Gaya

Tradition

I happened to snap a picture of this young couple at coffee yesterday. Initially I did so as a joke for my friend in Borneo, who was telling me how very many blonds there are in the city of Balikpapan, meaning Indonesian women who dye their hair blond. It does seem to be the latest trend, and, in my mind, an insult to the native beauty of their naturally black hair. 

But it soon occurred to me that there was more to this photo than a private joke. There is the dress, the body language, the pose and the poise. I watched this couple for some time as they interacted, the young man doing most of the talking, the girl shy, eyes generally downcast though acutely attentive; the young man with his dyed blond top, the young woman with her head covered, face haloed--a meeting of the traditional and the modern, the old and the new as the year itself wanes into renewal. Cultural propriety meets the brave new world, and yet the game of love is the same.  

This, my friend told me, is known as a 'Seratus ribu date', meaning that the boy has about ten dollars to spend on the super-sweet coffee drink of his date's choice along with whatever is left over for him, after which he may escort her around the mall on a window-shopping tour, seizing a chance, perhaps, to hold her hand, and maybe get her an ice cream if there is any money left--no more than two meetings a week, because seratus ribu is not that easy to come by. 

Past on present, new on old, manner on mannerism, custom and costume. Classic.