Indonesian Women and Anorexia-Bulimia Nervosa 1

Happy New Year!

Hi,it's been along time since I last wrote my blog, I was in the middle of vacation of Christmas and New Year :)

I believe everyone of us have new year resolution, and I hope for the best of accomplish the resolution you have made :)

Why do I suddenly thinking about Anorexia and Bulimia Nervosa? I don't intend to encourage people to be anorexia/bulimia, but actually it's because recently I've been watching the UK reality show titled : Super Size Versus Super Skinny.

This show might have been years showing and still ongoing, you might check www.chanel4.com or search on YT about it. As far as I know they already filming to season 6.

Amazing about how culture made women and men to do such strict diet to loose and stay skinny, where the beauty was cost death. Maybe in US or UK being skinny is pretty beautiful. This kind of context is different between West and East, especially South East Asia.

In South East Asia, being pretty or beautiful means the brighter, whiter, flawless skin look and body. So many whitening product sells like candies, name any price there's still a lot of women in South East Asia will be eager to buy it.

In Indonesia, anorexia/bulimia cases is very rare almost none, but I'm not saying there's none. In my opinion, a lot of people here have better thinking of being healthy might be not the priority, but can eat everyday is a bless. I must say, more than a half population in Indonesia are economically so low. So to these people being in restricted diet only making them starving even more.

But are there fat and big people in Indonesia? Yes. The fact is, they're increasing. How come? Like I told you before, more than half population maybe in economically so low, but the rest are in vary economic condition. They can afford better meal, even junk food or fast food which is considered cheap in Indonesia.

In my early elementary school, I remembered first time I was gone to Mc.Donald. The first time I taste good apple pie. Sadly 20 years later I barely see apple pie on the menu and many menus pops up. You might surprise, in Indonesia Mc.Donald isn't only sells burgers, they sells package menu consist of rice, eggs, fried chicken, and cola. I'm aware why these happening, because almost all Indonesian people main carbohydrate is white rice, like in China, Japan, or Korea. Many says if we don't eat rice it's feels like doesn't eat.

Don't you see what's wrong in here? Despite of eating regular menu 1 piece fried chicken, cola, and fried fries. We exchange fried fries with white rice or ADDING a cup of white rice, because in Indonesia fried fries is considered as a snack. How about dessert? Yea, adding a sundae ice cream or ice cream cone there.

White rice is a must in many junk food and fast food restaurant in Indonesia. KFC is one the biggest and the first junk food outlet in Indonesia. Right now they have "Super Besar" menu, you can choose menu 1 or 2 (1 fried chicken or 2 fried chicken, 1 white rice, 1 big cola). To make it more worse, chili sauce in Indonesia is very mild spicy taste, a lot of people I see, they like to ask 1 more empty plate and fill it with lots and lots of chili sauce or ketchup. Are they finished it? *the sauces* YES!

So after a decade, the number of overweight people especially children right now is multiplying fast. Never heard of anorexia or bulimia cases.... hmm... but healthy life and loosing weight is one of major thing that's going on trend in Indonesia right now.

What can relate to loosing weight in Indonesia? FASHION! Yeaa...right...
in South East Asia, we have this kind of clothes which has free size on it's size. Free size doesn't mean all Indonesian girls can put those tiny clothes on! Free size means only one size, if you bigger you'll make it looks like baby clothes, but if you skinny it'll looks good on you. Maybe this kind of trend was from Korean clothing section, or Korean looks clothing made in China.

I'm afraid the anorexia/bulimia problem might not a threat right now, but low self esteem and how giving appraisement about appearances will makes different results of eating behavior in here.

Living As Indonesian Chinese part 1

Yes, I'm not talking about beauty of make up, as I said before I like to talk about beauty on everything :)
As you might guess, I am an Indonesian born Chinese. This two different country has different kind of beauty. But I was always thought the beauty itself is how do we feel about it, so don't be offended because I'm not trying to say Indonesia and China is more beautiful than other countries.

I've never been going to China, sadly. I've got families there too. My Grandfather is from Fu Jian.

First I thought, Oowww... Fu Jian is very near to Taiwan, from its look on the map.

That's why my name's Hoo :D The more I look at the pictures of China, cultures, nature, the people (good or bad as it is) I feel the comfort of having close relationship with the country. BUT I am Indonesian, I born here, and I also might die here, I hope.

So being Indonesian Chinese, me and families has rules which is acculturation from Traditional China, Dutch, and Javanese. In Indonesia you can't generalize only 1 culture to be known, there's a lot of cultures in Indonesia, I just coincidentally born in Central Java.

So in this mixed culture I grew up and found some what we're a little bit different from Chinese or Indonesian, like building our culture itself.

If you want to go to Indonesia you might say um... native or origin people such as Javanese, Ambonese, Sumatran, etc is more open to tourist or foreigners, on the other side we're might looks a little bit stiff to mingle with foreigners. But believe me, we're excited as much as other Indonesian curiosity about different cultures and people.

Some conversations in Indonesia you might regards first like,
"Selamat pagi" = "Good morning"
"Selamat siang" = "Good afternoon"
"Selamat sore" = "Good evening"
"Selamat malam" = "Good night"

You can open conversation with:
"Hallo, apa kabar?" = "Hello, how are you?"

In common you can calls name of the person you're talking to, but if you talking to someone older you have to call "koko", Indonesian Chinese use this term to call older brother/man, "cie-cie" is use to call older sister/woman, in some regions the pronunciation become "cik" or "cicik".

When you hear "terima kasih", "trims", "kamsya" or "xie-xie" it means "thank you". Indonesian Chinese often use "kamsya" to thanks, it's like business terms but you can use it if you're close enough with the person.

Kamsya for keep reading the blog, and I hope we can share to know cultures in the world :)

Gangnam Style Flash Mob Hits Jakarta

"Heeeeyyyyyy.... Sexy Ladyyyy....!!!"

I Believe Gangnam Style also struck your homeland already!! YEEEYYY!!!!

I personally heard of this "gangnam style" but never thought it will be very very huge! So I look up the video and I understand why it's become very phenomenal (^ . ^)

The music is catchy, and the main point is the dance! So Psy Oppa's dancing like a cowboy riding a horse, at first segment you'll little boy dancing with very very rebellious but very cute face fufufu~

Flash Mob is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a place, perform an unusual and seemingly pointless act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob

FLASH MOB GANGNAM STYLE JAKARTA - INDONESIA

What do you think? Give them thumbs up :D