More Reading, or Where I've Been All This Time

At the 2011 Long Beach Holland Festival, Jan Krancher gave me a copy of Marion Bloem's Vaders van betekenis (Fathers of Meaning).  I had planned to attend in 2012, but my wedding happened around the same time, which meant that it was off the calendar.

Over a nearly two-year period, I made it through 60 pages of the book.  Reading Dutch was as difficult as ever.  I was plowing through it, wearing out another dictionary.  My job situation had improved immensely.  As I noticed another festival coming up, I made more of an effort.  I am now on p. 78.  I have also been listening again, mainly to Radio 1. BNR is also good, but it doesn't come through the computer as much. I have also watched some TV with closed captioning.

This year, I was invited again to help work the booth for the Indo Project. Of course, it was great.  I saw Jeff Keasbery on the way in, and I found Jan and his antique wall map of the Dutch East Indies on the side of the booth. This time, the emphasis was on books for sale.  Lots of people came to browse.

The two books that stood out weren't for sale.  I hope they are uploaded as ebooks soon.  The first one I looked at was a graphic narrative of camp life that was most likely done right after the war.  The colors and fairly precise drawings made those times look very recent.  Digitizing this work is urgent, because the paper is disintegrating, and the colors are starting to bleed.  While we were there, I spoke to a man who is restoring his wife's family photos with Photoshop.  Such a treatment would certainly be worthwhile.  Some of the drawings have shown up as illustrations for other books.  The other book that stood out was Jan's own immigration story in a small three ring binder.  It is largely a reverse diary, made up of translations of letters he sent to his mother, beginning in 1960. It is one of the rare translations that appears to have been written in the target language.  Usually, the source language comes through in one way or another.

While I was there, I heard some Dutch spoken, and some people spoke it to me.  In spite of my recent piling on of listening hours, I am disappointed to say that I understood very little.  When I spoke, my pronunciation was way off.   The linguistic bright spot was my surprising ability to sight translate.  I was quickly able to give English speakers a window into Dutch language material.  I was also able to reassure Dutch speakers that I was acquainted with their world.

I had not planned on posting anything, but my wife and I spoke to Priscilla Kluge McMullen on the way out.  She encouraged me to post more about the journey, which brings us back to the current book.

Marion Bloem's Vaders van betekenis should be translated by an American.  She writes in a very clear, yet freewheeling style. Although she has only been on a few short trips to the US, she writes about it like a native. This is my fourth book in Dutch, and it is the third in which I have read with the method of using the dictionary to look up every word I don't know.  I move the fastest through the parts with familiar material.  The wartime experiences are similar to what Geert Mak described.   Reading about the US was almost easy.  The beginning of the book, on the other hand, brings Miguel Asturias to mind.  She ties an incident with a kite to the surreal nature of life during wartime and ancient legends.  I found it as hard to follow as Asturias.

My posts about Dutch reading will be far from regular, but I will keep it up.  I plan to finish Marion Bloem's book.  After that, I would like to return to Geert "Big" Mak to read Reizen zonder John, his following of John Steinbeck's journey in Travels with Charly 50 years later.

The Indo Project at The Holland Festival

The Indo Project will have a booth at the Holland Festival in Long Beach on May 29. I have met them at other events, and other editions of this event. Their booth will definitely be worth a visit.

The Indo story is largely unknown. Their recent history fell between the cracks of narratives by those who were either for independence in a way that forgot the past, or colonialism. Indos have been around since the Age of Discovery, and the Project is making their instructive history available to everyone.

The following post was forwarded to me by Director of Development, Jan Krancher. I mentioned the project on March 6, 2010, and I linked to some of his work.

The post was written by Co-Founder Priscilla Kluge McMullen, who was at last year's event. It will remain up through July 2.

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Only a small percentage of the English speaking world know who or what a Dutch Indonesian is, or Indische(n),or Amerindo, or Indo, and you can go down the list of names that we prefer to call ourselves. The non-ending discourse on this topic is an example of the reason why. I wonder why it is that we cannot be united in what we call ourselves? Ourselves, meaning we who have roots in the former Dutch East Indies. I can understand why we would want to differentiate our own particular family history since most of us have that unique mixture, an intermingling of race, culture & nationality.

However, let’s think of the bigger picture, far into the future, how will we be identified in the history books of the world. Will we be known as a fractured people with just as a fractured description known by different labels? All because we cannot agree on what we want to call ourselves? Or do we let others label us? We continue to confuse people outside of our community by these different names we apply to ourselves.

I, who was born in Indonesia and have German/Dutch/Indonesian blood, and currently maintain dual citizenship (Dutch & USA), have “captured” the word INDO as that is how I want to describe myself in my personal and professional life. I want the English speaking world, that I come in contact with, to know me as an Indo. Of course, first and foremost I am an American but I want people to stop guessing my heritage. I am “taking claim” of the word Indo as my own because the beauty of the word Indo is that it is a shortened form of Indo-European, meaning exactly that! It encompasses everyone in our community. Not only people of Dutch Indonesian descent but also individuals who are descendent from any mixture of Indonesian and European blood. Whereas the term Indische Nederlander or Dutch Indonesian is exclusively of Dutch Indonesian descent.

We cannot be exclusive, we are a dying culture. We need to be inclusive --and rather than bicker about what we want to call ourselves why not go into the world and raise awareness about our history, culture and values. It is my hope that in the far future when my children and grandchildren say that they have Indo roots, the rest of the world will know exactly what Indo means… a proud, strong, and united people that had their roots in the former Dutch East Indies.