![]() ![]() When my grandma was in the ICU for a month, I was told to tend to her whenever possible instead of going out with friends - it didn’t mean to wallow in sorrow, but to exercise patience and care during hardship. Prihatin would be best translated into asceticism: avoiding worldly indulgence and practicing humility, both in the ups and downs of life. Yet, traces of Javanese culture would still find their way into my daily life, most memorably on the concept of prihatin. My parents mostly grew up and became adults in the concrete jungle called Jakarta, where I also grew up talking “ gue-lo” instead of “ aku-kamu”, never learning Javanese words even through osmosis (they only talk in Javanese when they don’t want me listening in). What does that mean, in a nation so rich with hundreds of cultures and languages that ethnicity has become a large part of self-identity? Largely nothing. Both my parents are full-blooded Javanese - that means that I, too, inherit a lineage so untouched I have yet to find someone non-Javanese in my ancestry stretching generations back. ![]()
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