Soul Food for Thought

The idea of religion has always fascinated me. I’ve gone through various phases of “spirituality”, even though I’d say most of my younger phases ones involve thinking, just reactions to the then-tiny world around me. In the past couple of years I have thought long and hard about this divisive, unifying, terrifying and comforting idea that humans have created.

Most importantly in this philosophizing process is the realization that my beliefs and convictions have, and always will, evolve with new interactions, events and discoveries. As a result, I have concluded that becoming set in anything more than the most basic ideals inhibits personal growth, discovery and even happiness. This has mostly blocked out the possibility of me wanting to join any organized religion, specifically because of organization. And yet, these ideals share the very core of major world religions, so I still feel a strong connection to them.

For some time, this outlook made me think that I had to find a religion; some specific, shared outlook on the universe. I had convinced myself that I was lost, needing to attach myself to a system instead of floating around. Christianity and Judaism made up the vast majority of where I grew up, and neither connected with me at all. I had accepted Christianity as a de facto spiritual guide for some time simply because that’s what I grew up with, but knew it didn’t work with me and largely abandoned it towards the end of high school.

Lately, however, I have found joy in the freedom of floating around in my own path rather than finding one to stick to. This allows my ideals to evolve as necessary to account for new information and experiences around which I can adapt my beliefs rather than see things only as they fit a certain doctrine, which severely distorts reality and how to respond to life. This is where I have found freedom and serenity, creating a faith based on the challenges of the world.

An important detail of this is that it did not make me reject organized religion as a valid spiritual path for others. Rather, I have become more fascinated by all belief systems and how they compare, but mostly how they do provide so much for so many people. Despite plenty of experiences with those who practice as a result of indoctrination (which is not real faith to me) or just because they feel they have to, I have seen countless more who find true spiritual satisfaction in religion, really loving what they practice and believing it with their souls. This is a powerful uniting factor among belief systems, showing that at the core, following any of them is supposed to promote harmony and community among all creeds. The specific rules are up for interpretation (which is where people twist it the wrong way) but being a good human being is the purpose, and when people achieve this, they find that sense of peace that they can spread to others.

Now that I have lived in a very predominantly Muslim community for a month, though a far cry from understanding it, I’ve gotten a better sense of, and have even shared in, the spiritual satisfaction of an organized religion. The most profound sensations have been in relatively common practices rather than major events.

First comes with the ubiquitous call to prayer, five times a day. Our home stay in Surabaya is in close proximity to at least five mosques, so we hear a wide variety in song quality, which occurs five times a day (plus some bonuses during Ramadan). There are two singers, however, in whose voices one can hear true meditation and contentment. They work around the din of the atrocious singers from the other mosques, and after dinner their prayers float into the home stay on the breeze that kicks up with sunset, and the peace spreads to everyone who listens. Some of us have sat on the tiny balcony many times, taking in the sound, feeling its warmth and even its soul.

One evening, I listened to a particularly well-performed call to prayer with Mas Risa, the husband half of our cooks. The setting was perfect: a gentle breeze kept the mosquitoes and burning garbage smell away, and everything else was quiet. Somehow the usual din of city life was muted and the truly meditative state of the singer reached us clearly on the balcony, uninterrupted. Risa leaned on the railing with his eyes closed and half-smoked cigarette forgotten between his fingers. Already a generally relaxed guy, any remaining tension visibly evaporated, leaving a face and energy of pure serenity. When this mosque finished, and before the discordant cacophony of other mosques erupted, breaking this perfect calm, Risa turned to me, saying that hearing these prayers brought him a peace and happiness that he couldn’t really explain even in Indonesian. I believed it; I saw it, and even felt it myself.

Ramadan has played a big part in this, too. As I explained a couple posts ago, the purpose of this fasting month is a kind of spiritual cleanse, reminding followers to appreciate what they have and to practice self-control. I’ve so far survived two weeks (mostly) not eating or drinking anything between sunrise and sunset. Admittedly I have cheated twice and had a slice of peanut butter bread in the morning when I slept through sahur, the early morning last-chance meal (3:30 in the morning) before Indonesian Muslims must begin their fast for the day (4:00am; the time depends on sunrise, so people in the northern hemisphere have a longer fast).

Despite being tired and foggy during the day as I struggle to distract myself from hunger, I feel much more optimistic at night after eating three meals’ worth of food in an hour. Every night I convince myself that I can make it one more day, which will hopefully be a successful strategy in making it almost one month (not a full month because I’ll be in Bali for the final days, where I definitely won’t fast). Apart from my even greater appreciation for food (which I already really appreciated thanks to my wonderful mother) I feel like the fasting has influenced my attitude in some way. It’s not clear how, since during the day I’m still fairly hangry (hunger-cranky; not an Indonesian word). At night, though, things just seem… better. A large number of factors might influence this, but since it’s happening during the fasting, I won’t rule out the possibility.

This has helped me connect pretty deeply with everybody else who is fasting, partly by sharing in the misery, but also because of my joining in such a significant part of their lives. Every morning my conversations start like this:

“You’re fasting today?”

“Yeah…”

“Bagus! (bah-goose; Good!)”

Taking part in traditions, especially spiritually significant ones, creates a bonding and learning experience that one cannot find from simply talking about it, just like the difference between reading about and traveling to a foreign land.

Because I have joined in on one tradition, it has opened the door to becoming part of a more intimately spiritual aspect of Ramadan: this past Friday (Muslim holy day, like Christians’ Sunday), the dance team and director invited me to stay after practice for buka puasa, or iftar in Arabic, which means breaking the fast. With this, they also invited me to join in their pre-dinner prayer, which surprised me considering I’m not Muslim.

The notion made me incredibly nervous, because I really didn’t want to mess up and accidentally insult them with some clumsy faux-pas. They would not have been insulted if I had passed, but genuinely wanted me to experience as much as possible and to understand part of the spirit behind their beliefs. I decided to go for it, keeping alert for every minute hand and body movement from the guys on either side of me. It turns out that it’s not very complicated, and I didn’t mess up, except regarding how I sat on my feet. Trying to teach me, thankfully, became a laughing matter rather than something serious.

I immediately made a connection between the prayers and meditation. There are very rhythmic chants and periods of reflective silence. One of the drivers turned to me afterwards and said that these prayers (which Muslims must perform five times a day) are kind of like yoga, which makes perfect sense; yoga, meditation and prayer share very similar goals of inner peace. Indeed, after we finished I felt the same peaceful and refreshing sensation that I occurred at various temples of myriad philosophies throughout Japan where I tried their prayers, as well as from my own occasional attempts at meditation.

Sharing this with my hosts made me feel closer to them and helped me spiritually. I have a better sense of certain aspects of organized religion, and also have managed to make even more connections across the spectrum of beliefs, bringing everything even closer together than before. Coincidentally enough, this all culminated later in the night when I watched “Life of Pi” which is a movie about a journey of faith. Its use of lofty movie dialogue gave me an articulation of this sensation that all of these faiths are interrelated, as well as the value of exploring all of them as deeply as possible.

Engaging directly with Islam here has helped me a lot. It has reinforced my decision not to join an organized religion, but has deepened my appreciation for those who do find spiritual enlightenment through this path. I also feel more at peace with myself by making these deep connections with the Indonesians and among different belief systems. While I can’t quite articulate how, I feel I have grown spiritually, and feel more at peace.

Indonesia continues to surprise me with what I've actually ended up learning..

Breaking Storm

Sometimes, the simplest things can bring the most joy, such as a tropical downpour. While at home I generally associate the rain with cold and sogginess, here it brings a pleasant breeze and cuts the humidity, so at night the heat index is only 30 degrees instead of 34. And everything is already soggy from humidity anyway, so, there’s no difference there.

One rainy day in particular, a couple of weeks ago, turned out to be one of the most enjoyable days we’ve had in Surabaya, just from playing in a giant puddle. This was at the middle school where we have music lessons.

The day started off dreary and heavy, with low dark clouds concentrating the smog to a stifling level. We were in the midst of fighting hard to get a more balanced schedule, and many of us still suffered from heavy culture shock, so there was little motivation and tensions were fairly high. We danced in the morning, and the director of tourism paid us a surprise visit to see our sorely unprepared routines, further exacerbating frustration in the director, the choreographers and us.

Rumbling thunder outside, with the drenching sweat weighing us down seemed perfectly metaphorical for the building storm we felt would soon let loose. Both the physical and theoretical squalls were tangible in the classroom air when lunchtime rolled around. Thankfully our wonderful cook, Mbak Kiki, had a birthday, so we were able to distract ourselves by celebrating with her.

Ucan (oo-chan), the second-in-line-to-the-director-but-actually-does-the-work, brought in a delicious chocolate cake, lifting everyone’s spirits dramatically. After everybody got a piece, there was still plenty left over, so one of our more mischievous members started attacking faces with the icing. A cake fight quickly broke out and we eventually had plastered each other in chocolate war paint.

During this time, the sky finally opened up, letting loose a deluge that kept going. With that, we learned that the gutters had not been cleaned for a long time, because the overhang outside our classroom quickly formed a waterfall, and then the hallway filled up to our ankles.

Downstairs

Upstairs

One of the dancers and I went outside to wash the icing from our faces in the new sink, and started to lightly splash at each other. Jay, our instigative Fijian, saw, and decided to step up the game and began a full on water battle. Soon enough, there was uproarious splashing, slipping and sliding among a small group, and then we reached the cathartic moment when all but a few group members threw decorum to the wind and joined the fray, finally expressing the true sense of fun that hid beneath the false sense of order enforced by a certain higher power.

You'll notice Jay tends to be the center of the "mischief" (the guy with the blue shirt)

The child belongs to the cooks, don't worry

Some members held out, but we managed to (literally) pull almost the entire Tydif team outside with the help of Jay. Even the director’s husband and our drivers jumped in, starting a wrestling match and finding props to project the maximum amount of water onto others.

Few escaped unsoaked

This could not have come at a more perfect time. Looking back, it seemed like a fairly important tipping point that could have gone the wrong way. Thankfully the storm ultimately provided the opportunity to make things better, and have the tension cut in a positive way. Of course, since then we’ve had plenty of trials and frustrations, but the storm certainly pushed us in the right direction.

A Very Javanese Fourth

I spent my Independence Day in a very different manner from most other Americans. On the other hand, one could say I followed a long held American tradition of getting deeply involved in something that I don’t properly understand. Instead of barbecuing and drinking, I performed an East Javanese dance in front of a few hundred people at Surabaya’s city hall. This was the culmination of Tydif’s first month’s efforts for our program: Surabaya’s Cross Culture Festival.

Our final rehearsal

Photos courtesy of Leny, one of our photographers

Success comes from not taking things too seriously

Professional groups from around Indonesia, as well as China, South Korea and India performed traditional dances and music from their homes into which they clearly had put hundreds of hours and months of training. We, however, went on stage with three weeks’ instruction, and only our Fijian participant had participated in a choreographed dance before. Considering the circumstances, I’d say we did pretty well.

The dance’s name is “jaranan” which is Javanese for horse dance. Five of us, all three guys and the two tall women, performed this one. While the moves were not very technically difficult, we still struggled to memorize the whole five minutes. I retained most of the routine, so somehow the group ended up following my lead. In the theme of unexpected events, I bet none of you would have thought I’d lead a group in dancing.

Our stage

Stage Makeup: It took 3 days to get off

Credit: Leny

Scary (credit: Leny)

The rest of these taken on my camera by Kezi, another instructor

With our beautiful instructors

Last minute recap of the moves

Our heroes prepare for battle

Of course, I had only remembered most of the dance, so towards the end, after excessive galloping with our wicker horses, I forgot what followed, and paused. Then the other four paused, staring at me, waiting to know what happened next. Remembering my piano performances in the past, the worst thing we could have done was stop, so I restarted with the final move, and had us repeat until the end. Somehow we got back onto the beat with a short enough pause that most people probably didn’t notice.

After so much stress leading up to the Cross Culture Festival, the performance was cathartic, and I felt proud of us for learning so much in such a short amount of time. Finally there was something, in some form, to show for our time thus far in Surabaya.

On Friday, the remaining girls performed “Sparkling Surabaya” which is a contemporary adaptation of traditional dances meant to portray the classiness of Surabayan women. While the jaranan required a lot of physical effort, the girls’ Sparkling Surabaya was significantly more complicated to do right. They had a much steeper learning curve and more to learn than we did, so their performance was even more impressive. What’s more, they had tight corsets and wings. Go them.

Closeup (photos taken by myself again)

Saturday was our music performance. This one is not as much a point of pride. While we trained for a few hours almost every day in dance, we only had five lessons for music. As a result, even the simple song we had to present was fairly mediocre. I even felt slightly embarrassed going up on stage with such little preparation, especially since we had pushed for more music lessons in the beginning of the program. We did well enough, but certainly did not reach our potential, and, as a musician, I was far from satisfied with the outcome compared to what we could have accomplished. Our final performance at the end of the program will be better though.

Following Cross Culture, we thankfully had a break for the first part of this week. I took the opportunity to see another part of Indonesia and headed to Yogyakarta, colloquially known as Jogja, in Central Java. It was a necessary, albeit short, break from the noise and smog of Surabaya.

What fascinated me most about Jogja was the fact that one can actually walk around there. It’s next to impossible around here, so I spent most of my time on foot, simply because I could. This is largely because Jogja is a small, artsy, college city while Surabaya is a large business and transit hub. Consequently, what fascinated me after pedestrian friendliness was that at night it’s quiet. I could hardly get over it the first night, as I lay in bed listening to nothing.

Quiet alleys filled with street art

Surrounded by color in Jogja

Furthering the tranquility, I spent one morning exploring Prambanan, one of the largest Hindu temple complexes in Southeast Asia. Despite being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, there were surprisingly few people at the site. This meant that I got to explore the ancient temples entirely undisturbed, listening only to a chorus of birds accompanied by faint gamelan music streaming from distant speakers.

Suspicious bridge I found in the park

While foregoing most other touristy things (such as Borobudur, a huge Buddhist temple), I explored the Jogja food scene, because there’s no better way to travel. There is fantastic street food, with locals crowding most of the warung(wah-roong; food stalls), while none in Surabaya appear to be particularly appealing. Gudeg(goo-duhg), consisting of jackfruit boiled with coconut milk and palm sugar, is a ubiquitous traditional dish at almost every warung. I made sure to indulge in some of this, as well as sweet tea, which is even more prevalent than the gudeg.

Most of my spending went to one artistic café that a friend from the Surabaya group found the day before I arrived. I couldn’t resist overindulging, especially in the abundant options for tropical fruits, reveling in banana coconut pancakes and a fruit salad covered in Javanese chocolate and peanuts. My favorite meal, however, was, while meeting up with the IACS participants living in Jogja, we ate curried and fried cobra and python.  It was delicious, although incredibly bony. Eating a vertebrae’s worth of meat was a major project, but a rewarding endeavor.

Fried

Curried

 During this period of self-indulgence, the Muslim holiday of Ramadan began, a major aspect of which is fasting from sunrise to sunset. The purpose of this is reflection on what is important in life, as well as a practice in temperance, physically and emotionally. People must restrain their anger as well as refrain from food or drink for 11 hours a day. Since about 90% of the Surabayan population, including the Tydif crew, is partaking, and I am here to learn from Indonesian culture, I have decided to fast as well.

Yesterday was my first day of participating, with our Moroccan participant excitedly waking me up at 3:30 in the morning for sahur, a kind of pre-dawn breakfast before fasting begins at the end of the first prayer of the day. Najat (the Moroccan) was very excited to share this experience with other participants (three others tried it out as well), so she woke up earlier to cook a fairly extensive meal for us. After shaking off the sleep and realizing I only had half an hour left to eat, I made sure to stuff as much food as possible into my stomach to hold myself until sundown. When the call to prayer ended at 4:00, it was all over, and I had to wait until 5:30 that evening to eat again.

Somehow, I survived! What was most difficult was that, upon feeling hungry, I had to resist the impulse to simply pick up the food nearby, and wait. Also, some very intense cravings surged through my body at certain points, specifically a desire for coffee and hamburgers, which led me to think about Mom’s home cooked meals. That was particularly rough. I managed to distract myself from the hunger for most of the day though, especially towards the end when the dance instructors forced me to speak to them only in Indonesian. It took so much brain power that there was no room to think about food. Plus, I got some great language practice in (and they said I’m doing well, which may or may not be true).

Finally, at 5:30, with the call to prayer, we all rushed the refrigerator for tea and water, and the Tydif director brought us some treats as well as icy coconut water. Now I really know to appreciate food and how readily available it is to me. This had always been in the back of my mind, but now it is right up front. Even though this is a decision, just for experience, which I can stop at any point, it still reminds me of how so many people don’t actually have a choice for something like this, and can’t run for food at a set time.

Spending so much time with the Tydif team for our performances (about twelve hours a day) was a great bonding experience. They could share their passion with us by directly engaging us in how they live all the time.  Following the performances, I finally found rest and reflection which provided a few revelations. While this is far from the situation I expected or desired I am learning a lot about myself and about people. It is a true challenge to work through, and a real test at adaptation, as well as my philosophy of embracing the chaos, which is certainly prevalent here. These experiences have helped solidify my resolve to make the most of what has been presented to me. This part of life where I have ended up is the perfect chance to create something beautiful, and whatever it may be, I will make sure to fulfill the potential that it has created.

Here are some pictures of the other dancers from the festival: