Padang vs Jawa

Ini adalah koleksi quote yg saya ingat dari percakapan2 ttg orang padang dan jawa. kebenarannya bisa dipertanggungjawabkan (quote2nya maksud saya, bukan fakta dari quote2 itu) yaitu dari memori saya, walaupun orang2 yg melontarkannya mungkin sudah lupa. Mungkin kata demi kata yg saya tulis tidak begitu tepat, tapi kurang lebih begitulah yg saya ingat, dan benar2 saya usahakan untuk tidak bias (ohya, perkenalkan saya orang padang). Lucu aja, soalnya beberapa dari komentar2 itu bisa bertentangan, tapi di sisi lain memperlihatkan dua sudut pandang yg berbeda. udah ah, simak aja…

Feudalism

Anggota keluarga: “orang jawa kan feodal” (mengomentari suatu acara akad nikah beradat jawa timur di mana pengantin perempuan mengelap kaki pengantin pria)

Anggota keluarga: “cowok jawa tuh gak mandiri, semua urusan rumah tangga diserahin ke istri, bahkan kebanyakan orang jawa nggak ngebolehin istrinya kerja”

Tapi…

Teman: “kata nyokap gw cowok padang itu lebih senang dilayani; makan diambilin, baju dicuciin, rumah dibersihin, dan gak mau ngebantu istri”

???

Speak-up-ability
Teman: “orang jawa kan penuh basa-basi, kalo marah tetep aja senyum dan bilang “gak apa-apa”, padahal dalam hati udah ngomel2”

Teman: suamiku kalo marah memang begitu, diem2 aja, sementara aku kalo marah ya langsung ngomong blak2an aja” (komentar seorang teman orang padang yg bersuamikan pria jawa)

Ternyata…

Anggota keluarga: “itu kan ciri khas ego laki2 minang, kalo marah dieeeem aja” (komentar buat curhatku ttg mantan pacar yg gak komunikatif)

Nah loh…

Ambition
Anggota keluarga: “cowok jawa itu manja, karena biasanya orang tuanya gak ngebolehin anaknya jauh2 atau merantau

Teman: “ortu gw bilang orang jawa itu romantis, mau diajak susah, tapi jadi lelet”

Teman: “orang padang matre, kata nyokap temen gw yg orang padang, kalo cari calo suami ya yg sudah punya rumah, punya mobil, biar gak susah”

Kesimpulan: yg satu sudut pandang dari utara, yg satu dari selatan

Fidelity
Anggota keluarga: “tapi kebanyakan orang jawa itu gak setia”

Teman: “kalo mau nikah jangan cari cowok padang, karena biasanya mereka bukan orang baik2”

Ck…ck…ck… sama orang Somalia aja apa?

Teman: “kata mamah memang banyak perkawinan padang jawa yg akhirnya cerai”

Hm…bisa jadi sih, sayang gak ada angka statistiknya. Tapi kalo memang ada angkanya, saya yakin itu pasti ada pengaruh keluarga yg masing2 berkomentar “orang jawa sih, jadinya begitu” atau “orang padang sih, jadinya begini” yg meracuni pikiran pasangan padang – jawa yg malang itu (hihih cynical mode on)

Miscellaneous
Teman: “temen gw ya, punya temen sekosan orang padang, trus suka ngasi kerjaan banyak gitu ke pembantu kosan, kalo nyuci baju super banyak, apalagi waktu nyokapnya dateng, suka nyuruh2” (mungkin gak bermaksud bilang orang padang seperti itu, tapi ya… knp harus mention “orang padang”?)

Anggota keluarga: “kalo lebaran musti sungkem dong? repot amat?” (mengomentari potensi saya bermertuakan orang jawa)

To orang jawa: salahin Suharto aja ya, abis tiap lebaran pasti acara sungkeman keluarga cendana itu disiarin di tipi

Kira2 begitulah… bagaimana dengan Anda? Pernah nemuin quote semacam ini? ohya, quote-nya pasti lebih banyak lagi kalo gak dibatasin ttg orang padang atau jawa aja. bisa orang batak, sunda, bali, makasar, ambon, papua, yg gak kalah gak akuratnya. ya sudahlah, ambil saja hikmahnya. hidup Bhinneka Tunggal Ika!... Ups, ini kan bahasa jawa lama, pake Unity in Diversity aja kali ya, biar netral heheheh…

Ps: quotenya jgn diambil hati, mending dipake buat ngetawain diri sendiri aja :)

Hobby vs Rules

Last weekend I went to Aksara bookstore to buy Sore’s latest album, Ports of Lima, which I didn’t purchase when it was released months ago, hoping that someone I know already owned it and let me copy it (maap, masih mental bajakan:p). I didn’t try hard enough to find it, and I finally decided to buy the album, which, compared to other commercial releases, is not expensive at all. 

It was a spur of the moment thing; I always have list of things-to-buy each month, and this month’s list seems to exceed my financial ability that I have to postpone the whole plan and end up searching for an affordable consolation price (aneh gak sih). Choice went to Ports of Lima. Moreover, me and my boyfriend didn’t have plan for the weekend. Plaza Indonesia would be nice.

But I should have learnt from past experience (why don’t we all?), that I can’t go to a bookstore without adding several books on my have-to-read/buy list. So, what supposed to be a pleasant stroll in an expensive mall in Jakarta – where I can buy nothing but books – and bringing home only an indie album was not really successful. Blame a book by Chuck Klosterman, which I haven’t seen in Aksara before, with price lower than I have paid when I bought another of his books. 

Chuck Klosterman is a pop culture critic. He has written for Spin, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, The Believer, and ESPN. I bought one of his books, Killing Yourself to Live, for a friend last year. I read the book too and I decided to read his writings again. I bought it for Rp189,000 in Kinokuniya. Aksara prices Rp154,000 for Killing Yourself to Live and the other book.

So I bought this other book.

Which puts me into another problem; how and when I’ll read it (I didn’t consider the little financial chaos the book had cost is a problem; I’m not even sorry), which, instead of Sore or Chuck Klosterman, is the main point of this writing. With a title Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, I will have to give long explanation to my older sister when she sees me reading it. I would not bother with the matter had not a college of mine given me an unapproving look when she saw me reading KYL with reference “Author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” on the cover.

Book lovers always deal with a problem; we keep buying books when we haven’t even finished reading the ones at home. I haven’t finished Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, which is quite expensive for me but I bought it because I was so curious to read Chuck’s other books and CK IV was the only one –besides KYL – I found in Jakarta at that time. It was the collection of Chuck’s articles, most of which are interviews with rock stars, with notes and updates for each. Meanwhile, S,D,&CP gives us his sight of popular culture in America, mostly about insignificant things. He laughs at people only to joke about himself. 

I finish almost every book I read before moving on to another. Sometimes I read two books at the same time, though not simultaneously (actually I’m also reading Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink now). I stick to this rule. So in this matter I have to finish CK IV before reading S,D,&CP. But chronology is also important. If I haven’t read both, I would read S,D,&CP, published in 2003, prior to CK IV, 2006. 

So, will I read S,D,&CP first? Yes. Chronology is more important to me. But it’s not as easy as I think. I pick a random page of S,D,&CP, and found a story about Billy Joel. I was engaged by the lines about Billy and his wife, whom he wrote the song I Love You Just the Way You Are for, divorced several years after it won the Grammy for Song of the Year. 

Coincidently I found an article also about Billy Joel in the next chapter I am currently reading in the CK IV. The words of the paragraph about the divorce are quite much the same. The article was published in 2002. Now what? Chronology is no longer significant here. CK IV is published in 2006 but some articles are not even newer than S,D,&CP. Then I read the note for the Billy Joel article in CK IV (finally the notes are of any use, well I don’t mind the notes anyway). It explains that Chuck wrote S,D&CP in 2002, forwarded the rough essays to his editor at the New York Times Magazines for some opinion. The editor was surprised to know that he likes Billy Joel. He asked if he wanted to write about Billy Joel for Times, and he said yes. So that is the answer. He wrote about Billy Joel for S,D&CP first. But the article appears first. Since I found the paragraph with 95 percent words are the same, I think it’s no big deal which one to read first. I think I’m just making things complicated. I planned to read CK IV Billy Joel article before S,D&CP, but it is more likely that I will read S,D&CP tomorrow morning during my commute to office. S,D&CP is thinner and lighter, thus easier to carry, than CK IV. It’s already late now; I have no time to read CK IV’s Billy Joel article.

Message from the article: don’t waste your time with rules for a hobby