Cultural Artifact Post #3

When I arrived in Malang in the fall of 2024 for my Boren Scholarship, I had a rough first few weeks of adjustment. It was a new city, with new food, and a new set of germs my immune system was not accustomed to. I came down with something that felt like a bad cold mixed with general exhaustion, and my host mother introduced me to some of the natural medicine that is used in Indonesia. She gave me one of the common over-the-counter versions of this obat alami (natural medicine), Tolak Angin. It is about as popular in Indonesia as something like Advil is here.Tolak Angin is one of the most recognizable products in Indonesian herbal medicine, and it is part of a broader medicinal tradition surrounding jamu. Jamu is Indonesia's version of traditional herbal medicine, and it has been around for centuries. Before there were pharmacies on every corner of Malang, there were women called penjual jamu who would walk through neighborhoods every morning carrying baskets loaded with bottles of…

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Language Learning Journal #3: March

Over the past month, my primary goals have been rebuilding conversational fluency in Indonesian and expanding my active vocabulary, especially the kind of recall that comes under pressure in real conversation. My sessions with Mbak Hesti have continued, and we have leaned heavily into open-ended conversation rather than structured drills or exercises. This was a deliberate choice since my reading, writing, and listening comprehension are all considerably stronger than my speaking because my “recall time” is not the strongest. Pushing myself to respond spontaneously forces me to retrieve vocabulary in real time, which remains my single biggest weak point at this stage.The good news is that it is working. Our conversations have gotten noticeably more fluid. Words and phrases that I used to stumble over or draw a blank on are starting to come more naturally, and I am finding that the niche vocabulary I learned in 2024 is resurfacing, even when I haven’t used the words themselves for…

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Culture Post 4

Last semester, one of my classes included readings on the development of Chinese “super-apps”, and one of the most consistent recommendations I have received for traveling abroad was to download apps like WeChat and Alipay before leaving to be prepared to navigate Shanghai. My conversations in (one of my courses had a short unit on the super-apps) and outside of class made me curious to learn more about social media and also better understand how the use of technology in daily life has developed. China has “the world’s most active environment for social media”, and sees high demand for media offerings and competition among platforms to continue their growth and development. Some of the most common apps I came across in my searches include WeChat, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, Alipay, and a few others. The company TenCent launched WeChat in 2011 as providing similar functions to WhatsApp, but incredibly rapidly, it has grown to include messaging platforms, a social media element called Moments,…

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Discussion #10

If I got a research grant to study Chinese, I’d focus on how tones actually affect understanding in real spoken conversation. When learning, tones feel like everything, but I wonder if native speakers rely more on context than perfect pronunciation, especially since all of the tones sound so similar. I’m curious about this as one of my friends who is teaching me Mandarin doesn't use tones at all, despite growing up in China. He says that they aren't needed to be understood. To start, I’d record conversations between native speakers and also between native speakers and learners. Then I’d look at moments where tones are used incorrectly and see if communication still works. I’d want to know when tone mistakes actually cause confusion vs when people just figure it out anyway. The structural components from class would be the main part of the study. For phonology, I’d focus on tones and pronunciation. For syntax, I’d look at how simple sentence structure might help make up for tone…

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