Indonesian Halloween

Halloween is a North American thing. The countries that love it the most all seem to be the US, Canada, and Mexico. Indonesia is not one of them. The only traces of Halloween were a display of Halloween-themed shirts,and an advertisement for a costume party in Jakarta. Anyway, on the the 30th and 31st I had some non-Halloween-related plans. I wanted to go to a Festival celebrating Bali. I went to both the auditions, and the real show, where I saw a costume cooler any mascot costume I have even seen. He came out wearing a mask and dancing the traditional way with shaking hands, but midway through the show he started doing the moon walk. That night I made it my goal (which is yet unfulfilled) to wear that costume because it was just so cool. Anyway, let me get back to my Halloween story.

So I had just come back to ITB after the Bali festival auditions with Agung, and we were planning on seeing the Sherina concert. when I mention that Halloween is tomorrow and that I miss wearing the costumes. Agung points out that there are lots of costumes with his Southern Sulawesi culture club. So we end up turning around and heading into the tiny room for Unit South Sulawesi. Agung picks me out a shiny red shirt with golden embellishments, two golden cuff-bracelets (unfortunately we couldn't find two cuff bracelets that matched), and an uncomfortable statue-of-liberty-type golden crown. He then pulls out a red shirt with a flat-topped hat that is apparently "slavewear". Now remember how Indonesians don't celebrate Halloween? Well, that meant that we were the only ones wearing costumes. We decided to go to a restaurant in Upper Dago (which is at a higher elevation and is beautiful at night since you can look down at all the lights in Bandung). We were being quite crazy and to fit that crazy mood, we cranked up the craziest music on the radio: Radio Dangdut (Dangdut is sort of a cheesy-type of Indonesian pop music with lots of Arabic and Indian influence). When we stopped at a convenience store to buy candy and drinks, I got many more stares than normal. People must have been thinking, "LOOK! a bule! She must be crazy, she's wearing Indonesian clothes!" I just smiled, and laughed with Agung about the situation. At the restaurant, I was able to get mashed potatoes for the first time since I moved here. On the way home I ended up screaming "hello" out the window to all passers-by. While I wasn't able to do any of these things on Halloween, I ended up getting my costume fix for the year on the 30th.