The men, women and children of this long-colonized country deserve to celebrate their national holiday with as much fun as possible.
Where I was in the south of the capital city Jakarta, the Independence Day celebrations began with a cracker-eating contest.
First the children have the large white kerupuk (crackers made out of rice flour, onion and ground shrimp) suspended head-high from a taut rope. The boys and girls run to the crackers from the starting line and madly try to take bites out of them – without using their hands to hold them.
Next it’s the women’s turn. The crackers are suspended a little higher and there appears to be some good-humored cheating going on, but otherwise the competition matches that of the children. The one who manages to eat the most of her cracker (without using her hands) is declared the winner.
Finally it’s the men’s turn and I am cajoled into participating. The gameplay is slightly different. The cracker’s string is not attached to the rope, but tossed loosely over it. The other end of the string is tied to the big toe on my right foot. If I keep my foot on the ground the cracker rises too high for me to reach with my mouth, so I and all the other male contestants have to hop on one foot as we try to take bites out of the kerupuk.
After the cracker game comes the potato-sack race, which in Indonesia is called balap karung. It is a relay race run in pairs: first the children and then the adults. I was again urged to participate in a friendly way, but without being given any real choice.
Meanwhile, other games were being played all around Jakarta and throughout Indonesia, with most of the country’s citizens gathering in streets and other open spaces to celebrate their 74th anniversary of independence.
Many of the games would be recognized anywhere in the world: bakiak (a board race), tarik tambang (tug of war), lari bendera (flag relay) and lomba bawa kelereng. The last is a spoon-and-marble race that Canadians would play with an egg in place of the marble.
Some of the games would be less universally known. One such is jonget balon, a dance in which couples keep a balloon pressed between their faces as they energetically sway and bounce to one tune after another until finally only one couple is left. A second couple-oriented game involves wives doing their husbands up in dresses and makeup and then sending their men out in teams to play futsal in drag. This usually amuses a great many spectators.
Another favorite team game is panjat pinang. It was imported from the Netherlands many decades ago and involves hanging prizes at the top of a tall greased pole. Team members strive together to shimmy up the slippery pole to grab the prizes. The higher they get, the better the booty they find: up to and including bicycles.
Clearly, Indonesians like to make their Independence Day as fun as possible. It probably has to do with their history: What led up to their first Independence Day was prolonged and widespread hardship and suffering.
Indonesia is a fervently – although thankfully not a fiercely – nationalistic country. It got this way honestly, through centuries of subjugation and a bloody struggle to free itself from European colonialism and Asian imperialism.
The foundations of Indonesia were laid more than 1,000 years ago when the Srivijaya Empire on Sumatra and later the Mataram and Majapahit kingdoms on Java established histories and cultures that left permanent influences. However, the natural evolution of the nation was forever changed in the early 1600s when the Dutch East Indies Company started putting the islands of the archipelago under its commercial and administrative control. This control grew stronger year by year, decade by decade, until centuries passed and individual Indonesians had no choice but to risk death in order to allow their nation to live. Uprisings broke out, rebellions raged, wars were fought. However, Indonesia remained unborn until after Imperial Japan invaded in 1942 and drove the Dutch out. This was not liberation for Indonesians, only a new chapter of brutal occupation. The Japanese did not free the people of Indonesia, but they dismantled the Dutch colonial administration, replacing it with one of their own. They also inadvertently gave Indonesians hope, knowledge and self-confidence.
So, on August 17, 1945 Indonesian leaders – including Sukarno, the man who would eventually become the country’s first president – declared Indonesia’s independence a few days after Japan surrendered to the Allies, ending the Second World War. The declaration did not immediately take effect, as Indonesians still had to fight when the Dutch attempted to return and resume colonial control. However, within five years liberty won out.
After all that, it’s no wonder that 74 years later Indonesians still just want to have a lot of fun when they celebrate their independence. They earned it. All the games and feasting are a joyful expression of their liberty.
So, how did I do in the games? Not so good, I’m sorry to say. Most of my cracker remained on the string tied to my toe, while the winner had already eaten half of his. Also, I never made it to the finish line of the sack race. I tripped and fell hard onto the courtyard concrete, skinning the palms of my hands and badly bruising my ribs.
“It was your first time,” my friends say to excuse my failure and make me feel better, but it still hurts when I laugh.
Comments