Today we started our tour around the world. Our tour starts in Indonesia and we were very curious about the capital (Jakarta) of it so we decided to start there. As I love to learn about other cultures, I was immediately interested in theirs. I observed a bit and asked some locals about their ways of living, of course they weren’t all that enthusiastic to tell me their story so we went to an info point. The culture of Jakarta is named ‘ Betawi culture’. The name ‘Betawi’ comes from Batavia and is the old and colonial name of Jakarta. The culture stands for a lot of colours, tradition, song, dance, clothing, cuisine, language and dialect. We have also been informed about the yearly parades and other celebrations in which Betawi mascots ( three meter) delight the crowd with their large masks and tinsel-sprinkled headdresses.
The people
who live in Jakarta and to be more specific the Betawi people are
overwhelmingly Muslims. The students of schools in Jakarta have Islamic
teachings, they are well inserted and very alive within their culture and
social system.
As we all
are a bit interested in the art, we were very curious about the typical art in
Jakarta. The Jakarta people have an artform which demonstrate the various
influences experienced by them throughout their history. Something very typical
for the Betawi artform is the ondel ondel. Ondel ondel is a large bamboo
masked-puppet which they also use in their yearly parades.
When we
were walking around in Jakarta we suddenly passed a local church where there
was a wedding at the moment. We watched the happening a little bit and noticed
that the bride’s costume had some Chinese influences and that the groom’s custom
had some Arabian influences. It’s also known that there’s a lot of dancing at a
wedding celebration for example the Yapong dance, the Topeng Betawi dance etc.
To end our
day we went to a restaurant which serves typical food of Jakarta. We all eat
something different so that we had a wide view their cuisine culture. The most
popular dishes in Jakarta are: soto betawi, soto kaki, nasi uduk, kerak telor, nasi ulam, asinan, ketoprak and gado-gado Betawi.
I’ve eaten the soto
betawi, it’s a soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. Soto is sometimes considered
Indonesia's as the most known dish in Indonesia, as it is served from Sumatra to
Papua, in a wide range of variations.
I’m glad that I’ve
learned a bit more about the culture of Jakarta today. It’s very interesting
because in that way you can understand how difficult cultures work and it’s
very interesting to see how people in other countries survive, think and
handle.
You will hear
more about us soon!
Bye bye!
Melissa
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