Aunt Keng went to Bu Rini's house, near my house.
I will get measured and decide on which style of kebaya that I want.

After looking on some pictures, I decided that I want a simple and nice white kebaya.

I got measured, and price settled as well.
then we all go to Bekasi Square to buy the fabric for the kebaya top and it's sarong.

We picked a beautiful white fabric for the kebaya top, and super white taffeta fabric for the bustier underneath, as for the sarong, it was red-gold and if u move the fabric, it's kinda blue-ish.
so pretty !!!

I am very happy about my future wedding kebaya.

a glimpse of Kebaya, mine will look some much prettier than this one :)

黄山 a.k.a MOUNT YELLOW part 2

After stopping at Guang Ming Ding, me and ma continue walked the steps to the hotel, people said it is another 3km to go !! (WTF !)

So, we take our time, and walk our passage to the hotel.

Some flowers we saw during walking :

The flowers are so pretty, they helped to cheer up my mom, who obviously struggling when she climbed the stairs.

Finally after a long walk, we arrived in the hotel, immediately checked in, went to the restaurant to get lunch (mad expensive!), we got some left over and decided to bring it back to our hotel, so the others can eat it.

Our room is a 8 people bedroom, with 4 bunk beds. We're the first one who got in, so we choose the bottom bunk bed, near the bathroom, since its seems to be the cleanest one, and the one near the window has molds and we don't want to be in the top, because we don't want to climb more stairs !

We took a shower, then RESTING. We fall asleep immediately, and I didn't wake up till Bill called me, he has arrived.

Everyone checked in to their room, but only our room (mine and bill's) has bathroom, so they took turns to take a shower.

This is situation in our bedroom when our friends are waiting for their turns to take a shower

The girls, Tarcy and Xuying took shower in our bedroom, while the boys in Bill's bedroom

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Third day came, and it is time to go back to the cable car and go down.

The walk will took 2 hours !

But we have to do it anyways, so we walk our way, and it was sunny, so it's nice to walk

Below are some pictures :

 You can have people carried you on their shoulder with this cart. Costs quite a lot, but worth the money if you have a painful joints

Can you see people climbing up that crazy steep stairs ?? We have to climb them too later on.

View from the bottom of the crazy steep stairs.

Mom took the carriage when doing this one

View from the top. Mad crazy ! I didn't dare to go too far to take pictures, I'm scared I might fall down and then I'll become some puzzles for people to solved (or to scooped and throw to the garbage bin)

Some view of the steps we did

Down below you can see the city...Far away down...

Finally, we reached the cable car stop, and we're waiting for Jay, Allen, Xuying and Lloyd, who still have enough strength to see some scenic spots.

Ma, Bill, Tarcy.

Bill was having a major knee pain, as a result of crazy loop he did the day before.

Me and hairstyle of the day, Chun Li !

We took the bus back to Shanghai, arrived at around 6pm, then we ate at Da Marco, Italian Restaurant, head home, showered and passed out.

It was a nice trip !

黄山 a.k.a MOUNT YELLOW part 1

On June 4, Bill, ma and me are going to meet up with Jay, Allen, Tarcy and Lloyd near the 人民广场 or People Square to take a bus to Mount Yellow.
We arrived at around 7, meet up with friends, then got up on the bus and off we go !!

It will be a 5 hours bus ride until we got off, and meet our private driver who we hired for the next 3 days, then we go to the Emerald Valley, then  to the old village near  Mount Yellow, a place called 宏村, where we're gonna spend the night at.


When we stopped at Emerald Valley, I have no idea what kind of place it is.
But soon as I walked and hiked, I knew that I LOVE that place. I felt the urge to just jump down into the water, because the water is so cleaaannn, and it has green color because of the rocks underneath. All of us, LOVE that place.


Below are some pictures from Emerald Valley :

 Salted pig face in front of the restaurant 

Emerald Valley, Mom and Bill

The couple :)

With Tarcy 

 

This is on the scene of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon - Pic by Tarcy

 Show some love in the love bridge - Pic by Tarcy

They are so high up in the air !!

 Me and Xuying, resting

 Tarcy and Lloyd - Pic by Tarcy

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some pictures from 宏村 or Hong Cun

 Getting ready to get inside the Old Village

In front of the entrance

Entrance to a house used to owned by a super rich person

This is the decoration of the house, wood carving.

During the cultural revolution, they cover this with dirt and mud, so it won't be visible and won't get destroyed. They wrote "Long live Emperor Mao" on top of the dirts.

Pork Feet, anyone ?? :D

Flowers on our hotel, very pretty !

These are how people wash their clothes in the village !

The view of the village

Moon Pond, people also wash their clothes and dishes here

Rice Field

The Village in the morning

The happy couple :D

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the second day, we're going to Huangshan, it took us +/-1 hr to get there.

Below are some pictures :

Place to buy entrance ticket, which cost RMB 230

This guy (among a lots of other people like him), will carry the stuffs all the way up to the mountain, by WALK ! These stuffs is at least 70kg in weight, and wait till you see how steep it is to go all the way up !

We queue to get into this cable car for about 1 hr, then the cable car ride took about 5-10 mins, it was soooo HIGH ! Imagine if you are walking and carry stuffs on your shoulder like that guy did ! Cable car ride costs RMB 80 (one way)

Once we get off the cable car, surrounded by CLOUDS ! 

I told you we're so high up !

In the top of the mountain. On my backpack, I carry 2 liters of water, clothes for 1 night (mine and mom's), a little bit of snacks. Bill carried the same amount of water, some instant noodle and his own clothes.

Some view of Mount Yellow in the cloudy day

Below is me and mom at Guang Ming Ding, we have parted with Bill and the others here, and we're walking our way to the hotel. It tooks us more than 2 hours to get here, and it's only half way to the hotel. Lots of steps waiting ahead of us.