The Idul Fitri holidays are now past but with millions of Indonesians unable to mudik—to go home for the holidays—because of Covid-19, there was much dismay this May in Indonesia (and much of the rest of the world) this year. This year’s Idul Fitri holidays were, indeed, were unlike any that I have experienced since first coming to Indonesia: no clusters of sarong-clad boys going to the mosque early in the morning; no gaggles of giggling girls watching the boys as they passed; no invitations to friends’ homes for ketupat and all the fixings; not much of anything at all.
My passport is American Blue, not Indonesian Green, and my immigration documents mark me as “Katolik” not “Islam” but I, too, think of “home” when Idul Fitri comes around. And with the holiday falling in May this year, but even more so because I have been spending much of my extra free time during this period of lockdown to go through decades of accumulated correspondence and journals I am able to very clearly recall that day in May forty-four years ago when I first set foot in the clove-scented hallways of the newly-opened Halim Perdanakusuma Airport.
It was after a two-day flight from Minneapolis (with transits in Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore) that I arrived in Jakarta on the night of May 31, 1976. With a scholarship from the U.S. Department of Education that would take me the following day to Malang, there I participated in a ten-week advanced Indonesian study program at the Malang Teachers’ College (IKIP-Malang). The previous year I had also applied for a Fulbright grant to study wayang kulit in Yogyakarta and, having already been notified by the Fulbright Commission that my proposal had been approved, I anticipated moving from Malang to Yogyakarta, staying there for a year, achieving a level of brilliance in wayang technique never before achieved by a Westerner, and then returning to the United States to establish a cutting edge puppet theater along the lines of Peter Schumann’s politically radical Bread and Puppet Theatre whose name was then synonymous with anti Viet Nam War protests. As it turned out, such dreams were not to be but I discovered something else instead.
In going through my archives, one journal in particular has captured my attention, this one containing entries from May 1976 (when I first arrived) to December 1978 (when I returned to the U.S. to go to graduate school). When reading this journal, forty-four years later, I was struck by my frequent use of the word “home”—82 times, according to a word-frequency application. Though very often the word was used in the sense of “house” and referred to my places of residence in Malang and Jakarta, almost as frequently I used the term to denote a more metaphysical place: Glynnspring (my parent’s farm), Cazenovia (my home town), and Wisconsin (my home state). From the entries in this journal, it is very apparent that at the beginning of my stay in Indonesia “home” was the place where I felt I belonged and to which I inevitably would return. I cite a number of examples:
Back row (l to r): 1) John U. Wolff (U.S. Program Director; 2) Bapak Baraja (R.I. Program Director); 3) Mark Woodward?; 4) ………………?; 5) Widodo; 6) Linda Magnetti; 7) John Bowen; 8) Sunaryo; 9) Rebecca ……..?; 10) Wilson Manik; 11) Virginia Crockett. Front row: 1) Brad Palmquist; 2) Jim Schiller; 3) Hadi HD; 4) John McGlynn; 5) Mark Wolz; 6) Mutohar
Attention readers: I am unable to positively identify a number of people in the photo. If anyone can help fill in the blanks (or correct a mistaken identification), please let me know at john_mcglynn@lontar.org.
- In this big and quiet house, with Joan Baez on the stereo I could be back home if I didn’t know there was one servant sweeping the yard, another cooking, another washing, and yet another cleaning.
- When the smell of burning leaves wafts into my nose, or the night air causes me to shudder, those are the times when lovely memories of my home in Wisconsin in autumn emerge.
- Having been struck down by dysentery, I had, between the toilet and the bed, plenty of free time to review and assess my personal fears and longings. Simply put, I feel like a person without a home.
- Am now living with the Pattimahu family in Pasar Minggu. The most refreshing thing about this family is that they like to argue, which makes the place feel much like my family home.
- Not really having a place where I can sit down and feel like I’m in “my” chair, I am a man without a home at the moment and feeling very moody, grouchy, depressed.
- I met an American man, Gary, who teaches English at the Embassy school here. It was refreshing to be able to say “Home is Wisconsin” and not have to explain where Wisconsin is.
An interesting aspect of this journal is that as the months pass the number of entries diminishes and their average length grows shorter; by May 1978, two years after my arrival, there were no more than a few entries per month. I suppose, that is not surprising. By this time, I had established a network of friends and was spending more nights out than in, going to virtually every event there was at TIM, the Jakarta Arts Center. I was doing more and more translation work, including economic surveys to feed my stomach as well as literary work to feed my soul. I had already translated a compendium of Indonesian and Malaysian poems for the ASEAN Poetry Festival that was held at TIM in 1978 (The ASEAN Poetry Collection: Poems from Indonesia and Other ASEAN Countries) and was working on several manuscripts that would be published within the next few year: a pre-revolution Indonesian novel (Shackles); the first ever English-language anthology of poetry by Indonesian women authors (A Taste of Betel and Lime); and a collection of stories on conflict and its impact (Reflections on Rebellion: Stories from the Indonesian Upheavals of 1948 and 1965).
By September 1978 I had decided to return to the U.S. to pursue a higher degree in Indonesian literature and had begun to make plans for my departure. In an entry from that month I write:
I’m thinking of winter. Do I own a winter coat? I can’t even remember. I’m not going to be prepared at all for Wisconsin’s December cold. Maybe I should have a coat made before I go home. Home…?
The ellipsis and question mark after the final “home” in that entry are telling. Indonesia was no longer a place where the foreigner in me could only observe life; it was a place where I could live and a county to which I could contribute. It was home.
John McGlynn
john_mcglynn@lontar.org