----- Original Message -----From: Soe Tjen MarchingSent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 5:28 AMSubject: [ac-i] Cerpen Soe Tjen
--- On Tue, 11/25/08, Hudan Hidayat <HudanHidayat@ yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Hudan Hidayat <HudanHidayat@ yahoo.com>
tapi soe tjen juga menulis cerita pendek dan beberapa aku pernah membacanya
dalam versi inggrisnya. ayo soe tjen, posting ke sini cerpen kamu
hudan
Hudan,
Sori baru baca pesenmu di atas ini. Cerpennya kukirim sekarang.
Soe Tjen Marching.
HOME
(Dimuat di Antipodes, Literary Journal based in the USA)
December 1998
Christmas is coming. It's not snowing. This country is snowy in July, like tons of crumbly salt flying down from the sky. "Is the snow soft?" Mama asked. "Very soft, mama, as soft as the flour in your kitchen drawer."
"And how big are the roses there?"
"As big as the bikangs you make every day." Mama likes making giant bikangs. Mama's bikangs look more like a carnation rather than a rose. Mama loves roses, and in her small garden, the roses' size remains insignificant for the sun is too radiant.
To this rosy country, Mama sent me. About a year ago. That very day, her daughter would be living miles and miles away. In a place far in the South, where the birds chatter without fear. For in our humid city full of poverty, the birds in the tree today will be easily transferred to a satay skewer the next day. "Here, Mama, wild colourful birds will land on my fingers without fear of being gobbled!"
Mama has never known such a world, or rather such a heaven. Because Mama, who was left by papa when we were young, had to struggle for her three girls who had difficulties getting into schools because of their Chinese names. My sisters could only finish high school. The small world of Mama: the kitchen, sweets and the market where she sells her sweets. The world she inherited from her mother and which she will bequeath to my two sisters. Every day, Mama dreamt about another place – the progressive world, the world of science and knowledge, free from the dough of jenang, pisang goreng and bikang. Free from the dirty and polluted market in Cipinang<!--[if !supportFootnotes]
--><!--[endif]--> . This pisang goreng world she had fully entered since she was fifteen, when the Chinese schools were closed down by the government, following the murder of millions of innocent people whose bodies clogged and reddened the rivers<!--[if !supportFootnotes]--> .A year later, Mama was married off with someone much older, who then became my father. Her only desire was that at least one of us could reach the dream, which had been terminated but still endured. Me, her youngest daughter. No matter how much the price of that world of knowledge. As she always whispered: "Happiness is priceless."
From this country, my letters to Mama are smiley: "I am so happy, Mama. So very happy."
"And how beautiful is that country?"
"Very beautiful, Mama. Just like the calendar given by that sailor. Full of flowers and blue water." The calendar given by that sailor is nearly twenty years old now. From
. She still keeps it, together with postcards from other countries. She often asked for some old postcards which came from Europe or Germany , from her friends. If they asked what for, she always answered that they were for our handcrafts, to cut and stick to make mosaics. America But she kept them neatly in a box, and wouldn't even let us touch them unless we had washed our hands. Sometimes, in bed, she stared at them one by one at night. She also bought lots of used books in English from the Madurese women who always walked in front of our house, carrying piles of second-hand stuff on their heads, though my mum couldn't read them. I said it was such a waste of money.
"But one day, you will be able to understand these books and read them to me," she said.
Because Mama hasn't and perhaps never will go overseas. Because to pay for my happiness, she can never leave her kitchen. So she was amazed when I told her: "In this country, Mama, education is their right. A few weeks ago, some students protested against high tuition fees." Things which hardly happen in our country, where education is such a luxury.
"Perhaps, one day, you can call that country home", wrote Mama, "for long before you were born in our own town which smells, tastes and sounds are so common, we have become different." One day, Mama had to give all me a new name, or more precisely, buy me one. "Chinese names are not names, they only indicate that you are foreign." But after I changed my name, they still called me Chinese. The place where I was born in not my hometown.
But this snowy country is also just another place for me. Before I open my lips, I have to step back. For sometimes I don't know what I have to say. The smell, the taste, the sound here have alienated me. I never come along to those students' protests because no matter what, I still have to pay five or six times more than the local students' fee. Foreign students are not allowed to have any benefits. Because they are sources of profits. In the country that becomes our reverie, overseas students are commodities. But this country is full of promise. And happiness is priceless.
Some postcards with lambs and penguins keep on coming from me: "I am happy, Mama. So very happy." Although my pillow is often wet with tears. And if I got sick of making my pillow wet, I tried anything else: table, chair, undies, shirts.
But they don't want to hear this, do they? Because I am part of their dream. Because their dream is beautiful. Isn't this country part of their fairy tale where sadness can't possibly settle? Although in every party, I was seated in the corner. I don't know how to be chatty with all these teenagers.
Several times I have to swallow the scolding of some University officers: "I don't understand your English." They scolded my English without even pronouncing my name properly. When Easter came, and many people were preparing their holidays, I was busy collecting the autumn leaves and staring at them one by one, like what Mama used to do with her old postcards. For these reddish leaves spoke millions and millions more words than the human beings here.
But "I am happy, Mama. So very happy." Because Mama's dreams cannot be spoiled. Because her effort has been tireless. Don't her friends' children come from overseas with success stories? Don't they come as people who understand the meaning of progress from the civilised countries? Don't they come with Master and Bachelor degrees? With prestigious marks and not loneliness which so much hurts? Loneliness which makes your tiny dark room more pleasant than being secluded in bright party houses of warm holiday places?
This Christmas, I will be with them again – my Mama and my sisters, the three women I really love. All exams are now over, and I had worked hard for months.
A few days ago, after the result came in the mail, I went to see the two professors who welcome me amicably.
"I sympathise with you. And I regret that this should happen," said one of them.
"We cannot allow you to continue, because you've failed our bridging course, . . ." Like most of the people here, he couldn't even pronounce my name properly.
"We understand that it must be difficult to be an international student. Did you have problem before the exam? Any personal problem, perhaps?"
Three months before the exams, all the money Mama sent to me was vanishing. The inflation in
had caused the value of dollars jump up four or five times. I had to work in a factory nearly every day. Under the table. One day in May, Mama came home from the market and found her two daughters shivering – their vaginas bleeding<!--[if !supportFootnotes] Indonesia --><!--[endif]--> .For the next few months following, Mama was weeping. My sisters have moved out of
, not only for their safety but also in their efforts to wipe out bad memories. Mama stays, for without her kitchen all of us won't be able to live day by day. Jakarta How could I tell about this to the two men in front of me? I babbled for a while, then I shook my head to their last query – what happened to us is not something personal, but an ignominy.
After saying thank you and goodbye, I stepped out and shut the door behind me. Softly, I could hear their voice.
"Her English is really bad."
"I don't think she has worked hard. She missed so many classes."
"Some rich international students . . . They have money but no ability."
I will go home, Mama. How I miss Mama's bikangs and jenang. How I miss helping her fry some pisang. How I miss the morning we were eating nasi campur in banana-leaf wrapping. I am going home. To Mama and my sisters, who will always be there for me, no matter where they could be. For home is not where I come from, but wherever I will arrive and be welcome.
Although my mother has been very weary with my sisters' miseries, but at least "I am happy, Mama. So very happy."
------------
--------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- ------- This short story won the first prize in the short story competition held by
in 2002. It has been published in the literary journal Monash University Antipodes , in June 2003.Author: Soe Tjen Marching (An academic, creative writer and composer. She completed her PhD at
Monash University in. Her book, The Discrepancy between the Public and the Private Selves of Indonesian Women was published by The Edwin Mellen Press. She has also won several creative writing competitions in Australia Australia . As a composer, her work has been released on the CD Asia Piano Avantgarde - , played by pianist Steffen Schleiermacher. Indonesia <!--[if !supportFootnotes]-->
-----------------------
Art & Culture Indonesia (ACI) peduli pada pengembangan seni budaya Nusantara warisan nenek moyang kita. Warna-warni dan keragaman seni budaya Indonesia adalah anugerah terindah yang kita miliki. Upaya menyeragamkan dan memonopoli kiprah seni budaya Indonesia dalam satu pemahaman harus kita tentang mati-matian hingga titik darah penghabisan.
No comments:
Post a Comment