Javanese Lives

by Williams, Walter L.

• ISBN13: 9780813516493
• ISBN10: 0813516498
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-07-01
• Publisher: Rutgers Univ Pr

Summary

Java is the most populous island of Indonesia, the fifth largest nation in the world. Yet despite its importance, outsiders know little about the country or its people. With the help of Indonesian students and scholars, Walter L. Williams has collected and translated the life histories of twenty-seven Javanese women and men. The people interviewed tell how they have coped with rapid social and economic change, and with the transformation of their traditions. Williams has carefully selected the individuals he includes to represent a wide diversity of Java's people. We hear from fascinating women and men of various religions, from the rich and the poor, and from different ethnic backgrounds. Diversity is a constant theme, as evidenced by a poor pedicab driver who can barely scrape along, by a rich businesswoman who explains how she balances her professional domestic roles, by an educated and respected homosexual school principal, and by an illiterate mother of fourteen children. All of them present in their stories a unique Javanese approach to living.These oral

Table of Contents

Illustrations	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction	1	(10)
James Peacock
Part I Paths to the Present: Village Life and Urban Development	11	(90)
A Market Woman	13	(6)
A Farmer and Village Leader	19	(11)
A Princess at the Sultan's Palace of Surakarta	30	(8)
A Soldier in the Revolution	38	(7)
A Seamstress	45	(8)
A Policeman	53	(8)
A Writer	61	(7)
A Pedicab Driver	68	(6)
A Cake Seller	74	(3)
A Chinese Businessman	77	(7)
A Feminist Psychologist	84	(7)
A Businesswoman	91	(10)
Part II Holding onto the Past: The Artistic and Spiritual Traditions	101	(54)
A Dance Teacher in the Sultan's Palace of Yogyakarta	103	(7)
A Singer	110	(6)
A Dalang Shadow-Puppet Teacher	116	(5)
A Trance Dancer	121	(6)
A Dukun Who Arranges Weddings	127	(8)
A Dunkun Healer	135	(9)
A Buddhist Temple Caretaker	144	(11)
Part III Looking toward the Future: Development, Education, and Youth	155	(70)
A Muslim Convert	157	(10)
A Teacher	167	(6)
A Catholic Teacher	173	(7)
A Homosexual Principal	180	(11)
A Matron of a Christian Orphanage	191	(9)
A Mother	200	(3)
A Mother and Revolutionary	203	(15)
A Father Concerned about Education	218	(7)
Notes	225	(8)
Index	233