Out-of-town students find it hard to settle in city
By Yoko N. Sari
JAKARTA (JP): Adjusting to life in Jakarta is not as easy as you may think. Although the Indonesian capital is the most metropolitan city in the country, with almost every culture and lifestyle represented, fitting in can be difficult.
Two out-of-town students at the prestigious University of Indonesia discovered that they had to go through a rough period of cultural shock before finally settling in and feeling comfortable living in Jakarta.
M. Juni, in his final year at the School of Social and Political Sciences, says it took him a while to find friends he could identify with when he came to this city in 1987.
"Most kids studying at the university come from rich families. I simply felt I didn't fit in," said Juni, who is from Prabumulih in South Sumatra. "I tried to mix with them but it always ended in trouble."
"They're just a completely different bunch. I had no intention of copying their lifestyle or trying to become one of them," he said. "I can't pretend to be somebody I'm not."
Rudy Hartono Sabri is another out-of-town student and is also in his final year at the same school. He comes from a poor family in Tulungagung in East Java.
He recalls that his thick Javanese accent was a major liability when he came to Jakarta in 1988. He felt inferior because people laughed every time he opened his mouth.
Rudy, nicknamed Scubo because he pronounced "scuba diving" wrong during initiation, says he even hesitated to speak during class discussions at first. "I was afraid to speak although I wanted to. As soon as I tried to speak, everybody laughed. So I just sat in the class and kept my mouth shut."
The two young men, both in their mid-20s, say they eventually overcame the cultural shock once they found people they felt at ease with.
Juni, whose father is a retired police officer, admitted that he went through a brief stint as a drug dealer before deciding to come clean.
Underworld
The group of friends he identified with at the university happened to be people who used drugs or drank alcohol. "I fitted into their world immediately because we had something in common," he said.
This pack, unlike the rich kids, don't care about appearance or background, he said.
He joined the underworld because he needed the money to live and study in Jakarta.
He decided to ask his father to stop sending money because he wanted to be financially independent. Yet he wanted to continue his studies because he vowed before leaving his village that he would return with a university degree.
"Where I come from, a young man of my age is considered old enough to earn his own income and I felt really ashamed that my parents were still sending me money," he said.
Juni didn't immediately enter university. He failed his first attempt at the entrance exams in 1987. He passed the following year. In between the two tests he got to know the underworld of Jakarta and continued to hang around them when he got into university.
That was in the past. Now Juni supports himself as a collector for a leasing company.
Scubo was more fortunate. He found friends who often went to great lengths to help him settle in. They even taught him how to operate a computer. At times, his friends even lent him money.
But, as Scubo points out, his friends don't smoke pot or drink alcohol.
Fitting in was simply a matter of time, and his friends helped him build up his self-esteem. He no longer feels ashamed about his thick Javanese accent.
Scubo lived with his older brother for the first two years. His brother financially supported him in the beginning because their parents are too poor to support Scubo's studies. His father runs a workshop repairing bicycle tires in Tulungagung.
Scubo became independent after winning a scholarship from the Supersemar Foundation. However, the Rp 40,000 a month barely covers his expenses.
Thanks to his friends, he learned how to operate a computer and now processes data for fellow students and private companies.
"I couldn't have done it without help from my friends," he concluded.