Buah zine: Issue 4

Buah zine

Issue 4//Summer 2021

Editor's Note I've never really been good at answering, "How's it going?" before the pandemic. My favorite answers include "harrumph" or just a hand gesture. Now, I'm probably even more terrible. I can't even come up with a nonchalant response. My social skills continue to gather dust as we rapidly approach a second year of a global health crisis.

I wish I had some incredible insight to share, or maybe something uplifting, but words seem to fail me more and more lately. Putting together this zine has been helpful.

If you're able to, please consider sharing your wealth with your community, including folks in Indonesia.

Lots of love, Teta

Finally got my hands on Bali-based artist Ican Harem's design!

Love this jacket so much. xx

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Table of Contents

Notes Pandemic Walks...........................................................................3 Interview Melicia...........................................................................................6 Poem Tari Saman....................................................................................8 Discussion On Indonesian Heritage & Whiteness...........................................9 Interview Insan Larasati..............................................................................14 Interview Tiffany Tsao.................................................................................16 Playlist Songs on Repeat.........................................................................19 Interview Afina...........................................................................................20 What They Said..........................................................................23 2

Pandemic Walks

By Teta

Here are some views from my outings around Washington, D.C., from 2020 to 2021. I try to get some fresh air when I can. I walk alone, but I'm not lonely, mostly.

Just lost in thought.

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Summertime in D.C. brings me back into my body.

Rock Creek Park is my go-to walking area.

No matter how many times I walk it, I always find something new, something I didn't notice before.

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Just trying to find beauty where I can, I guess.

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Q: How did you get involved in costume design?

I actually came to study English literature. I’ve always been passionate about literature, especially Western English literature, since I was about 13 years old. It was a subject I really excelled at in school. But when I came here (to Canada) during my first year of university, I absolutely hated it. I was stressed out all the time. For a while, I thought about dropping out, maybe going to culinary school. I don’t know, it was just a weird time in my life. I then just thought on a whim to take a theater production class.

Theater’s also something I’ve been interested in for a while, since I was around 12-13 years old. But I’d always seen theater from an audience/actor point of view; I had no idea what theater production was or what any behind-the-scenes production looked like. I just really fell in love with working at the costume shop; everyone I met was super supportive. It was the first time that I had made something and I could tangibly see and feel it with my hands, and to watch a show go up and see, “Oh my gosh, I hemmed that skirt,” or “I sewed the ribbons on that cape,” was such a great feeling for me.

Q: What does your Indonesian heritage, especially your Chinese-Indonesian heritage, mean to you?

I feel like my Chinese-Indonesian heritage reminds me that there’s something bigger than myself. It reminds me of the intergenerational trauma that my ancestors have carried on their backs, the trauma that I’m still learning how to carry, entwined with the blessings I have that stemmed from them.

I’m doing the work to stop our trauma from spilling out into the next generation, because I don’t want the ChineseIndonesian identity to only be remembered for their pain.

To me, being Chinese-Indonesian gives me something to eventually come home to. But I’m still trying to figure out what that means in my daily life.

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Melicia

Location in 2021: Canada Quick Things: Costume designer

(Photo courtesy of Melicia) 7

Tari Saman

By Ghina Furqan

The saman dance is about togetherness; everyone moves in coordination with the beat of the music.

I was never taught how to perform this intricate dance, so I watch as all the dancers move in unison, carried by the symphony of drums and vocal melody of the singers.

My mother couldn’t teach me this dance; it had been years since she last performed the dance of our cultural heritage, so she forgot how to dance saman.

The saman dance is mesmerising; I never learnt how to move with the foreign yet familiar rhythm.

Maybe another version of me living in an alternate universe knows how to dance saman.

Ghina Furqan is a writer based in West Java, Indonesia. She was raised by her Indonesian parents in Southwest Asia, and has explored her third-culture identity, among other topics, in her written work, which you can find on Instagram @ghinafurqanwrites.

(Photo courtesy of Ghina) 8

On Indonesian Heritage & Whiteness Buah zine had a virtual discussion with three previous interviewees about their multi-heritage backgrounds, specifically on Indonesian heritage and whiteness.

Teta (U.S.) moderates this discussion. Ariel Santikarma (U.S.), Latisha Horstink (Saudi Arabia), and Ardi Kuhn (U.S.) — who are all Indonesian and white, and live outside of Indonesia — are in conversation with each other.

The idea for this conversation came in 2020, when Ardi and Teta were thinking of ways to create space for more complex, nuanced conversations around having multi-Indonesian heritage.

They wanted to challenge certain notions, particularly around whiteness and Indonesian-ness, and hoped this discussion could be a starting point, a warm-up, to much larger conversations.

Latisha made the graphics for the video. Ardi and Ariel helped proofread the transcription. Teta produced the audio and the music, and Ardi also helped with audio editing.

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Q: How did your family discuss your white heritage vs. your Indonesian heritage?

So I was raised in a country that was not the U.S. and not Indonesia, and I moved around a lot, raised in a diplomatic American family. The world of the international schools and the international NGOs and the embassies, it was a bubble. I wouldn’t say it was an ethnically or racially uniformed bubble; it was very cosmopolitan. And the way I was raised in this culture is kind of like post-racial, “Look at us,” “We are the future.” Since then, I’ve realized that it’s quite problematic; that kind of cosmopolitanism was, you know, another form of internationalism, which privileges whiteness.

I lived in Bali for the formative years of my life. And then obviously, that experience, there was a sense of being “different,” but I didn’t really have the language to articulate that or understand exactly why. And then I think it was moving to the United States, and just feeling so marked. Just the sensation of being marked before you even open your mouth. And that was something that obviously lived with me throughout growing up in Virginia – it’s a really intense racial environment.

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Growing up in my family, we honestly did not talk about it much. When you’re growing up, it becomes your norm because it is the life you’re living. So you don’t really have a choice to think about it. As well as going to international school – there’s a lot of other mixed kids. Like Ardi said, you know, it’s also this thing like, “We are the future.” I think once I started realizing it or started actually talking about being multi-heritage was when I started going to uni in the Netherlands.

Q: So what have you learned about navigating your experiences and identities within and outside of Indonesia?

It has to be complex. Like, it can’t not be complex. We have to hold the multiple truths, and we have to do that while also holding the responsibility of being multiple things. And it’s difficult and it’s a lot of effort and a lot of labor, in a way, emotionally. And, oftentimes, I think it’s really internal, at least for me you know, having to do that all the time. So I think that that doesn’t really change. And that’s still how I am, like when I’m in Bali, but all of these interesting dynamics with regards to my mixedness.

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When I got to the States at age 15 after never living in Indonesia, and then I was racialized as Asian, but didn’t really know how to bring language to my Indonesian-ness – I felt a cultural vacuum there. I didn’t really speak the language well, Indonesian, let alone Javanese. There were all these ways I was trying to connect. And I was like, I just have to go there.

In Europe was the shock for me is, as Ardi also said, being suddenly considered as Asian. To me, that was a big shock because I’m so used to being seen as white, every holiday, even in international school, I was at least white. But when I was in the Netherlands, they were like, "Oh yeah, you’re obviously Asian." And I was like, wait, obviously, like what?

Yeah, I totally get, of course, like when you’re mixed and there isn’t so much language for society at large to read you and relate to you; you’re just the object of so many projections.

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I feel like I am moving through the world and I’m thinking about my body in the ways that Latisha is also thinking about, and interacting with people who are coming up against my body and projecting other ideas. Oftentimes, it exposes more about other people than necessarily of me, although sometimes it does expose something about me. I think in doing that, I’ve learned to think about who – like the question of who profits and who pays in these interactions and in the moments that I’m experiencing.

It’s hard, and I wish that there were more language and resources for it, but I think something that has actually really helped me – people who I think have been thinking about this experience of in-between-ness so radically is, like I’m really inspired by Black queer thinkers, specifically lesbian feminism and Audre Lorde, and really grounding

myself in a lineage of something larger than me has been so, so critical. And I think especially for other young folks who are floating through the world, also with the sense of dynamism and fluidity, it’s really important to think about the history and lineage to what you’re experiencing. I think that’s been really important. And I think centering not just my own perspective of race and critical race studies, but listening to folks who are really at the center of this work and have been for a really long time has been super important to me.

Watch or listen to the full conversation on Buah zine's website.

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Insan Larasati//Insan Larasati//Insa Q: Tell me more about your journey into music and DJing.

It actually started when I went to Indonesia. My friends were DJs. I organized a queer party, and DJing was always something I’d been wanting to learn.

The first time that I DJ’d was actually at the party that I organized.

It was a queer and feminist party in Jogjakarta. When I came back (to the Netherlands), I saw this duo, Gabber Modus Operandi, at a festival in Rotterdam in October, and I was just mind-blown by their music. I thought, whoa, Indonesia has this cool music scene, and I kind of knew about it a little bit because of my friends, but I didn’t know they were really in the forefront of discovering a new sound and just really breaking traditions, you know? I was just really excited when I saw that.

(Photos courtesy of Insan)

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n Larasati//Insan Larasati//Insan La Q: What sort of space do you like to create when you’re the DJ? I’m also a queer woman, and I love creating some kind of safe space where people can just dance and dress however they like, and kiss whoever they like, and just be there without feeling like they have to portray themselves in some kind of way. I would love to create a dance floor where everyone feels like they can be themselves, basically.

Q: What was it like learning about Indonesia in the Netherlands?

We actually learned very little about Indonesian colonial history. I remember that was, I think, not even an entire chapter in my history book but a paragraph of a chapter.

Location in 2020: The Netherlands Quick Things: DJ and graphic designer

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Tiffany Tsao

(Photo credit: Leah Diprose Photography)

Location in 2019: Australia Quick Things: Writer and translator

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Q: How did you start thinking of yourself as someone of Indonesian heritage?

Both sides of my family are Chinese-Indonesian — my dad’s side is ChineseIndonesian from Jakarta; my maternal grandmother is from Bangka, which is a small tin mining island near Sumatra; my grandfather was born in Padang and grew up in Medan. So it should’ve been very clear that Indonesia was very much a part of my heritage.

But for reasons that have become clearer to me as I’ve gotten older, they decided to emphasize the Chinese aspect of my identity and my heritage. I suspect it had partly to do with the rhetoric during the Suharto era — you know, “you can’t be Chinese and Indonesian. In some respect, you have to choose.” And I think it also had to do with my maternal grandparents moving to

Singapore right after World War II. In any case, my family always emphasized that I was Chinese above everything.

When I got to graduate school in Berkeley, previously I’d identified more as Chinese-AmericanSingaporean, because I’d lived in Singapore for eight years, but then I began shifting more toward Indonesian. As part of the Ph.D. program, we were required to study other languages … so I thought I’d do Indonesian. I had very basic Indonesian already; it would be easier, and I could finish my Ph.D. quicker. I did that, then as I did, something woke up within me and I began reading Indonesian fiction, and I felt like, oh, this is a part of my heritage.

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Q: What are some lessons you’ve learned being in the world of literature, especially as a woman of color?

If I had to give advice, maybe, I think of this line from the Bible: “Don’t cast your pearls before swine.”

Treat your experiences as pearls. And if you know it will upset you to give them to someone who won’t value them, then don’t bring them up at all, and that’s not you being weak. That’s you being strategic about how you want your stories to be received and shared.

the onus on us, but actually, it shouldn’t be our burden. It should be OK for us to say, “I am not going to pick up this burden right now. I am too tired.” And in walking away and saying that’s fine, I’m not betraying myself.

I’m just protecting myself and setting a boundary.

I would also say be mindful of your personal boundaries and your personal sanctity. I don’t think we need to sacrifice ourselves as people of color to educate others, even when they say they want to be educated but they’re not actually listening or being receptive, and they get defensive.

That's their trick: They put

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Songs on Repeat

(Screenshot via Spotify)

Egois Later Just Find...........................................................3:54 Morning Sun Duara, Vira Talisa.......................................................3:34 AEOO Greybox et al.............................................................3:26 BOMBOM Alien Child...................................................................3:41 Paris, Texas IV Naldooo et al.............................................................2:46 I Wear My Skin (Live Session) Voice of Baceprot.......................................................3:31

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Afina Location in 2018: Hungary Quick Things: Student

(Photo courtesy of Afina)

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Q: What was that experience like, moving around a lot?

How did that shape your identity?

About Indonesian identity, for example, I do not label myself with any group exclusively. It’s always been Indonesian. And because of my physical appearance is somehow do not look like the rest of Javanese, I once was questioned about my ethnicity. Misalnya gini, aku bilang, >>“Aku orang Indonesia.” >>“Tapi kampung halamanmu dimana?” >>“Aku pindah-pindah.” >>“Tapi KTPmu dong.

KTPmu dari mana?”

Gitu. Biyasanya aku bilang KTPku Purwokerto. “Berarti kamu orang Purwokerto.”

English: For example, the conversations usually go like, I say, >>“I’m Indonesian.” >>“But where is your hometown?” >>“I’ve moved around.” >>“OK, then what about your KTP (Kartu Tanda Penduduk, or an Indonesian ID card that typically shows your place of residency)?

Where is your KTP from?”

Something like that. So when I tell them that my KTP is from Purwokerto, they’ll say, “That means you’re from Purwokerto.”

But, you know, the legal documents do not imply me that I am a Purwokerto actually, because in Purwokerto, I have no family, only my parents there. So it’s a bit more shaped by how people view me instead of how I view myself. It depends on others, whether or not they like me being Javanese or something. In my Javanese family, I was once told that I’m not like full Javanese because of how I cannot finish a proper Javanese sentence. Well, of course…I didn’t grow up in a Javanese-speaking population. I grew up in Papua where it was impractical to speak Javanese in the first place. So, I think the Javanese language has a large foundation in being Javanese and I cannot compete with that. It’s fine for me.

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Q: What has been your experience in Europe as an Indonesian person?

Kadang, mereka nggak ngerti, yah. Maksudnya aku seringnya lebih di kira ke orang Vietnam. Yah, jadi, aku pernah pas lagi di Jerman, di catcall pakai bahasa Perancis. Itukan aneh bangeeet. Maksudnya, aku lagi di Jerman! Tapi, aku nggak ngerti juga kalau ternyata, sepertinya, orang Asia, perempuan Asia, lebih sering di catcall. Jadi itu mungkin an experience as an Asian instead of an Indonesian.

Aku pernah kemaren, presentasi di mata kuliah “Introduction to Minority Policy.” Di kelas itu, kita harus mempresentasikan tentang ethnik grup yang minoritas di negara kami masing-masing. Jadi, pas itu, aku pilih tentang orang Bugis dan lima jender…Jadi setelah sesi presentasi dari aku itu aku ada konsultasi dengan dosen ini. Dan dosen ini bilang, “Kamu harusnya provide more details about your country because your country is unknown.”

English: Sometimes, they don’t really understand. Like, they often think I’m Vietnamese. So once, when I was in Germany, someone catcalled me using French. That’s soooo strange! I mean, I was in Germany! I also didn’t realize that Asian people, Asian women, are often catcalled. So maybe that was an experience more as an Asian person rather than as an Indonesian.

I gave a presentation in the course “Introduction to Minority Policy.” In that class, we have to give a presentation on a minority ethnic group in our respective countries. So, I decided to give a presentation on the Bugis people and their five genders…after this presentation, I had a meeting with the lecturer for the course. This lecturer told me, “You should’ve provided more details about your country because your country is unknown.”

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What They Said Intan Paramaditha Location: Australia "Any attempt to search for roots should always be followed by questions, so you don’t romanticize your roots."

(Photo courtesy of Intan)

Zavé Martohardjono Location: U.S. "Art opens up entry points for me to learn about the colonial history around me and in me, and about my cultural history as well."

(Photo credit: Liz Schneider-Cohen)

Nadir Nahdi Location: U.K. "When I made the intention of learning more about my grandma, beautiful things happened around me."

(Screenshot via YouTube) 23

Buah zine is a space by and for those with Indonesian heritage who live or have grown up abroad.

Buah means "fruit" in Bahasa Indonesia. Visit www.buahzine.wordpress.com for more.

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