December 2, 2002

Today I went to visit a remote, somewhat poor traditional Indonesian village 3 hours away from where I live. I really thought I knew a lot about Indonesian culture and all, since I'd stayed with my grandparents, who lived in a very small town, quite a couple of times. I know the customs, am familiar with the traditional ways of doing things, etc. Perhaps it's just because I've been away from the country for quite a while, or perhaps it's because the people I see and live with everyday have gotten a lot more Westernized.. but I found that I just couldn't stop observing the traditional Javanese people that queued for the charity packets my parents and their friends brought. I find the fact that 95% of them wore traditional clothing, even for church, interesting. We don't see people wearing those kind of clothes anymore in cities such as mine, yet they all wore the long-sleeved blouse and skirt made of patterned textile like how we would wear denim. They're very, very modest people; most of them don't even wear shoes. The village was just hours away, yet I felt like I was in a different country, a poor, agricultural, traditional country that had yet to taste what modern living was like. Heh.

12:58 AM