I
think we must stop wasting our energy to stomp our feet and cry
like babies toward our neighbor. We have 6.4 billions people on earth
who are not Indonesian, who need to be informed that Rasa Sayange,
Angklung, Batik, Rendang, Reog Ponorogo etc. are Indonesian.

Why
doesn’t Indonesian government do something about it? Promote the art
& culture more intensely (rather than Borobudur Temple, Bali, and
Wayang!), have each of the embassy actively featured about a region at
a time, or work together with travel agencies to build up attractive,
unique tourism packages (as I’ve stated before, if Australian can sell
Blue Mountain which is basically is just a hill, and Scotland can sell
Loch Ness, which is basically a big lake, we have many more interesting
sites to promote).

One more thing: we should have a good, informative, culture and tourism official website. Just like what Malaysia (sadly) does.

From BBC.co.uk:

A
British schoolteacher has been arrested in Sudan accused of insulting
Islam’s Prophet, after she allowed her pupils to name a teddy bear
Muhammad.

Colleagues of Gillian Gibbons, 54, from Liverpool,
said she made an "innocent mistake" by letting the six and
seven-year-olds choose the name.
Ms Gibbons
was arrested after several parents made complaints. The BBC has learned
the charge could lead to six months in jail, 40 lashes or a fine.
Ms
Gibbons, who joined the school in August, asked a seven-year-old girl
to bring in her teddy bear and asked the class to pick names for it, he
said.
"They came up with eight names including Abdullah, Hassan and
Muhammad," Mr Boulos (the school director) said, adding that she then
had the children vote on a name. Twenty out of the 23 children chose
Muhammad as their favourite name.
Mr Boulos said each child was then
allowed to take the bear home at weekends and told to write a diary
about what they did with it. He said the children’s entries were
collected in a book with a picture of the bear on the cover and a
message which read, "My name is Muhammad." The bear itself was not
marked or labelled with the name in any way, he added. It is seen as an
insult to Islam to attempt to make an image of the Prophet Muhammad. 

See the complete news in BBC.co.uk.

"What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
(Romeo & Juliet (II, ii, 1-2)

I‘ve
been confused with my own name for my entire life. It started when I
was born and continues until today. Unlike Westerners, most of
Indonesians don’t have family name except several ethnic groups like
Batak and Manado, so instead of having forename, middle name, and
surname, most of Indonesians have only two names (sometimes even one.
Remember our former presidents Soeharto and Soekarno?). But my dad does
have surname, so he wanted to put it on my birth certificate. The smart
registration officer refused his plea, arguing that it wasn’t my own name, and since the father’s name would be stated anyway, it means I would automatically take my father’s surname.

Right. If only that was the case.

The
first problem started when I went to primary school. The school put my
first and middle name but dropped my surname on the certificate. Why?
They said that’s what it stated on my birth certificate, and all
documents should have exactly the same name. This continued up until my
master’s degree certification. My father’s name, somehow was only
recognized de facto. Along with all of my graduation certificates, my
bank cards and passport also state only my first and middle name. But
in my KTP and driving license I have my father’s name showing.

This is a confusing concept, even to me. Every time I had to fill in a visa form I have to always fill ‘Anita‘ in forename box and my middle name in the surname
box because that’s what I have in my passport, while actually
Carmencita is not my surname. Stuart couldn’t grab the concept at all,
there was one time he ordered a plane ticket online and put my first
and my last name in the ticket, which is different from my passport!
Luckily the ticketing officer was nice, she asked if I have an ID
showing my first and last name, so I showed her my KTP and driving
license and I was allowed to pass.

Because
even I can’t tell what my really name is, I make other people confuse
as well. When I registered to the GP (General Practitioner), I
submitted my passport which has my first and middle name. But then I
become a McKay and re-register again, which resulted in several phone
calls from the GP office to confirm that Anita Carmencita is the same
person as Anita McKay. The marriage officer took a long time to
understand that I have the third name which is a surname, which is not
stated in the passport, and Carmencita is my middle name, which looks
like my surname in the passport. She got even more confused to find out
that my mother (because she is a Javanese) doesn’t have a surname
before adopting my father’s. I had to patiently explain to her that
this in fact is normal in Indonesia, and after a lot of frowns and head
shaking she finally gave in.

To
a person who is a bit obsessive about orders, having different names on
different IDs is painful. So the first thing I would do when I’m back
to Indonesia is to update all of my IDs so all of them will have the
same name. Now, do I need to put my father’s name before my husband’s?
Certainly 4 names are not too many….?

I can’t believe that I’m actually writing about football here. Not what I think about football like my previous posts (see Everything He Does Is Magic).
Not tips for guys how to make peace with their partner when they want
to watch football. But really, I’m talking about the biggest game
happened in Scotland.

Yes. Scotland vs. Italy. Last Saturday. In Glasgow.
Those
of you might wonder, have I gone nuts? Did Stuart tie me on a sofa to
make me watch it? Did he drug me or buy me expensive gifts to get me to
be patience for 90 minutes? Have I become a geezer bird?

No,
my dear friends. I’m mentally and physically perfectly fine and
healthy, and I decided to watch the game, or for more precise, to watch
the game with my laptop on (which means I would glance at telly every 5
minutes), because it was so huge the whole nation kept talking about it
a month before the match and is still talking about it, so it’s
difficult to not get infatuated by the whole thing. When Stuart said
it’s an important game, this time I know it was.

Those
of you who care less about football, let me give you the background a
little bit. This is EUFA European Football Championship 2008
qualification. If Scotland beat Italy they will qualify for Euro 2008.
If they lose then Italy and France will book their places at the
finals. Should they draw, Scotland will need Ukraine to beat France at
home on 21 November. A big dream for Scotland. Probably as big as
Indonesia’s dream to grace Asian Games with gold medal in any other
sport rather than badminton.

Before
you ask, I also have asked this question to Stuart many times. This is
EUFA. Which means European countries: France, Italy, Spain, The
Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, etc. But why do we play as Scotland,
Wales, and England? We should play as the UK. This is like Singapore
vs. Java, not Singapore vs. Indonesia. But Stuart insisted that
Scotland is a country. Which brings the confusion back (read my dad’s
torturing questions in Where is Scotland posting).

Anyway,
since Scotland beat France 1-0, the hope that Scotland might be
participating in EUFA for the first time in decades started to arise.
So the last game of Scotland vs. Italy was hugely anticipating.

Now,
if you live in this planet, you’d know that Italy is a powerful team.
Plus the players are cute. So just for fun, because I know how nervous
all the Scots were about the match, last Saturday I sent an SMS to GG
saying that I support Italy. He replied saying that he would stop
talking to me if I keep supporting Italy. Stuart, of course backed this
up, cruelly threatened for a divorce. Oh dear. Rocky sent a cheeky text saying that he’d watch the game and let me know if Italy won. Ecky
immediately said she’d support Italy (didn’t I mention that Italy’s
players are cute?). Stuart of course wasn’t happy. Hours passed and he
became more nervous. His friend Decky was on the bus to Glasgow to
support Scotland, along with another 60,000 fans. And Gordon Brown, the
British Prime Minister, who’s Scottish.

At least I can sing along with The Proclaimers’ I’m Gonna Be (500 miles).
Why this song becomes a Scottish song, I have no idea. It’s not a
national anthem but the crowd in Hampden Stadium sang this song many
times.

Italy scored
a goal in the first 73 seconds, when I just got up from chair to get
some water in the kitchen, sent the whole nation in shock. Stuart
screamed so loud when Scotland made a goal and when the score 1-1 until
90 minutes people believe that draw is good enough. Not quiet though. I
was actually watching the telly when the Italians struck again in the
91st minute to shatter Scotland’s dream.

There
was a huge silence in the living room. 30 Seconds later Stuart’s mobile
was beeping. Decky reported, live from Hampden Stadium. He was crying,
as well as the rest of 60,000 tartan army in the stadium and probably
in every pub in Scotland.

Almost 30 minutes after the final
whistle, the Scottish players reappeared for a lap of honour, and
indeed it was heartbreaking to see a bitter twist like that. Even I
almost cried. I said almost,
because the whole crowd in the stadium was very emotional, but the
camera went along to see the most of the fans really cried. Which I
think is funny. Men are difficult to show their emotion. Except during
sports match.

Rocky sent text (he apparently woke up all night watching the game, thank you darling), saying: "Nit, tell Stu, it’s so near, yet so far".

Another
empty summer for Scotland indeed. But as all the newspaper put on their
front page, the message to the Scottish players are loud and clear:
you’ve done us proud.

From BBC.co.uk:

Mother Dies After Refusing Blood

A Young Jehovah’s Witness has died after giving birth to twins, amid
claims that she had refused a blood transfusion because of her faith.
Emma
Gough, 22 of Telford, Shropshire, gave birth on 25 October. The Royah
Shrewsbury Hospital said an internal review into the case would take
place.   
The twins, a boy and a girl, are healthy and are being cared for by their father, Anthony Gough, 24.A friend said the family was going through "immense… turmoil and grief".     

"We
follow the Bible and abstain from blood and I’ve got no reason to
believe that Emma didn’t share those views," the friend Terry Lovejoy
added.

         
I‘ve
heard about Jehovah’s Witness but I don’t think that the (shall I call
it) religion exists in Indonesia (does it?) so I’m not familiar with
it. I’m not even a Christian or Catholic, even though I went to
all-girls-Catholic school from kindergarten to high school and was
taught about bible, Jesus, mass, and some singings. But my school
really respected the pupils’ religion they let us studying Qur’an and
we had discussion about the difference between Qur’an and Bible in a
very constructive way.

After reading on what happened to the poor mother, I did some minor searching and this is what I’ve found from Jehovah’s Witness Official Website:

One
of their beliefs is "taking blood into body through mouth or veins
violates God’s laws", therefore when the young mother was struggling to
fight for her life, the rest of the family and friends let her die
slowly in the name of her religion.

It’s
really sad to think that our brain which are gifts from God are left
unused because no matter sophisticated the technology surround us, we
just have to sit back and let the nature (or God) steps in to take
someone’s life.

I never thought that God can be so cruel.

Note: I must say that this story is written because I feel guilty that I have written many things about Scotland
which seem more like complains, especially about the weather. Weather
is not that bad, if we know how to handle it (which puts me in the
category of ‘virgin’ since I have no clue. But I’m learning, and I’m
still alive, which is the most important thing). Scotland has got so
many other good things and I just realized I haven’t written any of
those, so I’ll take my chance now.

When
my family found out I was going to move to Scotland, most of them were
freaked out. My auntie, despite of being married to a German and calls
Germany as her second home, thinks that Scotland is far, far away. She
told me, "You only need to walk to North Pole! Aduh, Anita, can’t you choose some other country which is closer to Indonesia?". This is the same auntie who
was disappointed when I canceled my plan to get my post-grad degree in
Germany and chose Australia instead. Only after telling people that we
only need to hop on a plane from Amsterdam for 1 hour to get to
Aberdeen, they (hopefully) realize that Scotland isn’t that far, far
away. Or the same amount of time spent if you fly from London. So to
think about it, London-Aberdeen or Amsterdam-Aberdeen is like
Jakarta-Surabaya. Not too bad, isn’t it?

Second
thing to notice in Scotland is that the country is so beautiful. It’s
somewhat like New Zealand: very green with clear blue sky, mountains,
hills, and waterfalls everywhere. Its tranquility and fresh air always
makes me want to trap some of it into the jar and bring it back to
Jakarta. The vegetation gives an eerie feeling, it’s easy to imagine
hobbits and elves popping out of the bushes to say hello to you. Think
about The Lord of The Rings combine with Harry Potter movies. There’s
no better way to enjoy Scotland by driving around the country. Last
year we drove to Portree, Skye,
and the landscape is so breathtaking I was behaving like a crazy
tourist, frantically taking photographs every minute. The water is
really clear and clean, we could drink right from the source, but it’s
freezing cold so we must be brave to dip our fingers into the pond.

If
NZ is full of sheep, Scotland is full of castles. I couldn’t get enough
of them. Every time I saw one I immediately want to see it close up. I
love to imagine how those people lived their lives hundred of years
ago, when there was no electricity and gas, when Scotland and England
were sworn enemies, when ladies had to wear lots of layers, tight
corset and high hair. Some
castles have life-size mannequins which pose like whatever people did
that time, so we enter the room which is full of ‘people’ busy cooking,
stirring, chopping, yelling at naughty butler, etc. Unfortunately most
of the inside rooms cannot be photographs because the items are hundred
of years old and are very sensitive to camera lights. My favorite is Edinburgh castle,
the most famous castle in Scotland. I’ve been there three times and I’m
never bored to see the magnificent building over and over again. One
thing I haven’t done yet, is to take one of the ghost tours
in Edinburgh. Call me childish, but I think it’d be cool to walk around
in the darkness (the tour starts as early as 10.00 PM), listening to
the tales, myths, legends, and mysteries about many horrific tortures,
murders and supernatural happenings on the Old Town of Edinburgh. Some tours are guided by (men posing as, or who knows, probably real)
ghosts. I know it’s silly and usually around 4.00 PM you could spot
people dressing up like ghost, pirates, troubadours, kings, vampires,
mummy, you name it, getting ready for the late night tours. But
tourists enjoy it and pay a lot of money to be scared! I wonder why
Indonesia doesn’t have this ghost tour type, I believe Java has more
ghost compares to the whole UK!

Another
thing I notice here is that Scottish are more open and friendly. I
could feel the pressure of being an Asian in Sydney, there had been
several discrimination and racist remarks when I lived there
(especially during East Timor separation from Indonesia and 9/11
tragedy), from being asked to open up our suitcases by a custom officer
in a nice manner, youngsters pretended they didn’t understand when we asked direction to The Basement,
the jazz club, impatient cashier in a nightclub who banged the table
because I took more than 30 seconds to get the money out of my wallet,
until a fellow schoolmate being physically harassed because she was
wearing a hijab. Here I’m practically treated just the same. No one
stares because I’m different (maybe they stare because I’m pretty
haha!). If there’s any difference, it was only when queuing for
immigration at Aberdeen airport. I’m usually the only person who’s not
EU citizen, so I’d be the last to be served.

Food
is not that bad either, particularly seafood. Two weeks ago there was a
food fair in Aberdeen and there’s a stall selling king prawn for
£2.50/5pcs, which is about Rp 50,000. Not too bad considering a bottle
of water costs £1.00. The prawn’s so delicious, I went back for the second cup (that means I scoffed 10 king prawns down myself in one afternoon, talk about calories and cholesterol level!). Fraserburgh and Peterhead are the two biggest fish ports in Europe, so Scotland is always supplied with
fresh seafood. It’s easy to go to any restaurant and order seafood,
particularly fish. Of course, the way they cook seafood here is not
like in Indonesia which is full of spices. But just like the king
prawns I’ve had, the simple way of cooking just enhances the freshness
and the true taste of its own fish. Yumm!

Ok, this is me being cheeky, but I think Scottish men are men enough to wear skirt, or they call it kilt. With nothing underneath. Isn’t it interesting? I remember the first time I went to Highland Gathering in Jakarta, and since our friends are British, no one wore this traditional Scottish outfit. So
we stopped several (good looking) guys and asked whether the rumour is
true, that Scottish men don’t wear anything under their kilts. At the
end we got the privilege peeking from the young bagpipe band members.
But then the next years I’ve got several Scottish friends (including
Stuart) wearing kilts at the gathering, and I’m very sure
that they had nothing underneath. When asked why they don’t wear
underpants, everybody just says it’s a tradition (maybe someone can
tell me?). So next time you see a Scotsman wearing kilt, you know exactly what he wears, or doesn’t wear.

There you go. I hope this could give some brighter picture about Scotland. Perhaps you think about visiting us here?

I’ve visited Aberdeen a couple of times before permanently move here. But we’ve always visited the city between September and October, so I didn’t really feel the cold weather. The coldest temperature I had experienced was 9⁰C, but that was 6.00 AM in the morning and I had it for a few seconds from the house to the car, so it doesn’t really count. My so much winter experience was when I lived in Sydney, where when it’s hit under 15⁰C people are seen walking around with thick coats, scarves and gloves. And there’s no snow in Sydney!

This time, though, will be my first experience to feel the ‘real’ cold weather. I’ve tried my best to avoid it, by arranging my trip back to Indonesia in December-January (I wish I could stay until May but Stuart veto-ed my idea), but this particular week in early November has been colder, much colder. The heater is on more often inside the house, the darkness falls earlier it makes 4.00 PM looks like night time, the kettle is put on all the time for (hot) tea, and I go out much less. Although I still see some freaks walking with short-sleeves T-shirt, there are many more people now put their coats on. Winter is coming!

Last week, Rina, my first Indonesian contact here, asked me if I wanted to meet up with other Indonesians. I, of course, said yes, so we settled to get together on Thursday, at one lady’s house which is only 10 minutes walk from mine. That particular day was incredible cold (3⁰C!) and very windy, I had to put a lot of effort just to get out of the house. Smugly I though I’d be fine with tube dress, cardigan, parka, and knee high boots, since the house I was going to wasn’t far. But of course, now it’s not about the cold, it’s about the wind! When walking down Union Grove the wind blew so hard I almost flew I had to grab the nearest tree! Oh dear… wouldn’t be funny to read on the next day’s newspaper: "Small Indonesian Lady Was Found Hanging On The Tree…" I honestly don’t know how to handle this issue. If it’s cold, it’s easy to put on some more layers to get warmer, but how do I keep my feet on the ground when the wind blows so strong it bends all trees?

Snow fell on Thursday night, but God decided it’s not winter time yet, so Friday was warmer enough to let all snow traces disappeared before noon. Saturday was a combination of rain and cold and yesterday (Sunday) was just as depressing as Saturday, but Stuart, like the rest of British/Scottish/Irish people, thinks fresh air is important so he dragged me out of the house to Ferry Hill House for lunch. The ‘fresh air’ concept was bizarre to me, because 1) it’s always sunshine in Indonesia, so no one pays attention to weather forecast, 2) there’s no so-called fresh air in Jakarta! Look up to the sky and see that it’s actually grey, full of pollution (I was shocked the first time when arrived in Jakarta after living in Sydney because I got used to with clear blue sky) and 3) even though it’s fresh, it’s freezing cold! So I’d either suffocate after breathing the same air inside the house or catch pneumonia from the cold.

Let’s see whether I will survive the weather in the next few months!

I watched a program in Channel 4 the other day called "Britz" and it just… tickled me (check out the trailer here).

The program, fictional of course, showed brother and sister, born in UK, Pakistan origin, Moslem (who don’t drink, don’t eat pork, but still sleep around, ironically), who went to totally opposite directions. The brother joined MI5 (perhaps like FBI in the USA?) and worked undercover among his childhood friends to find out more about terrorism acts, or let’s say, the suspicion about who’s going to blow up Britain. His background was perfect for him to infiltrate the organization.

The sister, a medical student, experienced a much more personal tragedy, starting with seeing her best friend was taken by the police, and when she and her fellow students were demonstrating outside the station, she was arrested without any clear charges and was being verbally abused by the police officer who said that if she didn’t shut up they will shove the bacon into her throat along with the beer. She was released soon after, but her friend was under curfew and was told to avoid several people, including her. Her friend apparently couldn’t stand being under house-arrest for a long time so she killed herself. This, including her father’s rage about her dating a black Christian guy, as well as attending secret meetings with the other Moslems who think they are second-class citizen in the UK (she tried wearing hijab for one day and her fellow doctors asked her to take it off or get out of the surgery room), made her mind twisted, and decided to be a suicide bomber.

I wonder if people think that there are only 2 kind of Moslems in UK. One who thinks that UK is their country and is closed his eyes even though he sees how the system treats the Moslems unfairly and keeps trying to deny his origins, and the other one is the one who is ready to blow up the country where he actually was born in and is never thank the country for everything he’s got, while his home country couldn’t offer.

At the end the story failed to show us, or to make us understand more about suicide bombing. Portraying the sister who left her boyfriend being beaten-to-death by her cousins just to accomplish her mission, and decided to blow herself up even though her brother found her, was a truly pathetic, selfish act. Not to mention the location was a park that was full of women and children. Her recorded message before she took the action was that everybody is wrong because we keep electing the government, the same government who sends their troops to Iraq, the same government who establishes the anti-terrorism law which enables them to do such horrible things for the sake of the country’s safety (she gave example like Guantamo and Abu Ghraib Prisons). And as a result, we must die.

To me, what I don’t understand is why those suicide bombers think that by blowing themselves up will change the world, change people’s perception about their war and their beliefs. If one thing that those people have achieved so far, is portraying Islam as brutal, violent, and inhuman religion.