Feeling different in central Java

Yogyakarta, Indonesia. 

With my plans to visit the British School of Jakarta foiled at the last minute I decided to head to what is described as the spiritual and cultural heart of Java, rather than its overbearing business and government centre, the city of Yogyakarta. Whilst sorry to miss learning more about the only Round Square school in Asia that I had planned to see, the bonus was a thriving historic and religious city with inspiring Buddhist and Hindu temples just outside at Borobudur and Prambanan – think Angor Watt without the tourists. I also stayed in a fabulous hotel that Agatha Christie would surely have had someone murdered in had she ever travelled this far. Anyone planning a visit to these parts would be foolish to miss Yogyakarta and the Hotel Phoenix.

But the real surprise of the place, which shouldn’t have been a surprise at all and was also somewhat unnerving, was to find myself very much standing out from a crowd of Asian faces. There were tourists here, but from India, China and Korea. It was hard to believe that Bali, whose tourists owed more to Southend than the South China Sea, was only an hour away by plane. I became, for two days, a curiosity. 

It first became apparent when I had lunch in the centre on my arrival day. Feeling the 30 plus heat I headed to an air-conditioned shopping centre for lunch but chose the Japanese fast food outlet to at least play lip (or mouth) service to being in Asia. I had just sat down in a half empty restaurant when a student I would guess aged about 17 came shyly over and asked if he might sit opposite. For a moment, he tucked into his dubious looking soup in silence, but slowly I discovered his parents were teachers, he wanted to study Pharmacy and he intended to do this at Cardiff University – why the latter I never fully gathered. 

The next day, when visiting the temples, I was frequently stopped and asked if I would have my photograph taken with people – groups of school children, families, couples – whilst the less bold I could tell were trying to capture me alongside a stone Buddha (at least I hope it wasn’t merely for a compare and contrast photo!) At various times, and depending on my mood and the heat, I felt flattered, annoyed, interested; but always conspicuous. As a white, middle aged, middle class man I have never experienced this before but I suddenly got a feel for what it must be like to be different, and for me this was in a place where I shouldn’t have been surprised at all. I was reminded of a school trip to Russia I led in the 1990s when two Nigerian boys were never left alone by Russians gazing for the first time on Black people. And it has made me think about how we engage with those who, externally at least, are very much ‘the other’ in our own society. For me I consciously stepped out of my western world for a few days; for some, especially in the homogenous Isle of Wight, they are distinct every day. I have always promoted and indeed been excited by diversity in our School and on our Island; I want us to celebrate it and I think I still do. But I learned as I walked around those temples, that there are times when you would prefer just to blend in and I am left reflecting on how easy that must be for some of our community and what, if anything, I can do about it. 

It wasn’t the only thought of the day – the power of religious image; the comfort that Buddhist symbolism in particular was giving; the idea that this 17 year old in Yogyakarta wanted to go to Cardiff – all made me think. But what it means to stand out, always, was what struck me most today.