Bersaudara: Siti (Part 1)

Siti: “Pak Josh, can you help me with something?”

Me: “Sure, what is it?”

Siti: “Well, you’re a guy, so I think maybe you’ll know what this means?” She showed me her phone. “What do you think he means? Do you think he likes me?!”

Me: “…seems like it. At the very least, he’s ‘feeling you out.’”

Siti: “Maksudnya?”

Me: “He’s trying to see if you like him also.”

Siti: “What do you mean ‘also’? How do you know he likes me?!”

Me: “Because you said his description of his ‘type’ fits you perfectly?”

One United Indonesia

Meet Siti. Siti is half Minang and half Sunda. She has the rounder face and larger nose characteristic of the Minang peoples. Her skin shade is lighter, more characteristic of the Sunda people. She lives with a distinct cultural ambiguity because she is not considered a part of either side. Siti speaks neither mother-tongue with facility nor distinctly resembles one side over the other. She is thoroughly an Indonesian from the one, united Indonesia.

Siti is the pinnacle of Indonesian etiquette and decorum. Mostly. For example, Siti will often silence her adverse opinions to avoid being considered rude or arrogant. I once questioned why cigarettes are so prevalent if everyone acknowledges that smoking is unhealthy, addictive, and expensive. I coincidentally asked this in Indonesian while in a room full of smokers. She loudly replied (in English), “Thank you, Pak Josh! Sometimes I’m really glad when I’m with foreigners because they speak their minds for both of us!” That’s me, rudely speaking truth for the politely silent since 2022.

In another example, she insists on calling me, “Pak” (the Indonesian equivalent of “Mr.”) even though I’ve asked her to simply use my first name. She replied, “But Pak Josh, my ancestors would be so ashamed of me if I didn’t use ‘Pak!’” I relented because I am not one to argue with generations of late Indonesians.

Those same ancestors apparently do not mind being permanently left behind in the motherland so long as Siti comports herself honorably wherever she is. Her express purpose is to finish her Master’s degree and move to another country, Allah willing. She has no foreseeable return date. Siti prefers London but will settle for a lesser nation with the right person.

An Island Unto Herself

Siti is more independent (or perhaps less interdependent?) than many, perhaps because she had to pioneer an identity from the ethnic grey spaces. SIti’s Muslim faith is a wonderful, positive example. Most Indonesian Muslims only read Al-Quran in Arabic though they understand little to none of it. Her religious teachers only taught what and how to believe, but never why. This vacuum of knowledge consequently caused her to experience a crisis of faith. Siti broke with tradition and chose to read Al-Quran in Indonesian. She became a devout, highly conservative Muslim by choice rather than by birth or tradition.

Siti’s independent spirit naturally leads to a certain amount of willfulness. She seemingly walks the thin line between “unique” and “maverick” everyday without hesitation. For example, Siti’s exclusive love for Western entertainment has earned her the nickname “Basic Bitch” from some corners. The epithet always departs from her mouth tinged with resignation and scorn. Resignation because the label is thrust upon her; scorn because the matter is needless and inconsequential. Siti willingly owns the label despite her feelings.

One of Siti’s more unique stories comes from the fact that she remains single even though many her age are already married with children. She arrived one day with a diamond ring on her engagement hand. Dana and I were naturally puzzled since Siti had no romantic prospects the week before. Siti explained that she borrowed her mother’s ring to stop the daily catcalls or requests for contact details. She rolled her eyes several times as she relived her exasperation at all the “ugh… men!” she passed.

This last story perhaps serves as a perfect summation of Siti. She is talented, focused, independent, frankly opinionated, impatient with stupidity. She is an Indonesian from the one, united Indonesia…. and she would love very much to leave it behind with or without the right person.

The Ask

*Siti’s words are written in blue italics. Mine are white standard font. Explanations are in green standard font.

Our smiles are big. Dana views this as a triumph of love. She is happy for Siti to find romance. I’m a more terrible sort of person. I enjoy Siti’s clear dismay overly much. It may have been due to the fact that her distress was more outsized than seemed warranted. Then again, Siti has never been in a relationship before. Neither am I female, Indonesian, nor Muslim. Siti faced ramifications I’ve never had to consider.

“Oh, Dana will be alright.”

Dana grins and says, “Don’t worry, Josh will behave himself.”

It turns out that conservative Muslims consider dating haram (a forbidden action considered sinful, justifiably punishable by God and the devout if continued after being warned). A conservative Muslim lady is forbidden from being alone with men outside the family. In fact, ladies are forbidden from showing any part of her body except face and hands to males outside of the family. A loose baggy hijab and socks in public are the norm. When a man and woman want to be together they must: (a) get to know each other in groups, (b) meet the parents, (c) win their approval, then (d) marry. Anything outside of that order dishonors the parents, itself also haram.

The Meet

The agreed upon location is an unassuming and unmarked cafe/bakery in an upper-middle class neighborhood. Inside was much livelier. A modern setup greeted us: coffee and bakery counter on the left, minimalist shelving displaying cafe product on the right. The middle of the space was dominated by a large display cabinet with pastries and their respective explanations. The space included a small zen stone garden complete with fountain. The back of the cafe was the smoking section, surprisingly more utilitarian than modern. It was as if the cafe hired an interior decorator but ran out of money after the front half. Maybe the owners consigned the back half to eventual ruin from continuous ash.

Dana and I arrived about 30 minutes earlier than the set time. Siti was already seated and reading her phone. I asked her if she was ready for this momentous occasion.

“Kasihan” has no actual translation. It is someone to be pitied, an object requiring compassion. The end effect is something akin to, “[You] poor thing” without sounding grandmotherly or overly Southern.

I pondered for a moment. Siti’s translation made a certain amount of sense given the lack of straightforwardness culturally inherent to our part of Indonesia. Repeated statements could be a form of gentle letdown. Yet he had been the one to ask first. His statements had been ascensive, not repetitive. The tone felt more like warning than deflection. The floodgates of insight suddenly burst open and spilled their contents all over my brain.

Siti laughed, split between amusement, disbelief, and the sudden horror that I was possibly correct. Her first answer may have simply been a softball. Her second and third answers confirmed her willingness to leave Indonesia and live elsewhere, Allah willing. Three times asked, three times answered. She had not known that “the rule of three” is almost universal to the whole of Asia.

Basa-basi is often used as the Indonesian equivalent of small talk. It is also any sort of speech said for politeness’ sake, say, for saving face or sparing people’s emotions. Indonesian culture usually views outright rejection or acceptance of any offered thing as rude. The first answer is always considered a “softball”, noncommittal at best. If the answer remains unchanged after three times, then the answer given is the true one.

Siti looked supremely amused at the sudden development. She had just made her life much more complicated…. not that she was trying hard to avoid it.

Some minutes later, a young man roughly Siti’s age parked his scooter and looked around. His lost, searching expression identified him as the one we were waiting for. He was handsome, tall, and wiry. His height, build, and facial features were typical of someone from the Central Caucuses.

The young man joined us at our table, sat down, and identified himself as Amir. He was affable, amicable, inviting, with a self-assurance just shy of arrogance. He seemed to be someone who knew he was cute but was either too honorable or too shy to leverage it. Our conversations started in earnest, but its contents are unimportant. It is sufficient to know that two hours passed quickly. Amir took Siti home on his scooter despite her objection to being alone with men. Perhaps a loophole exists for ridesharing.

The Debrief

My understanding of Siti’s past behavior suddenly experienced a paradigmatic shift. Compliments flew fast whenever we’d met up till now. I’d always assumed this was so out of mutual respect. I suddenly realized Siti had deflected compliment with compliment rather than repay compliment with compliment. It was far easier for her to give a compliment than it was to accept and believe one.

Siti had always presented as a self-assured lady. She was never arrogant nor overconfident. Neither was she shy nor diffident. She walked into places as if she owned them. Siti was clearly comfortable in her own skin. And why not? She had to forge a personality that she liked “90% of the time” from out of the ethnic grey spaces of her life.

Siti’s self-acceptance battled with past rejections. She had revealed her low self-esteem directly without any hint of shame, embarrassment, or shyness, itself an indicator that she liked herself enough. She simply had no confidence in others around her to do the same. Siti had grown up Minang and Sunda, but was considered neither. She told a few men that she found them attractive. They consequently left the friendship soon after. Her friends playfully derided her for only liking Western Music. Part of it had taken root as a tacit rejection of her preferences. The immovable object of self-acceptance had met the unstoppable force of public opinion. Siti solidly sat between both, too stubborn to bend but not brazen enough to walk away.

Her doubt of others led her to constantly parse Amir’s words for hidden meaning. The result was often confusion and dismay. Amir’s playful and affable delivery style actually hindered him because it made parsing more difficult. What I took to be relatively straight-forward statements were far less readily transparent to Siti. It does not help that love and romance tend to defenestrate all the normal rules of interpretation.

Thus it is that we find ourselves pondering Siti’s current dilemma with Amir. Does she open her heart to Amir or not? Love with the possibility of abandonment, or the quiet dignity of singleness? She quite liked herself even if she was not entirely convinced of her worth.