With Julie we continued discussion of the effects of the 1965-66 genocide, and some of the long-term effects of Dutch colonial rule that continue to affect Indonesian (especially Javanese) society today. Julie shared some of her perceptions of lived experiences as a Chinese-Indonesian from Jakarta, and the stigmas that this group faces even in a city as multi-cultural and metropolitan as Jakarta. She also shared some Indonesians' perceptions of white people and the impact the tourism industry has on Indonesians, and I hope to allow this information to inform my interactions with my future teachers in Java. I appreciate that Julie shares this information with us because for my future research, I hope to represent myself as a representative of my own culture and actively work against the perpetuation of behaviors that allow stigmatization of westerners in Indonesia to persist.
With Thalia we continued incorporating Bahasa Gaul into our learning, using "textbook" language and slang terms side-by-side to look at the ways in which conversation ought to be adjusted according to context. In my free time I have been looking up "blog" videos by Indonesians on the subject of food, music, pop culture, etc. and have been hearing some of the bahasa gaul we have been learning sprinkled throughout these videos. This makes me feel a lot more connected to my goal of immersing in Indonesian culture, and although I'm usually able to only grab a few words out of each sentence (a lot of the narrators/bloggers speak very quickly), I'm able to pick up more and more of the "gist" of what's being expressed.
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