Indonesian Independence Day!
In which I recount my experiences with 17th of August.
Greetings Readers,
Some of you might be thinking, “hey, shouldn’t I get this post on Tuesday?” A reasonable question. I decided to flip the posting schedule of both Germanicus Publishing1 and Indonesian and American in order to get this post released on August 17th, the Independence Day of Indonesia.
Time moves really fast. In terms of writing, I’ve been busy with things other than Indonesian and American2. So it took me some time before I realized that August 17th was fast approaching. This works out just fine for me since I didn’t plan to put a serious blogpost for this week, so busy I was with my fiction-side of my writings. But given the occasion, this simply won’t do.
So happy birthday to Indonesia!
Thus, the Indonesian nation is now 78 years old.
Having spent much of my childhood in Indonesia, I remember the independence day celebrations from the upacara bendera3 to the bazaars and carnivals I went to with my parents and brothers. There was one organized by my church in which I got a pet turtle4. I think I was about 8 or 9 at the time. I remember bringing that guy and the small aquarium5 that contained it to church and showing that shelled-reptile off to the people there. The turtle was so small it could fit in the palm of my hand.
Well, that guy ended up growing so big that it was moved to the family’s fish pond6. As it kept on growing, it became so aggressive that we had move it to another pond to separate it from some of the fish since it kept on biting them.
Years later, it ran away. Somehow7.
But ‘17 Agustus’8 is not all fun and games for me. I remember one year when our school decided to have an upacara bendera and nothing else, and the students must all attend. For the benefit of the non-Indonesian readers, I’m going to describe what it is. Translated literally, upacara bendera means ‘flag ceremony’. To be more specific, it’s a flag-raising ceremony in which the color guards would step forward accompanied by our patriotic songs sung by everyone present. In my experience, the average ceremony run for about an hour9 and would proceed to end once the national flag is fully hoisted up in the air.
But if my description doesn’t do it justice, just see one for yourself here:
Basically, the school decided that it was a good idea to get us to wake up in the morning, go to school, stand for an hour, and then go home. Naturally, I was not happy, especially since up until that year10 I did not have to go to school during the 17th of August.
So I did what any angry dumb kid would do, I skipped school. Of course, the school was not about to let me and the other dumb kids get away with it. So they decided to get the kids who did not show up to tell their respective teachers why they were absent that day. Though somehow, I was able to ghost that too. It’s been a while so my memory may be a bit hazy, but I hid in the bathroom for about an hour or so.
At the time, I thought I was going to be in deep trouble for that. But nothing happened. I don’t know if they just decided to quietly drop the whole thing or if they just completely forgot about me, but that was the end of that episode.
Not my finest hour, to be sure. At the time, I definitely did not have the appreciation for what the flag stands for. But it just goes to show you that we all have to start somewhere. Like that turtle I won that started out really tiny but got so big.
Until next time,
Michael P. Marpaung
My other Substack publication.
This includes my novel, Inquisitor’s Promise. Feel free to check it out.
For those who don’t speak Indonesian, worry not! I’ll get to what this means.
Or two, I honestly don’t remember.
Terrarium?
Yes, my parents’ house have those. One of the benefits of living in a tropical country.
Don’t ask me how. I don’t know either.
17th of August in Indonesian.
At least, they felt like an hour to me.
I think, that’s how I remember it.
Man... I completely forgot about those hour - long upacar ceremonies at 17th of August. Those were freaking brutal, so I must’ve blocked them out.
Esspecially when you’re a teenager too, just standing still in the sun for an hour... just torturous. Remember how they literally have the gesture “istirahat di tempat”, where you could part your feet for a few moments so that you could take a ‘break’ from standing completely straight? And then you would have to go back to standing completely straight with both your feet touching together, North Korean style.
Damn I haven’t thought about that in maybe over a decade. Fun times. And yes, at that age... none of us even knew what the hell we were even doing that for.