Editorial
Reverse Culture Shock in “Mudik” Tradition
When Your Hometown is Not a Home Anymore
Last week, Muslims all over the world celebrated Eid Al-Fitr, Indonesian Muslims included. They celebrate a special tradition that their Middle Eastern counterparts may not experience; “Mudik” or homecoming.
Mudik is not just simply going home. Mudik in Indonesia is an annual tradition that occurs before big religious holidays like Eid Al-Fitr. This mudik moment is an opportunity to gather with relatives dispersed overseas, in addition of course sowan (pay a visit) with parents. The homecoming should be a moment for people to back to their roots.
The word mudik comes from the word “udik” (hick) which means upstream, back to their origins. Unfortunately, the length of time in wander often makes people uprooted from their roots. Not only the forgiveness when the Eid becomes useless because the one who forgives us is not the person we meet every day in the city, but sometimes we feel our hometown is not our home anymore too.
Reverse culture shock
The place we dwell now is our home. The desire to return to our own homelands after the years of wandering is gone. We do not lose the love for our hometown, nor is it a matter of whether we want to build our own area or not, but it’s a matter of comfort.
We used to be familiar with the things where we lived. We know the streets we used to walk through to school. We know what type of food we liked to eat at that time. We know the people we greeted on the way and work with after. We know the patterns of how we communicate with others. We may not pay conscious attention to all of these little details, but we were accustomed to them. Well, we used to be accustomed to them.
These customs, routines, and forms of communications are cues that we depend on to direct our behavior. Over time, these cues have become second nature and predictable to us. It defines who we are. But now, even though we still remember the customs, we feel separated from it.
As we immerse ourselves into a new culture, we become familiar with new practices. We learn to interact with new people. We learn our way to work, the smells of the road, the sounds around it, and the feel of our new location. All of this is incorporated into our new identity. Eventually, we become accustomed to our new way of life and cast loose the old identity.
As you settle into your foreign location, you spend less time in your home culture. A little girl who is born in a small village in Kalimantan might have grown into a Jakarta woman. Upon return, not only is home different from what you are now used to, but it may be different from when you left, and different from what you expect it to be. That was a house from your childhood days, but now it’s not your home anymore.
Politically and emotionally disengaged adult
Indonesia has rules to vote their regional head such as governors and bupati (regents) according to their Kartu Tanda Penduduk (Identity Card) region. Then comes the problem with immigrant workers who haven’t changed their Identity Card region. They are only present once a year when homecoming and can’t be benefited in their daily activities such as ease of transportation or discount food prices. But those immigrant workers have the right to vote — even encouraged to vote. Nevertheless, they don’t know who to vote and can’t value the democratic process in their hometown.
Homecoming is a moment for people to update each other. There are relative(s) that are now divorced, some relatives that have aged or had passed away months ago. We know the news, but feel no connection from it.
Some immigrant workers might have more money rather than time. They give Eid money to nieces and nephews, give away parcels to relatives, give new clothes for parents and siblings, but have no time to actually be present in their desperate days in need. As immigrant workers, they trade not just their time to get money, but also their connection with people in their hometown.
The problem is not just they become disconnected from their family, but their politics as individuals and also the whole kinship as a community. Not only that the democratic process looks as if it useless, but the vote they cast could also be given to the wrong person. The immigrant workers might be free financially, but they are unfettered politically from their hometown and emotionally from their extended family.
We even lose connection with the dead
We can honor and treasure the dead by making them cemeteries so we can love, care and empathize with what they gave to us while alive. We make them beautiful graves with marble stones and sprinkle them with flowers. But cemeteries are not for the dead, they’re for the living.
The dead will not thank us for the coffins made to their specifications, nor compliment us on the choice of flowers or gravestones. They cannot do so, since they are, by definition, dead: they feel nothing, they cannot communicate, they are no longer living.
Unfortunately, all those beautiful tombs are not even giving us a sense of connectedness. During Eid Al-Fitr we visit the graves of our relatives whom we have never even met when they still alive. We visit the graves of relatives that have been too long since we last visited and we have already forgotten. We visit the graves of people we no longer or have never recognized.
The hometown that we should be longing for now is no longer part of us. We have lost connection with the people, the inanimate objects, even the memories that have lived on because of them. Mudik should be a moment of going “home”, but now for many people, it’s just a soulless tradition.
