How To Get Yourself a Treat While You’re Away from Home

(Today’s my father’s birthday, and I really wanna write this entry for his birthday)

Basically I’m not the kind of person who can easily make friends. In other words, I’m a shy boy (you may laugh and say you don’t believe it, but it’s true :-P ). But lucky me, almost in every city that I ever lived in, I have friends that treat me like I were one of their own family. If you ask me the reason, I think that’s because I have a really great family back in Sidoarjo. (Well, actually I’d like to say that’s because I’m a fine, adorable, amusing person, plus any other wonderful adjective that I can find in dictionary :-), but I know that you won’t believe it anyway, so I just stick with the truth :-) ).

Here are two stories that made me believe so.

The first is a story from mas Sony, my sister’s friend. Mas Sony lived in Depok, the city where I went to take my bachelor degree. Since his house was close to where I lived, I often visited him on weekend, and he always welcomed me. There were lots of hawkers passed his house on weekend, and when I visited him, he used to stop two or three of them and bought me the foods, and he never let me pay. Like, he could buy me bubur ayam and bakso on one weekend, batagor, bakso, and es cendol on other weekend, and bakso and siomay on yet another weekend (if you good at learning pattern, you’ll realize that there’s always bakso (meatballs) in every weekend that I visit him :-) ). This made me wonder, not only why I still couldn’t gain weight even after all those feasts… :-), but also why he did that to me. Well, I was his guest, and it’s a normal custom for a host to treat his guest. But treating me two or three times in only several hours was a little too much. Then he told me his own story about that.

It was when he visited Sidoarjo and stayed in our house for several days. As a visitor, he wanted to try all Sidoarjo’s local foods. Almost everyday he ate them, either my mother cooked it at home, or my sisters brought him to some restaurants. My sisters never let him pay for everything that he had, just like what he did to me in Depok. One time he insisted to pay, but my sister refused and said,
“We’ll pay for you. But that’s not for free. You know, my brother is in Depok now. We will pay for everything while you’re staying here, so please never let my brother hungry during his stay there.”
And my sisters successfully ‘trapped’ mas Sony to treat me bakso every time I visit him… :-)
(And if you still wonder why bakso, there’s another story, but I want to keep it for my mother birthday… :-) )

The other story is when Yuki, my friend from Japan, visited my home. At that time she was studying bahasa Indonesia in Jogja. She told me once that she really wanted to know how it is like to live in a normal Indonesian family. That’s why when she heard that I was going to visit Indonesia for some conference, she asked me whether it’s okay for her to stay at my home for several days. My family didn’t mind at all, so I let her come.

While Yuki was curious about normal Indonesian family, my family was curious about her, since she was the first foreigner ever visit my home. The mutual curiosity seemed to work well :-), and in a short time she had already fitted there, just as if we had already known her for a long time. Everybody tried to make her stay as enjoyable as possible. Even when my brother and his wife planned a trip to Malang and asked the whole family to tag along, they also asked Yuki to join.

To make it short, we had a wonderful trip to Malang, and not long, it's time for her to go back to Jogja. She came to me and asked,
“So, how much should I pay for the Malang trip?”
My family (most of it my brother) paid for the whole trip, so I replied, “I didn’t pay at all, so I think you don’t need to pay either.”
She insisted, “That's not how it's work. You’re their family. It’s no problem if you don’t pay, but I’m nobody here.”
“You may think so, but I think they don’t expect you to pay. Don't worry about it.”
”C’mon!”
I thought for a while and then said, “Well, just put it this way. You don’t need to pay this time, but next time you visit my family again, bring something for them, okay? Just bring simple stuff, I’m sure they will appreciate it.”
Finally Yuki agreed with that.

Later, my father told me this about why he treated Yuki well.
“She really reminds me of you. Studying in a far country all alone without her family around her. Well, nothing we can do about you because Japan is beyond our reach, but we can do something for her here. It's not much, but I believe if we help her here, God will send someone else to take care of you for us there.”
And I believe that's why a lot of people taking care of me while I was away...

So, back to the title, to get yourself a treat while you’re away from home, you need to have a good family. Well, it's not something that you can do about, but at least you can be that 'good family' for your own family. Just try helping someone around you, and I think God will take care not only of your family, but also of you.
(Sorry for talking so big, but this advice is not only for you. Most of it is for me myself... :-) )

Everything Happen for A Reason

Sometimes, it only needs something as small as one phone call to get things going, like the phone call that I got from Tomoko-san last week, telling me that she and her husband would go to Jakarta to join a conference.

"That's cool", I responded.
"Yeah! Well, actually there's something that I want to ask you."
"What is it?"
"I want to give my friend in Bandung a present, but it seems that we won't have the time to meet. Do you think it's possible to send it via postal service?"
"Of course. Why?"
I started wondering whether Tomoko-san thought that Indonesia still using medieval ways to deliver things - such as doves, or even owls :-) - and that the package would be too heavy for them to carry. But she replied, "I just afraid that if I go to post office to ask, the officer won't be able to understand my English..."
"You speak good English! I think you won't have problem there... but how about if I ask one of my friends there to help you? I think some of my undergrad friends are still in Jakarta now."
"Really? I will appreciate it."
"I'll let you know soon."
And the next minute I was digging through my closet, trying to find the phone list of my friends in Jakarta.

Basically, I believe that no news is good news, and as you can guess, I'm not often call my friends just to say hi - I always call for a reason. Well, sometimes I do want to talk to them with no particular purpose. At those times, usually I just try to find a reason (sometimes a far fetched one :-) ), and then call. So, if you think that I ever called you with a very lame excuse (like: my cat just dialed your number... :-) ), chances that at that very moment, I really wanted to talk to you :-).

And if my memory didn't fail me, the last time I talked with one of the gp96ers (that's how we call our class) was 3 years ago, and it looked like during these three years, I couldn't find an excuse (even a lame one :-) ) to call them. If you believe that everything happen for a reason, perhaps the reason why God sent Tomoko-san to call me was to give me a solid reason to call them again :-).

I found the phone list and started to dial the numbers. (The order of whom I called first basically based on who that I thought know Jakarta enough and could easily help Tomoko-san - so if you happened to be last in my list, it didn't mean that I hate you, okay? :-) ). First I called Ari, and his number told me that the phone couldn't be reached at that time. Well, may be he still trapped somewhere, so I continued with Ratna's number. This time it told me that the number was not in service. Hmm, did she change her number? I moved on to Bonggo's, and I heard the dial tone (finally!)... but nobody showed up at the other end :-).

I got a little bit worried that I could contact nobody that night. Well, I couldn't blame anyone, it's my own fault that I don't keep in touch with them. There's nothing else I could do, so I continued with Lisya's number. Again, I heard the dial tone, and while waiting for respond, I started thinking on what should I said if she'd already forgotten me. Lisya and I still send mails sometimes, but the last time we talked was about 6 years ago. Anyway, there wasn't much time to think, because soon somebody picked up on the other end. I opened my mouth to say 'hello', but Lisya's voice made me stop.
"What's up, Awan?"
I clean my ears regularly, so I was sure that it didn't play trick on me :-). But how could she know that it was me?
"Pardon?", I tried to make sure.
"It's you isn't it?"
"How could you know?"
"Well, not many people call me from Japanese number", she explained. " What's up?"
It looked like Lisya still remember that I almost never call only to say hi :-), so I could skip the chitchat and got down to business. I quickly tell her about Tomoko-san, and asked her whether she could help.
"No problem", she replied quickly. "Do you know where she will stay?"
"Kempinski Hotel."
"Lucky you! My office is just across the street. I can visit her on lunch time if she wants..."

And for the second time that night, I really thought that everything happen for a reason. May be the reason that I couldn't get to my other friends phone was that God knew that Lisya worked the closest to where Tomoko-san would stay, and that she's the best person to help her... (yeah, I know that it really sound that I was just fitting everything up, but who knows? :-) )

We had a small chitchat after Tomoko-san business settled, and Lisya told about some of our old friends that she had just talked to recently. Hmm, suddenly I felt lots of guilt for not keeping in touch with them... Now, it really looked like the real reason why God sent Tomoko-san to call me was to remind me of my old friends, and also to help me strengthen my relation with them again... Well, if I still couldn't do it this time, I hope He gives me more and more reasons (and lame excuses :-) ) to keep in touch with them again...

And, to all my friends, near, far, wherever you are (sorry for snatching lines from Titanic's theme song :-) ): I really miss you all...

Can You Please Stop Saying ‘Sweet’?

Close to my graduation day, Rachma promised to treat me a jumbo ice cream at a shop in Musashi Koyama. But since there were lots of things to do during graduation day (such as party, party, submitting papers, preparing for moving, party, and party :-), look, it’s not my fault that everyone’s so fancy about graduation party :-) ), eventually we didn’t go. And as I moved to Fukushima soon after the graduation, it was harder for us to go fulfilling the promise.

Anyway, last December, I had the time to pay Tokyo a visit. Actually I left a shamisen at Rachma’s place during my moving, and Rachma was already screaming that it took spaces :-), so I needed to get it back. I wasn’t in a hurry this time, that’s why we said that we’d go to the ice cream shop. Yuli, Rachma’s husband, was already in Japan this time, so the three of us went.

To make it short, we got in the shop. Rachma and Yuli quickly asked.
“How big is the jumbo one?”
“I’ve shown you the picture, right? If you two can eat a lot, we should go for it.”
“Are you sure?”
“The last time I went here it was me and 3 other friends, and we could finish it. Well, it's just three of us now, but if we try a little bit harder...”
Rachma and Yuli bought my explanation, so it was set. We went for the jumbo ice cream.

By the way, about me and 3 other friends that successfully finished the ice cream, I forgot to mention one small detail. When we went there, it was summer. This time, it was winter. I was thinking that it was not a problem at all, until I saw the waitress came bringing the iceberg, oops, the ice cream… oh my God, was it that big?

The waitress put the ice cream in front of us, and I started to think that it would be an uphill battle to eat it... (well, 'up-iceberg battle' would be more appropriate :-) ).

Some other guests that just came in looked at us in awe.
“Three of you gonna eat that all?"
“We’ll try”, I smiled back.

And so begun the battle of iceberg... :-)

We started taking the ice cream to our bowls, and the first couples of it went to our stomach without any problem. Anyway, we like sweets. But as I continued to eat, an unpleasant feeling started creeping all over my stomach, and I felt like I wanted to throw up every time I gave another bite. Well, actually my stomach wasn’t full yet, it just refused sweet thing. People used to say that there is a butterfly in their stomach if they get nervous - well, it's kind of like that, and the butterfly started to fly frantically every time I gulped more ice cream :-). It looked like Rachma and Yuli also felt the same, and finally we gave it up and left two small bowls of melted ice cream.

Even though I could manage myself not to throw up, I was just not feeling well. As much as I like sweet stuff - and I was thinking that I can never get enough of it - I can’t take it anymore if it’s too much. And the lesson was simple: there’s a limit for (almost) everything, and overdo something would lead to no good.

Rachma, Yuli, and I parted ways at the station. Since I’ve been not in Tokyo for quite sometimes, I took the time to visit the Seino family. The family was one of the closest families to me, and the parents, Rainier and Grace, were already like my own brother and sister (The couple actual names are Yoshiteru and Kyoko, but since I knew them as hippo members, I called them with their Hippo nicknames, Rainier and Grace - can you guess where they got these names? :-) ).

Still feeling sick of something sweet, I headed to their place. Haruka, their sweet 5-year-old daughter already waited in front of the elevator when I got there (she’s so sweet, but I don’t have problem with this kind of sweet thing :-) ). She showed me the way to their apartment, where the rest of the family had been waiting.

“It’s been a while! How are you doing? And by the way, what do you want to eat today?”, Grace bombarded me with questions, but the last question about food was the one that caught my attention :-). Grace is a good chef, and a lot of tasty foods flashed in my mind when she asked that question. Anyway, my stomach was still not full and it would welcome anything... anything? Well, 'the butterfly' still rejected sweet things, though... :-)
“I’ll eat anything”, I replied, and after a brief pause I added, “as long as it’s not sweet.”
“You’re sure?”, Grace looked at me as if my head had been hit by something. “I thought you really like sweet, right?”
“Yeah, but there’s something today, and I don’t want to eat anything sweet again for at least a week... well, I’ll tell you later why.”
“Okay, but that’s too bad... Actually I prepared kolak when I heard you going to come...”
Kolak? Oh, how I’d love to eat it... but of all things, why should Grace made kolak when my stomach refused sweet stuff? It’s not fair… but it looked like Grace still not finished yet.
“...I use brown sugar this time, you know. And because you said that you used to have it very sweet in Indonesia, I made it extra sweet today...”
I stopped, tried to control 'the butterfly' in my stomach that started to fly in panic again :-).
“Grace, can you help me and stop saying sweet? It makes me sick just to hear the word...” :-)