Editor’s Note:
This humorous opinion piece by Ani Greensbury reflects the author’s personal observations and experiences living in Indonesia. Written as satire, it deliberately exaggerates certain situations for comedic effect. While Indonesian weddings, school events, community gatherings and celebrations often make enthusiastic use of sound systems and microphones, practices vary widely across the country and have evolved considerably since this article was first published.
I really think that there is an unexplainably sickening relationship between Indonesians and microphones. Have you ever seen an Indonesian with a microphone? It’s friggin’ weird, man. Most Indonesians treat microphones as an extension of their egos. Microphones are everywhere in this country. You can find them at schools, traditional markets, drug stores, cemeteries and public water closets. Once one person stands up and gradually moves the microphone closer to the lips, then it’s time for the imaginary propaganda: “ding-ding” red signs pop out from the top of his head which read, “Look at me, look at me and listen to me, I’m so important and so good at this!” Some Indonesians probably only eat two out of four basic foods every day, but hey, they have a set of karaoke microphones in their house. If you’re stuck not knowing what to give an Indonesian for Christmas, give them a microphone.
I got myself toddled up in a bright orange Javanese kebaya one morning. My slightly oversized lower hips were securely wrapped tightly in a batik kain skirt, outlining what was important for men to see of this miserable traditional woman. I wanted to reach my watch lying beside the sink in my bathroom when I temporarily forgot what I was wearing. My feet ended up tangled in the end of the kain and my face wearing the sink. Good Lord, the Sultan from the last century, or whoever invented this traditional outfit, must have been a chauvinistic sadist with a twisted sense of humour.
Making sure that the rolled hairpiece, which I prayed hopefully wasn’t harvested from some poor woman’s grave, was stuck properly at the back of my head, I was ready to go. Slowly I walked toward my car, keeping everything — like the two-kilogram weight of the hairpiece, my tightly wrapped derrière and seven-centimetre-high stilettos — in balance. I was on my way to attend a wedding ceremony in Bekasi. The invitation said that the ceremony would start precisely at noon and all female guests must wear formal traditional outfits. Talk about a slow death.
I had been nowhere near Bekasi before in my life. Despite the clear map on the invitation, typically, the reception building couldn’t be located. My driver drove around the suburb for quite some time before we were finally led to the reception hall by the loud music coming from a huge sound system installed inside the building.
I went inside and was immediately greeted by my relatives and friends, who appeared to be so cheerful to see me. I guess they felt better as soon as they saw me showing up suffering from the same physical misery. We tried to communicate, to no avail. The background music dominated every attempt at conversation. I walked toward the back of the beautifully decorated stage to talk to the sound system operators. I asked them nicely to turn down the volume of the music and walked away with my leftover dignity when they simply stared back at me with anger, as if my request was completely offensive. Okay, I guess the guests were supposed to communicate with sign language while being forced to enjoy the music.
The bride and groom arrived at the entrance of the building. The loud music was replaced by the graceful tunes of a traditional gamelan orchestra. The Javanese music was really soothing. The bride and groom were finally seated. Then the master of ceremonies proudly announced that the entertainment was about to begin.
Entertainment, I thought—what entertainment?
A lady wearing a bright green long dress covered with glittering sequins took the microphone away from the MC and started singing—or wailing, to be precise. The sound system operators, looking at me with the sickest grin on their faces, turned up the volume of the speakers, amplifying the dangdut music to an intolerable level. Since when had dangdut replaced traditional music at traditional weddings? One by one the “singers” performed with all their might. Some even attempted songs in English, which to me sounded like a two-year-old’s gibberish. I left the building with my ears ringing. Bloody microphones.
This reminds me of an experience I had when I was eight years old attending a local school. The joke was on the headmaster. Every time we kids did something naughty, like hiding other children’s school bags inside the toilet cupboard (we didn’t have individual lockers back then), the headmaster always made us stand in the heat in the schoolyard. Then came the funny part: the way he shouted at us through his megaphone. We were standing less than a metre away from him. The good part was that the megaphone protected us from his splattering saliva.
I really believe that some Indonesians’ love affair with long black microphones was planted in their brains when they were toddlers. I figured this out after attending the many birthday parties my five-year-old daughter had been invited to. Usually the birthday child’s parents hired a group of clowns or magicians since, obviously, entertaining the children themselves would have been too much work.
The clowns stood in front of the children dressed, of course, in full clown attire, including white face paint that inevitably mixed with sweat to become purple on their dark skin. Then they started performing the same tricks we had seen at every party. While doing their routines, they also tried to communicate with the children using microphones. The loudspeakers were, of course, turned up as though they were addressing a crowd at Gelora Senayan rather than a group of toddlers in a 30-square-metre room.
My favourite part was when the clowns asked the children a question, the children screamed out the answer, but the clowns still replied, “I can’t hear you!” while pointing the microphone toward them. The children then screamed even louder into the microphone.
Deaf clowns.
Now my daughter always talks to me before she attends parties.
She says, “Please make sure that no one at the party uses a microphone. If they do, then I won’t come.”
Great. Now my daughter is microphone-phobic.
I’m thinking of using the same method she does.
Is the big bad wolf going to use a microphone at tomorrow’s press conference?
By Aida Greenbury
First published in the Jakarta Post
