This marks the beginning of a new adventure, even as I am very much still engaged in the old one. I am more at home in Korea than ever before, yet one part of my mind is now focused on the approaching horizon: Indonesia, in September of this year. A mere three and a half months away.
Knowing so far in advance about the next change in my life feels like a pregnancy: a period of incubation and speculation on what this new birth will bring. When I came to Korea, I had barely three weeks to tie up my life and pack up my apartment completely. Now here I am with time to spare reading news sites and poring over maps.
I have merely scratched the surface of reading about my new home. Here are a few little tidbits that stick in my mind so far:
- Indonesia is comprised of more than 3,ooo islands.
- It is really, really hot there, and people drink a lot of coffee.
- Indonesia was one of the three countries hardest hit by the IMF crisis of 1998, along with South Korea and Thailand.
- Chinese Indonesians are a minority who suffered much discrimination in the last half of the 20th century, including widespread violence and banning of their language and religious practices. (Sound familiar?)
- Belief in one God is mandated in this majority Muslim state. (I think I have a choice to be Christian; I just can't be pantheistic or animistic.)
- A Saudi friend tells me Indonesia is the top vacation spot for Saudi Arabians.
- The national language, Bahasa Indonesia, uses the Roman alphabet. (Fancy that!)
- Certain Dutch blogs contain long lists of loanwords in Indonesian from Dutch--the country having been under Dutch colonial rule right up to the end of WWII.
- Danish flags were burned in outrage over cartoons debasing the Prophet Muhammad.
- The second highest level of biodiversity in the world is to be found in Indonesian wilderness.
Stay tuned for more to come.(P.S. If anyone wondered, as I did, "to shores unknown" is a phrase repeated in a poem from Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman.)
4 comments:
Oooh... I will stay posted as I've just recently decided that I want to teach in Thailand.
Yay! Go for it, Rebel!
Aaaaand I'm finally checking in! Love the title and subtitle....
: )
You probably won't need it or want it, but if you do, I have contacts in Indonesia. My grandparents lived there for 30 years (in Jakarta) and have still have friends over there. I don't know how geographically-spread they are, but they are there if you need them.
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