Scholar of Javanese language, culture<\/p>\n
Yenni Djahidin, Contributor\/Washington<\/p>\n
She is an anthropologist who specializes in Indonesia, speaks
\nBahasa Indonesia and has performed Javanese and Balinese dances.<\/p>\n
However, she was known in Indonesia primarily as the spouse of
\nan American ambassador.<\/p>\n
Dr Clare Wolfowitz is more like a shy woman from Java than a
\nprofessor of a major American university. She is warm and softly
\nspoken.<\/p>\n
Her office is decorated with tapestry from North Sumatra,
\nJavanese puppets, and countless pictures of her trips to
\nIndonesia.<\/p>\n
There is a photograph of Wolfowitz in front of a library that
\nbears her name at an Islamic school in South Sulawesi. Another
\npicture shows her, and two of her three children, clad in
\ntraditional Javanese clothing.<\/p>\n
They were in Java recently to attend a friend's wedding. The
\npictures are all neatly pinned on a wall behind her desk.<\/p>\n
\"I was partly raised as an Indonesian,\" she says, when asked
\nwhy she chose Indonesia as her specialty. She says she lived with
\nan Indonesian family in Yogyakarta for three months in 1962, when
\nshe was a teenager.<\/p>\n
\"It wasn't very long, but I loved everything there. It was the
\nplace I wanted to be -- I didn't want to go home,\" she said. The
\nmother of the family she stayed with was West Sumatran, the
\nfather, Javanese. The family had eight children and they spoke
\nBahasa Indonesia at home.<\/p>\n
\"That's where I learned bahasa,\" she said.<\/p>\n
\"There was nothing that I didn't like,\" she said, but added,
\n\"Well, maybe the bathroom because of the cockroaches and the
\nspiders.\"<\/p>\n
She said that she was in the last group of exchange students
\nfrom America because the late president Sukarno stopped the
\nprogram.<\/p>\n
\"Sukarno thought we were CIA spies,\" she said, with a laugh.
\nShe added that she was not smart enough to have been a CIA spy.<\/p>\n
Wolfowitz took her interest further and studied anthropology
\nin college. Later, she wrote a book based on her dissertation,
\nLanguage Style and Social Space, which examines how Javanese
\npeople use their language and the way they use their homes.<\/p>\n
\"I would love to do an addition to that (book) for an
\nIndonesian audience,\" she said, adding that the book is full of
\nacademic terms that are not easy to understand.<\/p>\n
\"I would do a rewrite, just a little bit more in English, and
\nsomeone else could translate it into Indonesian,\" she said. She
\nadmitted that she can understand more Javanese than she can
\nspeak.<\/p>\n
\"I am very shy about speaking Javanese; I thought it was so
\nhard but it's such an interesting language,\" said Wolfowitz, who
\nalso speaks French, Italian and German.<\/p>\n
Wolfowitz is also actively involved in organizations that
\npromote arts and culture. Last year, she took a group, the
\nIndonesian Youth and Children's Choir, on a tour of cities in the
\nU.S.<\/p>\n
\"I would love to bring them back again to the States next
\nsummer,\" she said, looking at pictures from the group's
\nperformance in Washington DC.<\/p>\n
The small woman, who grew up on Long Island, New York, says
\nshe would love to go back to Indonesia and learn to dance again.
\nShe says she was very impressed with an Indonesian performer she
\nsaw recently and wanted to learn from him.<\/p>\n
\"Javanese dance is what I did naturally, but I also learned
\nsome Balinese,\" she said.<\/p>\n
She said the most memorable part of her stay in Indonesia as
\nthe wife of the American ambassador (1986 to 1989) was the
\nfuneral of the late sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono IX.<\/p>\n
\"Hundreds of thousands -- maybe millions -- of people lined up
\non the street and they were all silent out of respect for him,\"
\nshe said.<\/p>\n
Clare Wolfowitz is separated from Paul Wolfowitz, the U.S.
\ndeputy secretary of defense. She currently works for the public
\naffairs division of the institutional reform and informal sector
\n(IRIS) unit at Maryland University, outside Washington, DC. She
\nhelps to manage Indonesia projects for the democracy, governance
\nand regulation team.<\/p>\n
\"I hope we will have a project on Indonesia soon,' she said.<\/p>\n
Wolfowitz previously taught courses in sociolinguistics and
\nsocial change at the John Hopkins School of Advanced
\nInternational Studies, John Hopkins School of Continuing
\nEducation and Georgetown University School of Language and
\nLinguistics.<\/p>",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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