Free to be Me

I have identity issues. It’s true, I’m not making this up. One moment I’m an Indonesian, heart and soul, and then I’m not. I don’t know where the line is drawn exactly.

In my childhood, it didn’t matter so much who or what I was as long as I attended the weekly ceremony dedicated to the red-and-white flag fluttering on a rusty pole in the middle of the schoolyard. We stood for up to an hour and a half listening to the principal’s squeaky voice lay out the reasons we ought to be proud of the brave men and women who fought for our freedom.

We sang nationalistic songs while saluting the flag, undaunted by the heat of a warm morning. In so doing we solemnly declared ourselves the descendants of our forefathers and members of the next generation, in whose hands lay the fate and future of our beloved nation.

Well, big-you-know-what-deal. In the real world that exists beyond the safe confines of school, nobody cares if you pledged your whole life to the country or the flag that represents it if you happen to have those eyes, that name, this skin-color, that way of doing. It’s a case of being “out” (even when you’re in).

“Dasar Cina!” (“Damned Chinese”) somebody screamed at me while I was walking home from school one day. It was an ojek driver who had nothing better to do than to pick on a kid.

It happened a long time ago, and even though I don’t usually remember things from the past which are not worth recollecting, this incident has stuck with me. It was the first time I realized that for some I was not part of this country which, as I had understood it, belonged to everyone who lived in it (one of the advantage of being a 13-year-old is you can define the world any way you want to.)

As I grew older, things changed a little. After the May 1998 riots, the subject of being a Chinese-Indonesian or non-Chinese Indonesian was suddenly out in the open. History took a revolutionary turn, and whatever we upheld quickly deflated like flans in a cupboard. Everything we knew was wrong.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, you decide) for me, growing older also meant developing a new complexion. Entering college, I was caramel brown, and pretty soon I was able to “fit in” with pretty much everyone.

I always have a knack for languages, so I am also able to speak different regional dialects without embarrassing myself. Speaking a particular dialect and having the complexion of a half-burnt caramel gets you far in a community divided by ethnicity. Before long, I was so way “in” that I felt like a spy on a mission.

What I discovered after spending a few semesters hanging out with both native and Chinese-Indonesians (on separate occasions) is that nobody likes an intruder, and no intruder likes being called an intruder. But I was an intruder, because I could switch between the two groups without looking like I was trying hard to fit in. It’s actually the worst position to be in, because you’re neither one or the other. You’re both. And, back in colonial times, that was enough to get you killed.

“How could you hang out with them?” asked a Chinese-Indonesian friend who observed my growing friendships with non-Chinese Indonesians. “They’re shallow and lazy. Is that what you want to be?”

“No, you’re shallow and lazy,” I shot back, referring to how much attention she paid to her looks and also her lack of discipline. “What does that make you?”

She hit me on the arm. “Don’t put me in the same bracket as them.”

It never made much sense to me to make friends based on superficial criteria. I didn’t continue the conversation, because I knew I would be in for a session of idiotic reprimands concerning why “we” shouldn’t be hanging out with “them”. Plain stupid.

From my strategic spot straddling the ethnic divide, I found that stereotypes were found on both sides.  

“He’s really cute, don’t you think?” a non-Chinese Indonesian friend of mine said when a tall, light-skinned guy walked by in hall. She sighed. “Too bad he’s Chinese.”

I turned to her, unable to decide whether I should feel appalled or awed by her confidence to say such a thing in front of me.

“Chinese people are petty with money and they always have weird schemes going on.”

I was speechless.

You probably want to know why no-one ever asked if I were Chinese, or why I never told them.

First of all, I never asked them if they knew I was Chinese; second, I don’t know squat about being Chinese: I don’t speak the language; I celebrate the Chinese New Year as much as I celebrate Idul Fitri (my mother’s a Muslim), Christmas (I’m a Catholic) and New Year’s Eve on the Gregorian calendar. Plus, I have never been to China (nor do I feel a special kinship with the country in question) and nowhere in the paperwork which bears my name on it does it say I am anything other than an Indonesian.

So there you have it.

Ten years after the May 1998 riots, no one talks in whispers anymore. Well, that isn’t true. Some still do. But I count Chinese and non-Chinese among my closest friends — and I’m happy about it. I don’t feel like a spy on a mission anymore, because the gate is wide open (at least, in my own circle of friends). Every now and again, I can still hear the whispering and the pejorative name-calling. The difference is, I’ve stopped listening.

+ Maggie Tiojakin  

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