dowry and infanticide...

this morning as has been the previous saturday mornings, we tried to catch the jusco bus. woke up at 7.30 and get myself, kedar, and may as the next persons queuing after karma from bhutan. on the nearly 20 minutes ride, i had a brief chat with vijay from india. he is married and expecting his second baby in the next few months. he has been working in computer graphics as a technical director for local company in mumbai. he told me how exhaustive yet exciting his job was. it takes possibly more than 2 years to come up with a good animated movies such as monster inc., and shrek. and another interesting fact in the industry is, they count the milestones by seconds like "how many seconds [of movie] u can finish in a week?".

i then asked him about the new member of his family. "it's a she? or it's a he?". "i dont know" he said. "oh, u did not try to find out?" i asked. "well, it's kinda illegal in india to find out the sex of your baby before born". and i found myself surprised, and rapidly replied him "why?". "in suburban area, people prefers a baby boy over a baby girl. because, when u have a daughter and she is getting married, the bride's family is responsible to give money to the groom or his family. thus, people tend to kill a baby girl before born. it's like an abortion".

and it is so happened that late in this evening, i read an example of job interview document from the network public folder, and in one of the answers of the interviewee (he is an indian) is regarding the practices mentioned above. it is said that "dowry and infanticide are still a common practice in suburbans of india".

from word's thesaurus:
dowry: (n). an amount of money or property given in some societies by a bride's family to her bridegroom or his family when she marries.
infanticide: (n). the practice of killing new born babies.

unfair? maybe.

differences...

never ever before it came accross into my mind that i would actually be in such an environment where people from various countries in asia, america, africa, and europe are gathered for the same (well, almost the same i might say) purpose: to study. for instance, i just came across with a guy coming from bhutan. frankly speaking, never heard of it before. it is located on the north side of india. and he said that the population of kingdom of bhutan is only about 650,000. can you imagine that a country with only such number of people? i think the population of kapuk, cengkareng, kosambi, and puri neighborhood is much more than that. for much more information of this beautiful mountainous country, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan

it is really amazing to get the chance to meet and talk with this people coming from different background, different language, and different culture. especially the local japanese here. they are really such a nice people who dont see the colour of your skin and the money in your pocket. genuine, polite, and helpful are the most appropriate words for these people i guess.

and then we have a group of people from cambodia who i always encountered in the kitchen cooking and in the lounge having a big family dinner. i am pretty sure they dont really know each other that well because some of them are second year students, while the rest are newcomers. but you can feel their spirits.

another group of people from india and bangladesh and vietnam and costa rica and kirgiztan were on the green playing cricket. i am not sure whether they understand about the game, but one thing for sure we are all trying to enjoy the life@iuj to the fullest regardless any differences we have.

i am really grateful to be given the chance to experience all of this. hai mina san, oyasuminasai. mata ashita.

nihongo vs eigo vs indoneshiago

"student" wa nihongo de nan desu ka?
"student" wa nihongo de "gakusee" desu.

"gakusee" wa indoneshiago de nan desu ka?
"gakusee" wa indoneshiago de "murid" desu.

"murid" wa eigo de nan desu ka?
"murid" wa eigo de "student" desu.

which one is the easiest? u decide...

the other survival topic learnt today was numbers. i have this little believe that one of the important things to learn when we study foreign language is numbers. because no money no survive, and money is about numbers. besides the easy 0-9 that we must remember, the concept about japanese millions are based on tenth thousand. for example:
10 = juu
100 = hyaku
1,000 = sen
10,000 = ichi-man
100,000 = juu-man
1,000,000 = hyaku-man
10,000,000 = is-sen-man

pretty straight forward rite? however, there are special cases for:
300 = san-byaku
600 = rop-pyaku
800 = hap-pyaku
3,000 = san-zen
8,000 = has-sen

wakarimashita ka?

btw, sumimasen, anata no denwa bangoo wa nan-ban desu ka? heya bangoo wa nan-ban desu ka? oh, watashi no denwa bangoo wa: san ni go desu. heya bangoo wa: esu dii san no san zero kyuu desu. ah, sou desu ka....doomo arigatou.

doomo and doozo...

kyou ni aisatsu mo kihon hyougen wa benkyo shimashita - today i learnt basic greetings and expressions. *is that correct? heck...why should i care...

day 1 of 5 has just started. 9.00 to 2.30 with 1 hour break for lunch. quite a number of participants. kanada, chuugoku, indoneshia, kirugisutan, raosu, myanmaa, amerika, banguradeshu, denmaaku, indo, kosutarika, and betonamu kara kimashita. some of them already have exposure to nihongo, some do not. me? in between i guess.... :p

here is how should i introduce myself:
hajimemashite,
watashi wa satria desu.
indonesia no jakarta kara kimashita.
kokusai daigaku no gakusee desu.
kokusai kee ee no ichinensee desu.
doozo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

はじめまして、
わたしは　サテリア　です。
インドネシア　の　ジャカルタ　からきました。
こくさい　だいがく　の　がくせえ　です。
こくさい　けい　えい　の　いちねんせい　です。
どうぞ　よろしく　おねがい　します。

hi,
i am satria.
came from jakarta, indonesia.
i am a student in IUJ.
first year student in e-biz program.
nice to meet you.

yessss...finally i can get it right... :D
the class was ended by a i u e o till na ni nu ne no.
hiragana has not been a problem. ganbatte kudasai.

mata ashita, oyasuminasai.

day one

it was such a shiny day in Narita Kuukou. my swatch still showing a sirene 6 am, but then the sky was so bright. hhmm...i realized that 2 hours difference indeed is a big difference, but i deliberately did not want to adjust it to the local time. let's stick with WIB for a little while more, to prevent jet lag....

neat and clean, that was the first impression. hiragana, katakana, and kanji were all over the walls and signboard. sumimasen, kuroneko kaunta wa doko desu ka? then a complete reply i got from the old lady, which i hardly understood. in such situation, body language is the best bet. she pointed to a direction over the arrival gate. another sumimasen to the luggage carrier officer, he then gave me the form, i filled it in and pay around ¥ 1300 for the heavy luggage. "1 day" said the officer. "ok, arigatou gozaimasu", and i know i can rely on their service.

next step is to buy a telephone card. a machine which accept coins and paper money is just beside the phonebooths. inserted a ¥ 1000, then the card got ejected. i follow the instruction on how to call overseas using the public phone with docomo as the provider. i called home and of course my sweatheart *yg keknya masih lom bangun... :D. then i call rudy to make sure that he will pick me up @shinagawa eki on time.

then i bought the narita express bound to shinagawa eki. damn, my hand carry and another luggage were making me sweating. stepped down from the train, and follow the signboard to takanawa exit. found no trouble, and waited there for rudy. then i saw a guy, doesnt looked like japanese and doesnt looked like indonesian, with a punk hair cut. it must be him... :D

"lengcay, nyampe juga loe di tokyo...." was all his first words. i knew it... :p
then we went off the eki, and have a lunch nearby his neighborhood. after that, he proudly present his new apartment to me. considered roomy for a single adult living in tokyo, with a big non-plasma tv which will get expired in 2011 located in the living room. well done pal, u made it.

shinjuku and shibuya were awesome. shops, street lights, and fancy signboard really make the city so alive. the crowd is amazing that a couple will get separated if they dont walk hand in hand. youngsters are dressed with fancy-cool-weird-modern clothes. hhmm.... isnt tokyo is the paris of asia? ppsstt...never been to paris before.

then i took a couple of picture and had a fancy-nancy-expency dinner. have u heard of a restaurant that charge u for sitting? yuppe, it was ¥ 300/person. this is why tokyo is the most expensive city in da world. and when the bill came, it was more than ¥ 5000 for 4 "small" portion of foods. anyway, thanks lengcay, i am sure ur gold card can cover more than that... :D

that was all of day one. my legs like crippled. couldnt stand anymore walk. but with all the excitement, it is paid off.