YOU shall not pass.

[Davita]

Being my 80th birthday is shortly, my wife said would I like a party, so I thought good idea I can ask a few mates I haven’t seen for sometime and have a few beers, so I went to Grand Lucky and bought a few Tinnies, oh how wrong could I have been, it’s a prayer party and wifey has invited a LOT of people to come and pray for me, I cannot ask my mates to come and pray for me, still I can always drink the beer myself, so a word of warning when your Indonesian wife is planning something, really inquire as to what she is planning to avoid any embarrassment

Consider yourself lucky birthday-boy...when my wife threw a party for my 80th she invited everybody I know, and many I've never met, to a classy restaurant in Bali.
The bank called me next day, after receiving the credit card charge, and inquired if I banked with them or were they now banking with me....

Which date is your big day...I'll throw a few Tinnies back in celebration...

 

[Daniel50]

It is not your birthday yet but I would like to send a birthday greeting to you. Wives usually know best what a guy really needs, and from some of your posts....................will the prayers go one for several days?

 

[Ruserious]

I would estimate that this happens on my road (a two lane small to medium road in Jakarta) about 6 times a year including full dangdut bands for weddings. I can understand small simple funeral ceremonies but I believe weddings need to held in appropriate venues and not block roads.

 

[Anglian]

I quite like Dangdut, but the last one they had here ended in a bit of a punch up, a couple of the kampungs don’t have that nice friendly religious spirit between each other at times

Just to add wifey has just come back from shopping masses of food boxes, I asked many coming, 50!!! , I don’t know 50 people, I know how much my beer cost, I darent ask about the food, do they do crowd funding here

 

[atlantis]

I don't know if you guys have noticed but there is something beautifully magic in the OP's picture. That little girl on the left is taking picture of this weird bule taking a picture of something innocuous in the Indonesian village life.

 

[Vanhelsing]

I was hoping someone saw the little girl. I took maybe eight shots, and in everyone she's following me around making her own compositions.

 

[atlantis]

To be honest, she is the first thing I have noticed in the pic. She is really cool and I bet you've made her day.

 

[Anglian]

It’s interesting, only the children are looking at you, everybody else is looking away

 

[Vanhelsing]

To be honest, she is the first thing I have noticed in the pic. She is really cool and I bet you've made her day.

That little girl made my day. So many people interact with me in the smallest and seemingly most insignificant, subtle ways in Indonesia that rewards me continuously.

 

[Vanhelsing]

It’s interesting, only the children are looking at you, everybody else is looking away

Society and its responsibilities dictate that we can't be kids any more, perhaps. And there is respect to the host and his three month old (?) baby to consider.

 

[atlantis]

Society and its responsibilities dictate that we can't be kids any more, perhaps.

I am not sure it has anything to do with responsibilities dictated by society. More about the fact that kids don't have much experience interacting with bule, save for the TV and all the fantastic it carries in their imagination.

I remember an anecdote which took place 20 years+ ago in Guizhou in China. The government had just opened up/allowed tourism in the remote parts of the province and I went trekking there solo. Going to a place in the mountain by bus, I got in trouble with a posse of grandmas who kept pulling my arm hairs and laughing. At a time, one of them, more brave than the others, started to un-button my shirt, apparently wanting to verify if hairs were covering the whole body. She didn't ask, she just came to me and did it, while there was laughters and shouts from the rest of the gang, encouraging her. It was pretty amusing, even if I was the victim of it and was wondering how I could deal with them in a peaceful manner because it really looked she wouldn't give up before reaching her goal. For sure my gang of grandmas were no kids and had responsibilities. They just never saw a foreigner before and had to take a closer look.

 

[Travellingchez]

I also blocked the road for my wedding in Medan in 2006. When in Rome do as the Romans do Obviously all the neighbours were invited and RT informed so zero complaints. Most neighbourhoods have a cut off time for music etc.

 

[john madden]

Your China experience in sharp contrast to mine of 40 years ago in newly opened Tianjin. We alighted from the train to find our car had not arrived. The railway officials insisted we leave the station. Within minutes a crowd of a hundred or so had gathered but stayed at a distance of about 10 metres ... and just stared. Our PSB stalkers broke it up after 10 minutes and insisted we get back inside the station. No interaction with the locals at all but they were scary times for Chinese citizens.
As to the OP, it's pretty standard stuff in any locality in Java.

 

[Anglian]

My mate used to be called Monket Man, he was quite hairy, but if you open your eyes wide it scares the shit out of little kids as ghosts have big eyes

 

[Asun]

Comparing (putting on a similar level) your loss of 3 minutes of your time in traffic with female genital mutilation and corruption? Really? Were you serious?

Perhaps female genital mutilation is not the right comparison, but corruption? Definitely. This action is essentially exploiting public utility for private use, which what corruptions are. Arguments can be made if the private use includes the entire kampung and thus a public function, but in metro area this is definitely not the case. If the entire population let this kind of activities slide, then it's not a big leap to rationalize embezzling public funds into private account, as long as it's spread out to a few neighbours, acquaintances and relatives and let's call it "tradition".

 

[atlantis]

Perhaps female genital mutilation is not the right comparison, but corruption? Definitely. This action is essentially exploiting public utility for private use, which what corruptions are. Arguments can be made if the private use includes the entire kampung and thus a public function, but in metro area this is definitely not the case. If the entire population let this kind of activities slide, then it's not a big leap to rationalize embezzling public funds into private account, as long as it's spread out to a few neighbours, acquaintances and relatives and let's call it "tradition".

No disrespect intended but compairing it with corruption is ridiculous. As said earlier, these ceremonies are reported to and agreed by the RT/RW, a public institution which acknowledge their social importance.They are therefore legal. Corruption? None of this.

Adapting to Indonesia and Indonesian culture is certainly a challenge. It is obvious that we are all differently prepared to it. This is sad because at the end of the day our experience and acceptance by our hosts will obviously be very different.

 

[Puspawarna]

T
So, yes I believe that preserving this tradition, which lightly impact traffic and costs a few precious minutes of a bule life when it can help whole families to overcome the death of a loved one, is not a detriment to public at large. Let's face it: who, other than a bule, would have the idea to horn during a religious ceremony or enter in a masjid to unplug a speaker during al fajr?

I agree that honking horns is counter-productive and that as an outsider it is definitely preferable to "go with the flow."

However, I've been in situations in Jakarta where the impact has been more than "light" and it has cost 45 minutes or an hour of my time due to a poorly managed street celebration - now multiply MY time by the dozens or even hundreds of OTHER travelers - most of whom are doubtless Indonesian, not foreign - and you begin to have some idea of the magnitude of the problem. Traffic in Jakarta is bad enough without making it unnecessarily worse. What if someone was acutely ill and needed to make it to a hospital? That extra 45 minutes could be pretty serious.

I understand that there is tradition behind the behavior, and I'm not saying that blocking off streets should never be allowed. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things: people in the immediate area who are going to be most affected should be informed in advance, and there should be signage/people directing traffic flow to minimize the disruption. (The last time I got really stuck in a snarl, we only figured out that we were in trouble AFTER we had made a turn into the blocked-off area. There should have been warnings in advance, before we turned.)

BTW, welcome back, VanH.

 

[steveandpenny]

Just a couple of words on this subjct. As you might know we live in a small local village where this happens all the time. I find these gatherings heart warming because the whole village shows up to share either the joy or sorrow of the event. Its a show of concern and love for the communty.

So shame on you people that feel they are more important then the communty. Did you honk your horn and flip off the funerl possession where you are from ? The paved roads are "PUBLIC " roads , and they are the public. This is part of living in indonesia where famliy and communty are so important. You want to be a bule or part of the communty, it' up to you.

On the lighter side , I drive a bike mostly and one of the frist time I came up to a blocked , covered road and didn' know what was up. I was shocked when I was waved though the area that was covered and right in the yard was a coffin with a body in it. I was greeted with smiles. I was shaken by this and went home and got the wife and we walked down and passed on our condolences to the famliy , which we didn't know. We only spent 15 min there, but that day we were a little less bule and a little bit more of the communty.

 

[Smallworld]

I guess we should ask this question so some Indonesians who lived abroad: Which one do you prefer "western" public road culture or "indonesian" one? I am very curious of all the answers.

...The paved roads are "PUBLIC " roads , and they are the public. ..

And some by passer, road user who wants to drive through is not member of public?

So I will write about my experience. In my housing complex we have:
1 x community centre - building in decent shape with roof, swimming pool big enough to accommodate 300 people, large parking in front
2 x gardens decent size gardens, grass is cut frequently, trees are nicely trimmed.
1 x tennis court
1 x playground for children - I would say it is bigger than both gardens combined.
1 x place where you can play basket ball.
1 x place for handball (kids use it for playing football)
1 x half the size of previous playground for children

Someone died few weeks ago. Road is blocked with chairs and tent. next to it is a beautiful large green area. Hah ... what's that... mud, water ok, we have beautiful brand new tennis court with nice hard surface, paved way with lamps. Houses are big here, families here have got money for sure, 3-6 cars in the driveway. Nope... they prefer road for some unknown reason, nope not one jalur, dua jalur.

So here is my question to those who are "defending" blocking roads (I am not against, I pay respect to their ceremonies because I know it is important), I just ask out of curiosity:

Why do you have to block the roads and not use those places that I did mentioned above? Those places were made for local community and only they can use it meaning anyone outside our housing complex cannot use those unless they invite others as guests. Moreover the management of those places is already calculated into our living cost bills.

 

[Ruserious]

I suspect this maybe a village vs a city issue. In a village i can imagine this is acceptable but in a city there is more to consider than just the nearby people and i can guarantee that there is not as much of this sense of "community" . Also why should we be forced into this community gathering? Are we not also paying taxes for the road access? Arent there building specifically allocated for these type of event? Again for me a funeral is acceptable but weddings?
FYI this is a bit personal for me as the guy across the road from me frequently rents his house out to full weddings with a large very loud dangdut band. This is not his daughters getting married 6x a year.