It's not unexpected, It's Uncertainty

This month has been full with surprising news. The latest was the news I received when I was teaching my last class in Mediterannean college. Last week, I heard one of my student had an accident. It was quite fatal, he was in coma for a week, til I asked today, how he was doing, his friends said that he had passed last Thursday.

He was only 20 and now he was gone. I believe he attended this school and considering the major he was in (food production), he may have a dream to become a cook, to work in a cruise line and travel the world one day. One decent kid, he is! And just in a blink of eyes, he was gone. May he rest in Peace.

Last two weeks, my good friend's father has just passed too. He was diagnosed from a terminal cancer exactly one month before he passed. Doctor gave him 3 - 6 months, and again, just like that he was gone in a month. 叔叔，安息吧

I might not be close to them, but I feel for them somehow. To that kid, I taught him, advised him to get a pair of glasses to help his eyesight, the last conversation I had with him was he sat beside me in instructor room and remind me his name when I forgot. He was in relationship with his classmate, it broke my heart when I saw her puffy eyes and making sentence like "I am waiting for you" in Chinese during my last class with them. To my friend's dad, he seems to be a traditional dad, his kids (my friend and her siblings) grow up well as a person, and for me it reflects their parents and one one them is him.

These things make me realize how temporary life is. When it is your time, then it is your time. You have no time to regret things that you had done and the things that you wish you have done. So, give your very best in every single things that you are doing. You may have no time to say "I love you" to people that matters, so say it often. You may have no time to say "sorry" to people that deserve them, so say it when you still can.

Things might appear to be unexpected at first, but thinking about it, it's just part of the "uncertainty", one of the most certain things in life!

May we all are blessed with a Peaceful Life.

About doing what matters

Things have been going crazy in the country. I can't say it is totally bad, yet, it is bad, but again as in Yin and Yang, there is always a little good in bad things and a little bad in good things. This applies for human too. We will not see one perfect human who is all good  and we will not see one broken human who is all bad. At times it is the way we react to it that determines something.

Not only in Indonesia, things have been going crazy too for me. I have many broken electronic! I planned to fix my camera, It is a Canon, it still functions just fine, however the rotating screen doesn't displaying the picture clearly as it should be. With that, I cannot see whether a shot is good enough, whether anyone's eyes are closed, and so on. Before I have the time to get it done, my iPhone was broken, it got into a pool of water and was there overnight, and that affects the life of the battery and it got "hot" so easily. Surprisingly, it can still function as it should be, to call, to chat, etc. Then, the car which is perfectly fine, was sent to the repair shop to get some "maintenance" service done. I don't know what they have done, it somehow creates problems. One day, it wouldn't start, then after they fixed that, apparently the next day I notice that the headlight went out, then I have to get them to repair that too, then they did some "operation" to the car, and didn't fix the problem, I drove out with nothing fixed but extra problems, the radiator got so HOT and blew up and smoke came out, scared me to death. Then I had to leave the car there, and a few days after we picked it up, I notice many things in the dashboard (esp, the speedometer) were not right. I definitely not going back there. Oh yeah, other than what happens to me, Henki's phone was also died on him when he had a company photoshoot by the beach, as the ocean decided to give his phone a "bath". How many more devices that can get broken in our house? Have I mentioned that my 3 year old laptop like to shut down by itself? Anticipating anything bad from happening, I have backed up everything important.

That's enough about the trouble that we face and the country is facing.

It is about doing what matters now.

Reading and listening to Ajahn Brahm (again? YUP), I realize there is no use getting so nervous when I got into the car, afraid that it might fail me in the middle of the road, or about when will my laptop decide to "shut down" and never to be able be restarted again? I decide to just go with it until I know what to do best.

Same for the country, Politics as usual is dirty. Now, how about us thinking about what can be done to fix that? Many people want to be somebody and start spreading the words of hate, in the name of their God. A sentence can be interpret differently depending on the understanding of the person who read it, the mood of the person who read it, and lastly the intention of the person who read it.

Teaching the Mandarin class, I told my student you can ask your guests to wait for a while with the following sentence "please wait for a while", however, make sure that you say it gently and politely. You can make that words sound rude, by adding negative emotion when you are uttering those 5 words. That's only a 5 words sentence, imagine a thick holy book with zillions of words in it!

There is a Buddhist teaching that is very profound, it said "Learn from Everyone, Follow no One". Even in spreading his teaching the Gautama never asked the followers to just follow, he wanted them to think for themselves about things that he preached and decide themselves whether it is true or not. They/We all have that right and we are expected to exercise that. Don't follow blindly. We can definitely learn from everyone, I can even learn from the people whom I will try very hard NOT to become. In this case, if people are just better educated, things might turn out as it is.

Thousands of candles have been lighted to show people's support to something/someone, people rallies to show they disagreement about decision that had been made, even my students (at their age, I was still enjoying college and didn't bother about politics that much. Maybe because I wasn't in Indonesia at that time?) were so busy following the news and neglected classes that are going on. For this I wonder, will we make any changes with this?

Personally, I would like to look forward. I was thinking instead of busy following the news, why don't my students put more effort in the class (I know it is not the only place to learn), and better themselves as individual, so that one day they can do things that actually matter. News on the internet is always there, you can do it later, right? Also, parents paid a lot for them to have the opportunity to go to this "college", why don't they fully utilize this privilege? Isn't that one of the way to cultivate the good morale in oneself, what known as "appreciation"? Smaller scale to appreciate the effort of their parents, larger scale, to appreciate the work done by leaders in the society whom have tried very best to serve their people.

Also, I notice, those who don't have the habit to "appreciate", are easily intimidated by those in power. Take my students as example, they despise the management of the college, as there are many policies made are never in the benefit of their students. The school thinks that they have power over the students, they think they can dictate the students to do what they want them to do. So students take their "fate" as it is. In this case, they will "bow down" to the "unfair" management and then... express their frustration in "bullying" those who can be bullied, like the good staff and instructors. This is a very sad fact that happens everywhere where the "bullied" are bullying someone else weaker. Is that right? NO! The right thing is to stand up to what is right, to go up the chain and confront the bullies who had bullied them.

I am a very stiff individual, most of the time, I like things by the book. For I think I will try my very best so that others won't easily find fault in me. I know that it is always so easy to find fault in anything/ any situation if you look hard enough, however, do realize that we can also find beauty in any situation if we try harder.

Going forward, I will still be doing things that I know best. I want to share my passion, my experience and my little bit of knowledge about things that I know, hoping that it will have positive impact to at least ONE other individual and also to learn from ALL about the things that I don't know. I trust that what is right will always be right. Someone I respect said "Don't worry, Karma will get the Bastard." Oops...


Peace,
Lin ^ ^

P.S. About religion, your religion is not better than mine, however you can be better than me and that makes your religion good.

Legal!

Last Weekend, 30 April 2017, we woke up early in the morning (this is something extraordinary for me, especially during the weekend which I would not normally be woken up by the sound of alarm clock), and got ready to sign our paper. What Paper?

It's been 15 months since our wedding ceremony and reception in Medan and 13 months since our wedding reception in Jakarta, and you won't believe that we are still talking about our wedding now. Yep, it's our marriage certificate! After living in worry that we are going to get raids and be jailed for living together without a proper documentation of marriage (I am just kidding about the worry, but being jailed for cohabitating is real in Indonesia, there is a law about it), we are finally get our documentation done.

The question is why so late?

Here is my side of story. Marriage certification is not difficult to obtain in “normal” circumstances, it is easy and it is free now. Normal here means that you are marrying someone opposite sex or someone who have the same religion as you. By this definition, people who would like to have a family with those who are not the same faith are considered “abnormal” in our beloved country. Again, in normal circumstances, we just have to run here and there (RT, RW, Department of Civil Registration or locally known as Catatan sipil). to complete the documents needed before proceeding to the real deal in signing the marriage certificate.

My parents helped me getting my documentation done, such as declaration that I am still single by 3 level of officials back in my hometown, lots of waiting and queuing just to wait someone in charge to sign the paper, because they are busy, with nothing normally. As for Henki, he had to do it himself, so the only time that we have is during our trip back to Jakarta early this year for Chinese new year. Anyway, we got that done too.

Now, why don't we process our marriage certificate in Jakarta? Oh, because the country has passed the law that states that interfaith marriage is not allowed in Indonesia. WHY? Don't ask me. This is the most ridiculous thing ever. Many strong believers of a religion believes that interfaith marriage is not going to work. The reason is that every marriage will encounter difficult times, and in those difficult times, we normally will turn to our faith more than ever. Therefore, if a couple has different faith and belief, how can they resolve their issues together with the guidance of God? How can they go to the same temple/church/mosque and seek the guidance of the "holy" people in there to help them see things clearer and work their problems out?

Initially, I was hesitant to convert because certain things in other religion do not fit into my principles in life and I am quite happy with my current belief. However, with time, my belief told me that it doesn't matter what the paper said about me, but it rather how I feel about myself, that truly matters. With that and my parents' support (Amazing, aren't they?) I don't mind converting, if needed.

Government should note, I convert not because I want, but because I need to or I must. Consider the difference and revisit the relevant law, will you?

In order to be able to process legal documentation that certified us as husband and wife, we need to go through something called "wedding based on faith/religion" or known as Nikah Agama, which is our problem. To put it blankly, There is almost no church wants me because I am not a believer. And we can't get it done in a temple, because Henki doesn't want to hold an incense because he needs to maintain certain belief of his and to save him from explaining things to people that need explanation. Story short, "Almost" is the keyword, at the end, we are able to get the church to issue a paper before going to the next step of signing the final marriage certificate in the relevant government office (As for us, we register it under the civil registration office in Bali, not in my hometown nor Henki’s. Living in a BIG country has its own problem, although we are Indonesian, we are not “local” as long as the Balinese government office is concerned). Back to the “help” that we are getting, I am not sure whether it is his interpretation on God's words that makes him want to help couples like me and Henki or it is something more worldly. However, I am grateful that he wants to do it so that we can get on with life and process the next legal paper to certify that we are a family. (I can only see it happens during our next trip back in CNY 2018, if nothing urgent happens before that.)

From the simple Christian ceremony we had last weekend, we have finally had our classical wedding vow. We didn’t prepare it, the pastor helps us with that, promising each other to respect and love one another in good and bad times, in health and sickness, until death do us apart. I want and will hold on to that, even if I am not born Christian. With the blessing, love and support from our family and friends, hopefully we can make it happen.

Anyway, we are legally married now. It doesn't change anything in our relationship, except we have papers to show during raids. Blah~

After a year plus of marriage, we are already a better couple compare to when we started last year. A friend told me that the first year of marriage is the most difficult year. I did experience that last year. Some other couples might not. I am just saying based on my experience. I struggle with new routine in new place, with so little / no other family members around, with Henki's work that is going crazy with every promotion and of course with each others' habits that are easily overlooked during our 3 years plus of LDR before committing into marriage.

I am not saying that we have got everything "under control", because we are not and I have learned that we never will, but I can handle things slightly better than before. Marriage changed me as a person, I believe things have changed Henki too. Believe it or not, my family and friends have helped a lot in straightening some knots for me in difficult time, helping to see things from different perspective and get to understand marriage life better. This part of walk in life has been much relaxing walk because of Ajahn Brahm. I must give him this credit. I listen to his talk a lot and Henki has never prohibit me from doing that (Thank you!) and I will "force" him to admit that he sometimes listen and "enjoy" it too. Enjoy here means find it make sense and he will tell me that "Baby, do you hear that? You have to worry less." He is a much more "Buddhist" than I am. He lets go more easily and it sometimes irritates me. Because I have to do all the worry, although experience has repeatedly showed me that there is no use in worrying.

Our marriage is still “young”, seumur jagung in Bahasa Indonesia, so far problems in life resolved not because we visit the temple/church often, but because I want to make it work and Henki does too. Both of us have to let go a little bit of our ownwelf and learn to accept others as they are and help each others in difficult times. I also learned from something that I read/watch that sometimes in marriage it is good to be “deaf” as most of the time when tiredness and irritation set it, people said things that they do not mean, and lots of times, it is destructive. So, be deaf at times.

Ending this post, I want to express my disagreement about the law that prohibits the interfaith marriage in Indonesia, because it certainly doesn’t help anyone and doesn’t improve anything AT ALL. It plants the seed in people’s head about how differences can’t live together. Some will argue, it will be confusing for the kids if their parents are not the same religion, how do the children should be brought up, in Buddhist way or the Christian way? NONE. Children should be brought up KIND, LOVING, RESPECTFUL and UNDERSTANDING. Lastly, once you brought them up that way, hopefully we are also given the strength to love and trust them in making their choices in life, just like how our parents do for us.

Legal,

Lin ^ ^