I stepped out onto my front balcony. The weather was clear and warmed by the morning sun. My inner lizard decided to thaw and collect itself with sunlight. The street below was relatively empty and quiet, a peaceful morning. My contemplation (or lack thereof) was cut short by a loud voice below me:
Pak N: “Ah, Pak Jos! Mau ngopi?” (Mr. Josh, do you want to coffee?) Me: “Kenapa?” (What?) Pak N: “Ngopi, ngopi, yuk!” (Coffee, let’s coffee!)*
Gathering
Hanging out with company is a national pastime in Indonesia. If quintessential American is “mom, apple pie, and football”, quintessential Indonesian is “community, fried rice, and hanging out”. Indonesians grow up heavily socialized. Their social nature is reinforced by a general belief that solitude makes one vulnerable to spiritual visitation. Few people in Indonesia enjoy solitude. Welcome to Indonesia, where the food is spicy, the gossip spicier, and the introverts are closeted.
The vocabulary around this pastime is rich and varied. If the importance of a concept can be measured by the number of words used to describe it, then gathering together is fairly central. Friends “bergaul” (hang out with no intended purpose). Coworkers, family, and acquaintances “berkumpul” (gather together for some purpose). The default assumption when arranging a meet of any kind is that all attenders will invite others. To meet alone with one other person requires one to request “empat mata” (four eyes, two per person).
Gathering generally happens around coffee or food. During Ramadan hungry friends will “ngebuburit” at 4pm. That is, they will idly chit-chat while standing in line while waiting for food places to open. Enemies might eat or drink together to erase their differences in an event known as “halal bihalal”. Friends who want to chill outside the home “nongkrong” because the term originally described chatting in a group while squatting outside small coffee counters. Friends who want to reduce costs brew their own coffee at home. To “ngopi” is thus usually (but not always) to “chat over coffee at home”. **
Brotherhood
Pak N and his friend decided to ngopi that morning before starting their respective workdays. In true Indonesian fashion, Pak N spontaneously invited me despite the fact that I had never met his friend. I am also fairly certain Pak N did not consult his friend beforehand… not that his friend seemed to mind.
I greeted both and handed my mug to Pak N. He poured boiling water and an instant coffee sachet into the mug. The sweet smell of sugar and coffee wafted through a moment later. Coffee, sugar, and sunshine are a potent combination for starting the day well. I squatted on the driveway with Pak N and his friend and our ngopi began in earnest.
My new friend was Pak D, our local garbageman. Pak D is a thin, strong, hardworking man in his early 40’s. He exuded a calm contentedness, a happy soul who enjoys simple pleasures. He greeted me with a smile and several words I could not understand.
Pak N: “He asked if you would like to smoke. He is offering you a cigarette.”
Me: I waved my hand in refusal. “I don’t smoke, but please feel free to smoke.”
Pak D could understand everything I said. Yet he only spoke the local language, meaning that I understood nothing he said. Pak N could speak both but his formal language is heavily tinged with the local accent. This made for a very funny ngopi. Pak D would speak, Pak N would translate, and my head would swivel back and forth trying to make sense of both of them. To this day I am unsure what the entire conversation was about other than it is good that I never started smoking.
The ngopi neared its end after fifteen minutes. I apologized that I was not yet fluent in the formal language and that I could not speak the local language at all. Pak D nodded, smiled, and spoke a few words, most of which I failed to understand. The last three were: “Kita semua bersaudara” (We are all brothers / siblings / family).
The Tie That Binds
I remember some stories I once read to my elementary students. Miguel lives on a farm in Mexico. He harvests and grinds his own corn to make tortillas. Alexander lives in NYC and has never worked a day in his life. Both love sports, riding bicycles, and eating with family. Danny is chauffered by his nanny and spends his time in the car thinking about toys he wants. Asep traverses the forest on foot two hours each direction and only fantasizes about a new pair of shoes. Both attend school and complain about it in their friend circles. Their point is that we are all fundamentally human despite any other differences. I appreciate books that attempt to engender prosocial behavior in our little ones. Unfortunately, I find the books somewhat limited.
Or maybe I’m the limited one. To say that we are all human and therefore the same is a bit like calling a tomato a fruit. Though true, the similarity stops at “they both have seeds.” I’ve never felt a responsibility or obligation towards another based on activity or humanity alone. I strongly believe in the concept of equity-for-all based on our shared humanity. My solidarity may need a little more glue. Put another way, the gap between, “Don’t do evil,” and, “You are me,” is very wide.
Yet Pak D’s confession of human brotherhood did not feel so farfetched as we squatted on the driveway and sipped on cups of caffeinated diabetes together. A relatively high-SES American educator chats over coffee with a low-SES garbage collector and a middle-SES property manager. There is not one common language between us. Our education levels, backgrounds, and experiences are all supremely different. I never once gave thought to the person collecting our garbage. Yet today we are brothers.
Perhaps being family is about erasing differences rather than finding similarities. Similarities are bridges that afford us opportunity to gather in the middle. Magic happens in the gathering. Fraternity and sorority, “bersaudara”, comes with seeing and being seen, accepting and being accepted. That morning, Pak D saw a tomato trying to be more like all the other fruits. He declared me a fruit alongside him despite our differences in lived experience, culture, language, and health-threatening vices. We have not ngopi’d since, but we always greet each other with a smile and converse when able. As brothers do.
Introduction
We often receive questions from family and friends about how we are adapting because they believe (rightfully so) that we are living in a foreign environment. I’ve written this blog over the last year about navigating those differences between our two cultures. Yet “under the hood” we are essentially the same, a concept that remained within the conceptual realm until we moved here. The following series is titled “Bersaudara”, or “[Family]hood”, for that reason.
The next 3-4 stories are from and about my Indonesian friends. They have kindly given me permission to share themselves with you. I want you to meet them. I will do my best to introduce them, their character, their dilemmas, and their story to you. Their paths and trajectories feel so different. Their navigation skills and motivations are so familiar. I hope their stories bring you a step closer to see and care for them as I do.
Footnote
*“Ngopi” is an abbreviation of two words, “Nongkrong + pagi” - to hang out in the morning. I thought ngopi was the literal verb form of the root word “coffee”, relatively akin to the way Americans will use nouns as verbs. Sadly, I’m wrong. I think my idea makes more sense.
**There are many more words with similarly beautiful concepts, but there are too many outside the scope of this story.