Saat kita muda, inilah waktunya
Tunjukkan percaya diri, kita pada dunia
Jangan angan semata, jadikan mimpi nyata
Bukalah matamu, bangkitkan semangatnya!
The picture shown above is a picture of a carton box of a bakpia (a food made from a mixture of green or red beans or any fillings desired and sugar wrapped in a skin made of flour and then baked) I bought at Petak 9, Glodok.
FYI, the bakpia inside is not the one shown in the box, as if they just goggled the picture and printed it on the box.
Anyway, that’s not the point. The interesting subject is actually the seller I and my father interacted with. He wasn’t really good speaking Bahasa and thus my father conversed in… I don’t know, probably Hokkian… and we walked home after purchasing 10 pieces of bakpia-s. My father later asked me whether I noticed that the previous seller spoke in the same language with him but significantly different in accent. I did not. He continued by telling me that the accent the seller used was the China mainland accent, the native accent, while my father’s and his families’ used the Pontianak accent. He concluded that the seller was recently immigrated here or probably an illegal immigrant from China. I did not know whether his conclusion is right.
But, let’s just assume my father is right. [after this notice, most of them are filled with my imagination] Wow, can you imagine that?! A man and probably with his family crossed the ocean, probably 4000 kilometers in range, to Indonesia, from his motherland China. From the one of the highest GDP countries, with large area to live, rapidly growing in economy, technologically advancing, threatening the domination of western civilization, to the country with so many negative issues, not to mention the discrimination on Chinese minority issues, and obviously not a place to catch American Dream like USA. He even chosen to settle in Jakarta, dirty, polluted, overcrowded, jammed, with poverty everywhere, and not to forget that it considered as one of World’s 10 most hated cities. Now, what was wrong with this man’s head? I don’t know. But it does give us, the Jakarta citizens, or maybe just me, a great reminder: we, who grumble so much about our country and our Jakarta, spend so much time grumbling, until we forget to be grateful and to appreciate this very city and country with all its beauty and problems that made us who we are right now. If we don’t appreciate it, there are a lot of people out there who will.
So, isn’t it nice to sit back watching the traffic jammed, imagining that there’s a man out there hiding in a cargo just to get into Jakarta, and whispering to yourself,”I’m the luckiest guy on earth living in the city like this!”, without sarcastic tone.
Dahulunya aku pernah cinta
Dahulunya aku pernah bangga
Mungkin aku hanya terlupa
Mungkin ku amnesia..a..a..a..
Nostalgila cinta…
Anton World 