JP\/xx\/PLURAL<\/p>\n
Spicy distinctions in a Betawi-Palembang marriage<\/p>\n
Emmy Fitri
\nThe Jakarta Post\/Jakarta<\/p>\n
Of all the cross-cultural marriages that are possible, one would
\nthink that a couple from Java and Sumatra would have the least
\ndifficulty in adjusting to each other. But that is often not the
\ncase as we find out with Yulian and Arnita<\/p>\n
Dinner was ready, served on the round dining table.<\/p>\n
A bowl full of sayur pucung (Betawi-style fish soup), rice,
\nfried gabus (freshwater fish), and a selection of raw vegetables,
\nor lalap. A pot of hot tea stood next to a water jug.<\/p>\n
The food was enough for all. There were at least nine adults
\nwith five noisy toddlers and children. All related. The family
\nhad gathered to recite the Koran that evening.<\/p>\n
And while others cheerfully scooped the food onto their glass
\nplates, Yulian Fajri, who had already started eating, suddenly
\nrose from his seat and dashed into the kitchen, not far away from
\nthe dining table.<\/p>\n
Nisin, the householder, Yulian's father-in-law, started
\ngiggling. \"He cannot eat without sambal (chili sauce),\" he said
\nbetween his chuckles.<\/p>\n
Yulian's wife Arnita just looked at the kitchen for a second
\nand then returned to her food.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, 30-year-old Yulian was back in his seat.
\nHe placed a small chili pounder next to his plate.<\/p>\n
\"Different tastes. Sumatran tastes are so strange. Breakfast,
\nlunch and dinner with sambal,\" Nisin said.<\/p>\n
Sambal, perhaps, may seem a mere triviality but for Yulian it
\nis basic. He grew up with it, and now he swears that he could not
\nswallow rice without it.<\/p>\n
The advice of his mother is still clear in his mind: \"Hala
\nnyakah bini yang dek tau nyambal\" (Don't you marry a woman who
\ncannot make sambal).<\/p>\n
Advice which went unheeded by Yulian when he married Arnita.<\/p>\n
Love, apparently, conquers all. Including a passion for
\nsambal.<\/p>\n
\"I was frustrated during our first week of marriage. I rarely
\nate at home and she often got angry because of that. Then I took
\nthe initiative. I taught her how to make sambal,\" Yulian
\nrecalled.<\/p>\n
Try though she may, even Arnita's best efforts did not satisfy
\nher husband's passion.<\/p>\n
\"It was a bit tasteless. It doesn't have to be hot, just
\ntasty,\" Yulian recalled as his dragged on his cigarette, sated
\nafter a tasty sambal-filled dinner.<\/p>\n
\"Now I make my own sambal. She can cook anything she likes,
\nbut I make the sambal.\"<\/p>\n
In his hometown of Baturaja, sambal was a compulsory item on
\nthe family dining table. It could be any kind of sambal, from
\njust a plain pounded chili and garlic, to young mango sambal or
\nthe typical calok sambal (with shrimp or fish paste mixed in).<\/p>\n
Baturaja is a relatively idle town, despite the nearby
\npresence of a cement factory and at least three oil palm
\nplantations. It is the capital of Ogan Komering Ulu Regency, and
\nis located some 120 kilometers north of Palembang.<\/p>\n
The son of a tailor father and a kindergarten teacher mother,
\nYulian left his hometown in 1997 to seek his luck on Java Island.
\nHe went to Sukabumi, West Java, where he worked for a timber
\nfirm for one year. He left the job following an accident which
\nresulted in his left thumb being severed by a timber cutting
\nmachine.<\/p>\n
His brothers and sisters -- all married to neighbors and
\nfriends -- enjoyed \"easy lives\" with their parents.<\/p>\n
\"I just had to get out. Life was too predictable there. If you
\ndidn't own land you became a civil servant, or ended up
\nunemployed, waiting for your inheritance,\" Yulian said.<\/p>\n
The second of five siblings, Yulian graduated from a technical
\nhigh school. His modest education did not deter him from seeking
\nwork in Jakarta, which has little mercy for unskilled and
\ninexperienced migrants.<\/p>\n
But Yulian took any kind of job he could get, from working as
\na porter with a loading company to a job on an offshore drilling
\nplatform. Not an easy life.<\/p>\n
Rude barriers<\/p>\n
Arnita believes that her two-year-old marriage remains strong.
\nThe friction that occasionally occurs is part of the ups and
\ndowns of a balanced union.<\/p>\n
But she still doesn't comprehend why her husband is so
\ninsistent on her learning to speak his language -- a native
\ndialect of Palembang called 'Ogan'.<\/p>\n
Living and working in Jakarta, she sees no point in her and
\nher future children learning such an obscure language.<\/p>\n
The dialect, though, remains a catharsis for Yulian.<\/p>\n
\"When he gets mad or there is something he wants to complain
\nabout, he uses his native tongue. I just reply in Bahasa
\nIndonesia, I don't care now,\" she said.<\/p>\n
She has also learnt that only time will allow her husband to
\nmake the necessary adjustments to accept the predominantly
\nBetawi-style diets and culture prevailing in her father's home.<\/p>\n
At first she found it \"rude\" for her husband to, for example,
\nleave food untouched on the dinner table and go get something
\nfrom outside.<\/p>\n
Arnita said her husband did not like Betawi cuisine at all,
\nclaiming it tasted funny.<\/p>\n
\"I'm not a bad cook. In fact, I have cooked for my father
\nsince I was in junior high school. We do eat sambal, but it is
\nnot the kind he wants,\" said Arnita, whose mother passed away in
\n1999.<\/p>\n
\"But I believe he'll get used to it,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The couple had a brief courtship with Yulian proposing only
\nafter their second meeting. Although he considered ethnicity
\nimportant, he initially did not know his future wife's ethnic
\nbackground.<\/p>\n
\"Eventually I did ask. I am from Sumatra and make a living in
\nother people's homes. I am a guest here so it is important for me
\nto adjust to the manners commonly practiced here,\" Yulian
\nclaimed.<\/p>\n
He said he was compelled to \"behave well\" especially because
\nSumatran people were easily associated with negative stereotypes.<\/p>\n
The Bataks, he said, were often labeled as being rough,
\noutspoken and short-tempered, while Palembang people were stamped
\nas criminals.<\/p>\n
When Yulian and Arnita agreed -- over the telephone -- to
\nbegin a relationship, they admitted that they were both excited
\nat the prospect of being paired with someone from a relatively
\ndifferent background.<\/p>\n
Eight months later they were married.<\/p>\n
Arnita who was then 20 years old said she agreed to marry him
\nbecause she thought it was about time for her to settle down.<\/p>\n
\"Girls of my age in my extended family have already got one or
\ntwo children. I am considered old,\" she remarked.<\/p>\n
She also gave up her job in a garment factory in Cakung, East
\nJakarta, preferring to become a housewife. Now seven-months
\npregnant, Arnita is looking forward to a new addition to the
\nfamily.<\/p>\n
Good and bad<\/p>\n
From their initial unexpected meeting on a bus, Yulian and
\nArnita had to deal with serious challenges as their marriage
\nneared.<\/p>\n
These problems often centered around the day of the wedding
\nand how it should be held, in the Betawi or Sumatran style.<\/p>\n
The Betawi people still believe that there are good and bad
\ndays for a wedding. In a Betawi wedding, Yulian would have to
\nprovide various seserahan (gifts) for each stage of the
\nceremony's five stages.<\/p>\n
But Yulian believed that the wedding would be much simpler and
\ncheaper if it were held in Baturaja, based on Sumatran customs.<\/p>\n
Being the youngest of seven siblings, Arnita however was the
\nfavorite of everyone in her family. And her elders were insistent
\non throwing a special wedding for her -- their way.<\/p>\n
A potential impasse was avoided when Arnita's father decided
\nat the last minute to just conduct an Islamic ceremony.<\/p>\n
\"That basically solved the problem,\" she said.<\/p>\n
The wedding became the most modest reception the family had ever
\nhosted. A moderate-sized tent was erected in front of the house
\nwith only neighbors and relatives invited.<\/p>\n
The house, an old building with a high ceiling, is located in
\nan alley, some 80 meters from Jl. Raya Bogor. In the late 1970s,
\nit used to be the only building on a 200-square-meter plot.<\/p>\n
Little by little the land was sold by Nisin for his children's
\nneeds -- education, weddings, etc<\/p>\n
What's left are just three small houses on the right-hand side
\nof the main house that are rented out.<\/p>\n
Even though many native Betawi have been pushed to the fringes
\ndue to the rapid growth of Jakarta, they maintain strong linkages
\nand retain the habit of living in close proximity to one another.
\nArnita's family is no different.<\/p>\n
\"I can always find aunts or uncles to talk to here. Or I can
\ninvite my nephews or nieces to accompany me at home. They live
\nnot far from here,\" she said.<\/p>\n
Despite differing perceptions, she does not believe that
\nmarrying a Betawi man would have been any easier.<\/p>\n
Arnita's says that she once asked her husband why he did not
\ntry to find a Baturaja girl or a Sumatran girl to marry.<\/p>\n
\"Sumatran girls are hard to handle,\" she quoted Yulian as
\nsaying. \"They don't listen to their husbands.\"<\/p>\n
\"He said that when fell in love with me, he didn't know what
\nbackground I came from.\"<\/p>\n
As their marriage matures, both Yulian and Arnita are learning
\nhow things like sambal and language are not issues that should
\ncause friction in their marriage. But neither should they be
\nignored.<\/p>\n
The key is to find a compromise.<\/p>\n
\"I let him make his own sambal as long as he eats at home. He
\nmay use his dialect at home or with the children later as long as
\nI am not forced to speak it too.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/jpxxplural-1447899208",
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