Yogjakarta, Indonesia- July 16, 2001
Malang was really interesting. I made it to Bromo - incidently, the picture in the top right corner on my first page of this website is that mountain! Its actually an active volcano. We watched it from the distance in the morning sunrise, then went up really close to the rim of the volanco.
The most interesting part of my time in Malang, was the Swedish guy and his Indonesian girl. I had a chance to talk to him more, and was pretty amazed at his story. He and her had been chatting online for nearly a year, actually they began with chatting, then they moved to nightly phone calls, every night, for nearly a year! They said that they had missed each other so much, and constantly thought about each other, so they arranged to meet, but he was only a High School student in Sweden - 17 years old at the time, and he had absolutely no money whatsoever.
She on the other hand is 26 years old, but online she had lied at first, and told him she only 20. She was embarrassed to later tell him her age, but he had already fallen for her. She however has a business in Malang, and makes alot of money, so they arranged that she would help pay between 33-50% of his airfare, and pay all expenses once he got here. Pretty amazing to me! Actually when I first saw them eating breakfast in the hotel, I was amazed because he is reallly really young with stringy blond hair and acne all over his face - very very typical teenage - and looks very much like a teenager. She, however, has a completely different look. She is a very gorgeous, beautiful woman, with long black hair, and from the few times I saw her she was always wearing either extremely tight jeans or mini-skirts - which in Muslim Indonesia (especially East Java - away from Jakarta), those kinds of clothes bring alot of attention to you, and kind of has negative reactions from people assuming the worst. Actually I presumed she was a working girl in the hotel or something, when I first met her. So it was pretty amazing to hear their story.
Actually, I was extremely envious of him, and couldn't understand their story at all. Even more amazing was that she had a curfew, so she had to be home by about 10pm every night! I couldn't believe he had met such a beautiful, sexy, goes-early-home girl in this mountain city of East Java. Plus she was paying for everything! All of his hotel, his meals, his internet expenses, everything! Actually I was extremely envious and jealous, and couldn't stop thinking that if I could be with that girl, I would pay for everything, etc., etc., you know how it usually works.
Anyhow, I spent some time just hanging out with him, and was amazed at how pure and innocent he was, and how much he loved this girl. He had a photo album documenting their meeting in Jakarta, and all of the time they spent together. He seemed so kind, innocent, authentic, etc., that then I began to understand why she had fallen for him. Sure he was practically a teenager, and talked of teenager things - kept asking me about American music and American tv shows. I haven't had those conversations in years and years, and felt bad that I knew so little about mainstream popular American culture.
Anyhow, my last night, I finally went out with the two of them together, and it was interesting for me, because I was just wondering what made their relationship work. We went to see some live music, and he said in the two months he'd been there, it was only his second time to go out. She, however, seemed to know the times of the two sessions of live music and most other things about the place. He hardly dranked much, but she seemed to match my drinking quite well, and she was initiating alot of dancing. She could dance really well! I tried to keep up, but since it was a live music band (guitars, bass, drums), I just couldn't do it, not quite like New York club music or even like Seoul's club music. But interesting nontheless. After a few hours there, I was worried because it seemed after her curfew time, but she seemed okay, mainly I suppose because it was Saturday night. Anyhow, we all went back to the hotel, and we talked about different discos and clubs throughout Indonesia, and she seemed to know them all in Surubuya, Bandung, Jakarta, everywhere. It was kind of interesting, having a nice Malang local girl know so much about this.
That night, she stayed at his hotel, which she does most nights at least up until her "curfew" time. At about three in the morning, there was an extremely loud knock at my door. BANG BANG BANG. It was the Swedish 18-year-old. He rushed in and said he had to hide. It completely caught me off guard, and I asked him why, and he said that she has had a boyfriend for the last four years, and he is extremely jealous, and he will kill him if he finds him with her. I asked more. Apparently, many times at night, if she stays out, a man comes looking for her, and he can recognize his whistle. I peeked out my window, and could see her walk by and heading down the stairs, and told him this. He left at that time, this was after about 3-5 minutes of hiding in my room and him frantically telling me how scared he was of this man. Anyhow, once she walked by, he was okay again, and he followed her downstairs, and I slowly watched them going out to the front of the hotel. There was a taxi waiting (she must have called), and the two of them got in, I don't think she wanted him to join her, but he did anyhow. I waited for him to go and come back, figuring he'd definetely be coming back.
I waited for him, kind of nervously, making sure he was alright, and about 30 minutes later, the taxi dropped him off. He was really upset, he was telling me "she thinks I'm gay, because I went to your room!" which was kind of funny. She was upset that he did that and he told him to never talk to me again. (I was leaving the next day, so no big deal). Anyhow, I sat down, actually we had to stay in the hotel, next to his room - just in case she calls! So I was pretty worried about him, being that he woke me up in the middle of the night telling me some guy was going to kill him! So I tried to get as much information as possible from him, and told him to email me with anything weird, because something weird is happening here (if guys are trying to kill you). He said 'no way, my girlfriend will see your emails, you can't write me' so I told him to make a new email account and tell someone everything that is going on, so someone can watch out for you. He seemed convinced that she would hate him if he did that, and she'd breakup with him. Also, she was extremely jealous everytime he talked to anyone whatsoever. So seemd like she was trying to keep him away from everyone. I thought that was weird, I explained to him a thousand times, that if you've often had this whistle and had to run, that she must have understood the real reason he knocked on my door so frantically for that few minutes.
Anyhow, the more I talked to him, the more I found out about their relationship. She was actually married to a German guy who shares the business. The reason she has so much money to bring him here, is because of her husband. Apparently her husband lives in another hotel nearby. The person who was going to kill him? I'm not sure, but I think that he is an Indonesian guy, and not the German guy, at least I assume? She must go home everynight at curfew time, either because of her husband or her boyfriend, not sure which. Anyhow, he stays in the hotel room everynight waiting for her calls, and constantly scared of some guy(s) who are going to kill him anytime they are together. It was strange relationship, and I stayed up for quite awhile just hearing his stories, and listening to how twisted it seemed. He also told me at one point that her boyfriend wants to kill her or something, and that one time he was just joking and raised his fist (he's just playing around, he's still a teenager), but anyhow, they were laughing, and then she just stopped and said to him, 'you would never hit me after we were married, would you?" That was bizarre I thought, so all you readers, you can make sense of whatever you think about this. Kind of interesting sitation and relationship. She also wants to get far far away from Indonesia as soon as possible, he kept asking me about how I was teaching English in other countries, etc. I still have no idea what will happen to him. Being slightly pessimistic with third-world love affairs, I assume the worst. But she is paying for everything, and despite all of the extremely weird cirumstances, maybe she really does love him? It was all a bit bizarre to me, and it seemed like something was going on, much stranger than I can imagine. The weirdest is that since he is so young, and just graduated from high school (he said he skipped his graduation ceremony to come to be here), I have no idea how he could support her if they did marry, and for some reason I assume the worst that once she did get to Sweden, she'd be going for citizenship, and probably looking for another man. I don't know why I think this? I wonder if I'm just jaded, have seen too much, or just.. well what do the rest of you think?
The next morning, I took a minibus back to Yogjakarta, which took me all day long. I'm back in this city now, and kind of just seeing how things go. July 20th is the day when President Wahid is planning to declare a "State of Emergency" over his impeachment, so everyone is expecting all hell to break loose in about five days from now. Jakarta looks like it would be the very worst city to be at that time, and I'm quite sure I will be there, because the timing of everything.
Next Journal Entry:
July 19, 2001
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