Indian and Japanese influence in Indonesian culture and language

Indonesia shares many common things with India, from culture, language, diversity and people’s attitude etc. For me, Indonesia was all about Mustain-san. Our friendship in Tokyo lasted more than one year in Tokyo.

While Mustain-san was in Tokyo, we used to go to Indian restaurants and Indonesian restaurants. Both of us had trouble to cope with local food on all days. Once in a while Japanese food is OK, but for all the days, both of us found it a bit self torturing. We visited Indonesian Surabaya hotel and ‘One coin curry’ and ‘Namaste India’

Indonesian culture is a mix of many cultures. Indonesia was ruled by British, French, Dutch, Portugal and finally Japan. I heard Japan conquered Indonesia to get petroleum products when European and American countries denied petroleum to Japan during Second World War. I may have to do a google search on the events that happened during world war II to know more historical facts.

The news paper I got on the board carried strange news that Western Indonesian state will implement a ban on the tight jeans for ladies. I thought I was entering to a religiously fundamentalist country, but the experiences in Jakarta showed a different picture of Indonesia.

Indonesian language is originated from Sanskrit and is then influenced by Chinese, Malaysian, Portugese, Arabic etc. I could hear many Sanskrit words while talking to Indonesian people. Bahasa is colloquial slang of Bhasha in Sanskrit or any other Indian language meaning ‘Language’. Bhoomi stands for ‘Earth’, Putra for ‘Son’ and Putri for ‘Daughter’, Guna for ‘Quality’. Pura stands for ‘Temple’. These are some of the words I just recollect immediately.

Starting of my own name ‘Jaya’ means success or victory in Sanskrit. Jaya is one of the popular word in Indonesian language used for names as well as for company names.

Indonesian cuisines are influenced by Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and Arabic cuisines. Indonesian food is tasty with many sea foods. I could taste crab and smoked duck for the first time in Indonesia. Indonesians use coconut milk in almost all curry they prepare. Nasi goreng is fried rice and is a popular Indonesian dish. Prawns and a wide variety of fish dishes are also part of Indonesian food.

Tender coconut water is popular in Indonesia along with other soft drinks. Coconut is called Kelapa in Indonesian language. Indonesian cuisines are rich in their varieties like Indian dishes. Indonesian dishes are spicy and they commonly use red hot chilli. Rice is the main food in Indonesia.

Japan’s influence in Indonesia is still visible after many decades of Japanese invasion of the Indonesian archipelago. All kind of invasions have some sort of aggression and that will reflect in the administration of the invaded geography. For many of the Asian leaders, Japanese occupation was more tolerant than the occupation of the European colonial forces. The influence of Dutch was discarded by Japanese rule in Indonesia, but some forms of influences in the food preparation are still visible.

Bali in Indonesia is a place where Hindus live apart from India and Nepal. Bali is a favorite tourist in Indonesia where the prakriti (nature) and bhoomi (earth) are still in harmony with the Atma (soul). Visit to Bali will be a life experience, which we should not miss while planning a trip to Indonesia.

Indonesian people admire the economical growth of Japan and its technological advancement. They perceive the whole Japan as a high-tech city. Normally Indonesian people are interested to know how Japan could achieve such a high level of growth.

Apa kabar? (How are you?) was the only Indonesian word I was familiar with by buying the Apa kabar international telephone calling card available in Japan. Terima khisi means ‘thank you’ and I said this to the driver who dropped me at Soekarno-Hatta international airport.

Change of seasons in Japan and its impact on life

The rain brought more cold to Tokyo during the last two days and it is predicted to have rain tomorrow also. The rain started yesterday evening around 15:00 hours, when we were just went out of house on our way to Kameido shopping center.

Japan is getting on her autumn dress looking gorgeous all around. The winter is yet to come. The trees started shedding the yellow leaves and it is a hard work for the ward office staff to clean the whole street with full of leaves in the morning. Especially when it is raining, the leaves stick to the ground.

The color change to the leaves will happen at the beginning of November, it is expected this year in Tokyo. Trees at Komatsugawa park will also to discard the leaves thus preparing themselves to face the winter. Last subsequent two years had mild snowfall during second month of the years.

The cold wind is blowing today in Tokyo. The temperature has not gone down to make the climate cold. It may be due to the rain we feel cold. The temperature is around 14 degree Celsius now and it is considered to be hot in Japan. The real winter during December and January will show the mercury down to zero.

The dipping down of mercury will not freeze the life in Japan. It won’t bring any immobility to the usual things happening here. In fact the changes of seasons are warmly welcomed in Japan. People arrange festivals, get-together parties, Season welcome drinking parties, Season good-bye parties and the likes.

There will be discount offers by shopping centers during the season change in Japan. The cloths suitable for October and November are more available in the market now. During the second week of November, winter cloths will start appearing. The impact of economic recession on the textile industry was more in the US than in the Japan. One of the peculiar characteristics of Japanese people is their obsession towards the brand items in the market. They don’t mind to spend to get a branded cloth or costume.

The color changing of leaves during October and November is one of the beautiful natural phenomena in Japan. Japanese people like to talk about the minute changes in the weather and its mysterious beauty. They are so careful to observe and comment on the deviation of even a single day here and there for a climate change from the expected date. So is the weather reporting system in Japan. It is an accurate prediction almost 99.99% of the cases and we can rely on it and plan our activities accordingly.

Since we did not log into see the climate, we planned our outing to Kameido shopping center. For us, living in Higashi Ojima, Kameido shopping center is near if we get down at Nishi Ojima Toei Shinjuku subway, take a straight road walk in front of Daiei that goes to the back of Kameido shopping center.

The biggest attraction of Kameido shopping center is the ToysRus, which is a dream world for children. The sunstreet Rambling Market at Kameido is great place for spending evenings with children. Sometimes there will be stage shows. I will write about Kameido shopping center and ToysRus on a separate post.

It is cold outside and inside the house it is noisy with children playing and thus making the room heated. Children may not feel this cold as they are interested in playing on holidays. They may feel cold on week-days before going to school!

The shedding of leaves and changing colors are part of human life too. Without change the life is dull. Things should be in a state of flux to make the life exciting. The changes in the nature brought out by 4 distinct seasons are much visible in Japan. The life is not monotonous if we keep on changing the physical activities keeping the inner world intact as the nature herself does!

The silence before and after a tempest - the typhoon Melor battered life in Japan

The morning was very calm today and it provoked to think about the calmness before the storm. Before and after a tempest the nature is calm and peaceful. The silence sometimes is interpreted as the silence before a tempest. There were reports that the typhoon Melor will hit Tokyo today.

Today morning I got the message in mobile from the school where my daughter studies that the ‘School closed due to typhoon’. It was then I got the seriousness of the Typhoon that has already started hitting Japan landfall.

The typhoon named Melor brought heavy rain and wind to the Japan mainland. When viewed the movement of the typhoon at 7 a.m in the morning today, the typhoon was around 200km away from Tokyo. My colleagues had informed me that effect of Melor will not be so serious in Tokyo compared to the other parts of Japan. And this was the reason I got up as usual and became ready to go to office. We were little bit worried about sending our daughter to school and now by receiving the message from school that worry was also cleared. However small the typhoon will be, it is not safe for the children to go to schools.

There was heavy rain when I stepped out of the apartment and I could not open the umbrella. Since the Komatsugawa exit of Higashi Ojima, Toei Shinjuku line is only a half minute walking distance away from our apartment, I could manage without opening the umbrella though it was raining.

One thing I like to repeat about the admirable attitude of Japanese people is that almost all of them do not fear to go out even during the heavy wind. I have noticed this attitude before also. Japanese people are well trained on how to respond to the natural calamities like earthquake and typhoon it seems. The houses are connected to a centralized alarm system that will announce the danger during or at least in advance of the natural calamities.

There may be much damage and disaster at different parts of Japan. There were reports of death and some 64 people injured in the evening. The typhoon Melor had destroyed many houses, many thatched roofs were collapsed, disrupted life partially in the busy parts of Tokyo.

Some of my friends were trapped in railway stations for hours in the morning. Many trains were cancelled and many of them were running slow and late than scheduled. Some offices and companies declared holiday. Somehow I could manage to reach upto Monzen Nakacho by Toei Shinjuku train and then Toei Oedo line.

There was a huge crowd waiting at the Tozai platform of Monzen Nakacho. I stood at the behind and waited for the train to come. It took around 12 minutes for the train to come. Usually Tozai trains will be arriving at this station at every 3 to 4 minutes during morning. Train was already packed and the driver pushed me from outside in order to close the door. I have written about pushing people into the train in this blog before also. It really helps us to reach at offices in time.

Typhoon Melor is now moved to the northern region of Japan. Melor did harm the normal life at the central parts of Japan. Flights were cancelled and businesses were affected. It was reported that around 315 flights were cancelled and thousands of people were evacuated to reduce the casualties.

The sky was cleared by 11 p.m and there was only wind blowing with moderate speed in the evening. Internet newspapers were full of news that Japan battered by typhoon.

I was interested to know the meaning of Melor and found it is a Malay (Malaysian language) word meaning ‘Jasmine’. Some sites suggests that the word Melor in the West has its roots in Russia. Melor in Russia is an abbreviated form of Marx Engels Lenin October Revolution. Since the typhoon came on October the name Melor suits, though it did not bring any revolution, except some disaster!