Indonesia-expat-marriage cinderella stories

By Aida Greenbury

JAKARTA (JP): "You're kidding right? Tom is going back to Sydney next month? He's getting married this weekend! To whom?" It was 10 a.m. on Sunday. I was trying to concentrate on what Judy was saying on the other end of the line. One second later, she gave the most overwhelming news of the year.

"To his caddy!" I finally got it. That's why he'd been so keen to play golf twice a week. I remembered the girl he frequently hired at "Hole in One Paradise", the golf course he always went to; a shy girl who lives in the village behind the course. Her younger brother sells golf balls that he collects from the lake next to the course. Her father had been jobless since the golf course developer turned his small piece of paddy field into a bunker.

Over the following days, we were all busy helping Tom prepare his wedding. The bride, Arum, insisted on having the party at her house. I want the whole village to know who I am going to marry, she said. So be it.

The wedding day was sweet. Tom, a fairly rigid regional business manager in daily life, played his role as the center of attention very well. The party drew a large crowd; from the village leaders, children from the nearby elementary school to food vendors. It was a success.

I guess the greatest challenge Arum had to face was joining our social circle. As the first Indonesian wife in the club, Arum often came to me to ask some inter-cultural adaptation tips. Sometimes, I felt she was even looking up to me as her fashion diva. At our weekly afternoon teas, she would consistently arrive wearing an almost identical clothing ensemble to what I had worn the week before.

There was an element of sadness to it. Arum seemed lost in the attempt to gain acceptance from her new high-hat, fashion conscious, mostly white-skinned friends.

Once I asked her what she planned to do in Sydney.

"I think I'm going to set up a warung selling Indomie noodles and es campur (fruit ice) in front of our house, if Tom doesn't mind," she said innocently. She didn't even have a clue where Sydney is. She had never ventured beyond her village, let alone left the country before.

Sri has a different story. Her family lives behind the famous bird market in Yogyakarta. She was a guide and used to help me write stories about batik. After loosing contact for more than a year, I finally saw her again last month. She looked content and was dressed nicely, although she seemed to have lost a lot of weight.

She told me she had married a Dutchman twice her age and moved to Amsterdam last year. She was glad to come home to attend her sister's wedding.

"What have you been doing in Amsterdam? What do you do now? Have you finally pursued your dream to be a batik teacher?" I asked excitedly.

"No. I haven't. I have been very busy taking care of my husband and our house, cooking, doing the laundry. My most demanding task is serving my mother-in-law. She's very old and completely dependent on me 24 hours a day. My husband doesn't want to send her to an old person's home."

What kind of life is that? What kind of man would take a week's vacation in a tropical paradise, marry a local girl and expect her to suddenly be a free-of-charge housemaid? But again, it's not my place to judge.

Doesn't everybody love the story of Cinderella? I even cried when Richard Gere purposed to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. It's so romantic. Handsome princes ride in their limousines, saving poor and desperate women. I wonder when Pretty Woman II will be made.

Back to the issue. There are a lot of other stories out there like Arum's and Sri's.

Why would these highly educated white princes from hi-tech countries marry relatively poor and less educated local women? Unconditional love, as the men always say.

The women are grateful to be lifted from poverty and love for their husbands will grow eventually. Or maybe not.

Feminism, women's equal rights or a movement against sexist advertising is not foremost in the minds of these women. To serve their husbands unconditionally is, they believe, the core of being a good wife. And fulfilling the role of a "good" wife makes for a "good" life.

And they live happily ever after. Hopefully!