Indonesia

Considering the whole length of Southeast Asian history, it is Indonesia – not Singapore – that has the closest cultural ties to Malaysia. In fact, parts of both had been under various kingdoms and empires in either one’s present-day territories over the centuries. In fact, during the independence movements of the early 20th century, Sumatra could even have formed an independent state with the Malaysian peninsula. But in the end, the modern states formed along colonial administration lines.

At a personal level, I am descended from exiles who migrated from various parts of Indonesia, driven to the peninsula during the many tumults of the colonial period. And I’ve thought of visiting these ancestral lands, even though we no longer know exactly where the villages were. Yet we never have.

Consequently, my earliest visits to Indonesia have been as a conventional tourist, to visit its UNESCO site Borobudur, and to visit Bali which my father’s late best friend had always wanted to see. However, I got to see Indonesia from a different point of view when I had to visit Jakarta frequently for work. It brought me a lot closer to how Indonesia thinks as a government, and its societal worldviews. This was also the experience that changed me from being a rigidly rational, logical scientist, to a more flexible, humanistic sustainability professional.

So I actually know more about this country than I can write about. And yet I also know less about it than I should. And I don’t know if and how that would change. I guess we’ll see if I add more stories to this section, and what brings me back to Indonesia now that the work reason has gone.