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Indonesia Food, Clothing, and Popular Culture
Many foods could be found in nearly every corner of the
archipelago in the 1990s. Rice is a national staple, even
in areas
such as eastern Indonesia, where the main source of most
starch was
likely to be corn (known as maize in Indonesia), cassava,
taro, or
sago. On ceremonial occasions--modern weddings, funerals,
or state
functions--foods such as sate (small pieces of meat
roasted
on a skewer), krupuk (fried shrimp- or
fish-flavored chips
made with rice flour), and highly spiced curries of
chicken and
goat were commonly served. In public events, these foods
were often
placed on a table, served at room temperature, and guests
served
themselves buffet style. Rice was placed in the center of
the
plate, with meats or other condiments around the edges.
Food was
eaten--usually quite rapidly and without speaking--with
the
fingertips or with a spoon and fork. Water was generally
drunk only
after the meal, when men (rarely women) smoked their
distinctive
clove-scented kretek cigarettes.
On many formal national occasions, men in the early
1990s wore
batik shirts with no tie and outside the trousers. A hat
was
usually a black felt cap or peci, once associated
with
Muslims or Malays but having acquired a more secular,
national
meaning in the postindependence period. Indonesian men
generally
wore sarongs only in the home or on informal occasions.
Women, on
the other hand, wore sarongs on formal occasions, along
with the
kebaya, a tight, low-cut, long-sleeved blouse. On
these
occasions, women often tied their hair into a bun, or
attached a
false hairpiece. In addition, they might have carried a
selendang, a long stretch of cloth draped over the
shoulder,
which on less formal occasions was used to carry babies or
objects.
Urban Indonesian night life in the early 1990s centered
around
night markets, shopping in Chinese toko (stores),
food
stalls called warung, and the Indonesian cinema.
American
anthropologist Karl Heider described Indonesian motion
pictures as
violent, rarely sexy, and often Indian and Western in
inspiration.
Although they were an important part of Indonesian
national culture
in the early 1990s, films did not necessarily mirror
accurately the
facts of Indonesian life. According to Heider, most (85.1
percent)
Indonesian-made films were set in cities--even though the
population was largely rural--and most films employed
Bahasa
Indonesia even though most viewers were Javanese. There
was rarely
mention of religion or ethnicity, even though most of the
population had a religious affiliation
(see Religion and Worldview
, this ch.). The social class depicted was almost always (92
percent)
middle class, despite the fact that Indonesia's middle
class was
relatively small. Heider observed that Westerners were
unambiguously presented as modern, as having no tradition
whatsoever, and Western women were presented as having no
constraints on their sexuality. The audiences for films
consisted
almost entirely of teenagers and young adults, and were
more male
than female.
Adults seemed to prefer television over cinema, and the
number
of television sets in Indonesian households rose
dramatically in
the 1980s (see
table 7, Appendix). Nearly every corner of
the
archipelago had television relay stations permitting
reception of
one or more channels of tightly controlled government
programs.
These programs generally featured education,
entertainment, and
some unsubtitled foreign serials such as "Kojak" and
"Dynasty"
(see Post and Telecommunications
, ch. 3). In addition, some
advertisements of consumer items appeared on television.
National
and international news was highly popular, even in remote
areas,
and contained many descriptions of government development
programs.
Nearly all of the programming in the early 1990s was in
Bahasa
Indonesia, although some local arts programs were
conducted in
regional languages. The most popular televised programs
were sports
events, such as soccer, boxing, and volleyball.
Data as of November 1992
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