Mariana Pflegerova: The beauty of other possible worlds - West Sumatra,Indonesia
Imagine relocating to a country half the world away, to a culture completely different from your own, and you'll get an idea of some of the topics discussed in this edition of One on One - a year-long stay in Indonesia by ethnologist Mariana Pflegerova.
Hello and welcome to One on One. My guest in today's edition is a PhD student at Charles University in Prague, ethnologist Mariana Pflegerova. Mariana has travelled throughout Europe, studied at NYU in New York City, and most recently spent a year in one of the most fascinating parts of the world - Indonesia - where she was able to experience a completely different culture. That's one of the main topics today. Mariana, welcome to the programme.
"Thank you for inviting me."
Before we begin talking about Indonesia let me just ask you briefly: how was it that you came to study Ethnology in the first place?
"There were probably several points, the first one was that as a person growing up in Communist Czechoslovakia I felt this incredible frustration, which probably my older sister transferred to me, of not being able to get out of this limited space, in which, at that time, only one interpretation of the world was possible. I longed to be able to discover other worlds..."
Such as Indonesia...
"Indonesia is a country which lies on the crossroads of different cultures and world religions: it has its own indigenous traditions, animist, shaman beliefs, Hinduism came to Indonesia from India, then you have a Buddhist influence as well, and then you have the Islamic layer, the Islamic influence, and finally the influence of the first several European colonies, which brought Protestantism and Catholicism, and today, globalisation. There is one special thing about Indonesia I was first introduced to it by my professor of Indonesian studies Miss Dubovska, who is the only specialist on Indonesia in the Czech Republic, she once told us, and it became incredibly inspiring for me as an anthropologist, that Indonesians are people who, whenever faced with new cultural influences, they always accepted the new, but never gave up their older traditions. So, they create this peculiar cultural mix."
Some of your friends who are studying Indonesian studies, who had even been to different parts of Indonesia, were still quite surprised to find out you were going to Sumatra, because it's a little more rugged that Java, than Bali...
"Certainly Java and Bali are the places which have the most modern infrastructure in all of Indonesia, so it's relatively easier for Europeans to adapt, but this is what I was most afraid of - I was afraid to find a place which was too westernised. And of course West Sumatra, or Sumatra, all of its provinces in general, are more isolated from the outside world, are less developed economically, are more conservative because they have a much larger amount of a village population, while on Java there is a 100 million people concentrated on one small island, most of them concentrated in big cities."
Still, it's difficult for me to imagine, not having been there, what is Sumatra like, what is that little part of Sumatra where you were like? Is it mountainous? Are there jungles?
"West Sumatra is often described as a large botanical garden, indeed this is true, it's a fascinating place because it has the tropical coastline of the Indian ocean. From the coastline you can take a car for perhaps 20 minutes and you're up in the mountains which reach as high as 2, 000 metres. There are three major volcanoes, active volcanoes, in West Sumatra, and very fertile land on their slopes, naturally, all these terraced rice fields... You have a couple small towns, which, to Europeans, look like big villages, and these are surrounded by wild, tropical forests. So, my first impression of West Sumatra was the immensity of the tropical wilderness, because as a European you never have this experience because the countryside is so tame. There, even when you are in a city like Padang, which has 2 million inhabitants, the wilderness is never too far."
It's almost like a fairy-tale world. How important is nature in their lives, how much do they view nature as an essential part of their lives?
"It's very, very important element in Minang culture. Since the Minang proudly claim to be true Muslims, but in fact Minang culture existed long before Islam was ever introduced to Indonesia. Before there was an indigenous belief which very much takes inspiration from nature. So, basically according to most famous Minang saying Alam terkembang jadi guru. This means "Nature can become a teacher". You know, the Minangkabau are very proud people, they're very proud of their culture, and at the same time they feel a bit overshadowed by the Javanese in foreign eyes. So, they are always ready to teach you about their culture, they are happy when somebody comes to study their culture. Generally, Indonesians are very open-minded: they accept foreigners quite easily. They are very hospitable: you meet people on the streets, or on the busses, and they immediately invite you to their house because they consider it an honour to have a foreign guest in their house. You can bet they will also tell stories about having a foreigner in their house for I don't know how long afterwards. It's a source of pride. Yet, Indonesians, and especially Minangkabau, hold quite a negative view of the western lifestyle. They accept you, as long as you say that you want to learn about their culture, but they are also very resolute in teaching you the local ways."
What are some of the local ways?
"They call it Basa basi - it can be translated as " good manners". For example, whenever you want to eat, you are obliged to offer your meal to everyone else present in the room, before you start eating. As a single girl, you are obliged to be at home by 9 p.m. at the latest. This applied to me as well because I lived with a local family - it was one of the first things I was told. I was supposed to really come home at 9 p.m. in the evening at the latest, which sounded absurd, of course, to me because I am a 26-year-old person.
I wanted to ask you this, now that you're back in Prague: what is one day in Indonesia that constantly comes back in your mind?
"It was definitely the day, or rather the night, where I experienced a performance of traditional Minang Randai theatre in a very isolated village community, which didn't have electricity even. It was a great occasion that this theatre group came to this village because they had no radio, no TV, nothing whatsoever. The stage for the Randai performance is set by a circle of actors, who then, naturally, get surrounded by audiences, and it's spectacular to watch the audiences, because you see how very spontaneously they react to whatever is happening in the play. In these scripts the Minang are trying to deal with those incredible, in fact irreconcilable contrasts, paradoxes of their culture, where the newer Muslim beliefs clash with older matrilineal traditions."
So, what we're going to hear now as we end this One on One is some traditional Minang music, and I want to thank Mariana Pflegerova for joining me in the studio today - it's been a pleasure.
