I asked Julie for a recommendation for an Indonesian movie to watch, and she recommended "Nagabonar 2", a 2005 sequel to a movie from the 1980s about a pickpocket during the Japanese invasion of Indonesia during World War II who (through quite funny and zany means) ends up a general of the Indonesian army. Being a sequel, it took reading some of the plot of the original movie to understand what was going on; a lot of the plot of the second one is based on the gravesite of Nagabonar's (the main character) mother, uncle, and best friend, the land surrounding which Nagabonar's son wants to use to build a large tourist resort. The clash of modernity and sentimentality/tradition is very evident throughout, and the character of Nagabonar is very lovable and very funny. I watched with English subtitles, but made sure not to spend too much time looking at them, and was able to figure out a good amount of the dialogue. It definitely makes me want to watch the original movie, if I'm able to find a better copy than the pixelated version on YouTube.
Julie helped me draft a message to Danis Sugiyanto, an Indonesian master musician who teaches at ISI Solo (in the city I would like to stay in for most of the Darmasiswa) who was here for the Spring 2018 semester teaching us in the gamelan ensemble. I gave him some updates on how I and the other members of the gamelan were doing, and expressed my desire to study in Solo. His response was very enthusiastic, and he said he would see me soon in Solo City. It feels very reassuring to have someone there who I already know pretty well and who will be able to help me acclimate to the city's and the institute's culture.
I continued working on my Bahasa skills over the Winter break, because at the beginning of this semester we had Gusti Sudarta, a Balinese master musician, dancer, and shadow puppeteer, his wife and Wayang assistant Jenny, and two Javanese master musicians, Darsono and Sumarsam, here at UR for about a week for a collaborative performance with the Richmond Symphony. I was happily surprised at being able to hold short conversations using only Indonesian, although I had a tough time adjusting to Gusti's accent because the Balinese dialect of Indonesian is rather different than the Javanese dialect. Gusti and Jenny will be here for another week, and I plan to cook them a Brazilian dinner using my mom's recipes at Julie's house.
Comments