Take it easy… initially a lot of foreigners indeed cannot eat spicy food, but after some time of ‘training’, they finally got used to it, even became kinda addicted. 👌

Jerome and the girl told their mutual experience with sambal (red pepper chilli). Both are living in Japan (with non spicy food available) and share the same experience:

After years in Japan, they returned home country for a while and eat their favorite taste: spicy food and or sambal.

After eating the spicy food, they got diarrhea right away, and it took 2 weeks for recovery. And then they continued eating spicy food. Everything goes normal afterwards, even their appetite over spicy food even increased.

Indonesians usually say: “without rice you don’t really have your meal”.

Some of them might say “without sambal you don’t really have your meal”.

Sambal is obligatory for them.

Ivy Phan, a Malaysian girl studying in University of Gajah Mada, Yogyakarta, by experience analyses the word “iya” under four contexts:

1. Normal “Iya”
2. “Iya” with stressing the validity of a fact being talked about. “Iya” gets expressed with higher tone and longer vocal “i” and “a”: “iiiyaaaa!” e.g. response of a sentence “did she win the award?”
3. “Iya” with uncomfortable feeling in order to terminate a conversation, e.g. to avoid a silly debate.
4. Reply for “terima kasih” (=thank you)

Indonesian language is simple, very easy to learn. It doesn’t have gender of a noun, no variation of verbs, etc. But in daily usage, it’s not that simple.

Example:

In English one calls “you” to address anyone, but in Indonesian, you should figure out first the social context.

To address elders, you cannot say “kamu” (=you), instead you should say “bapak” (=sir), or “ibu” (=madam). To stranger with relatively same age : “kakak” (=older sibling), to Javanese ethnic: “mas” for male, “mbak” for female, even “mas” and “mbak” have become a nationally accepted expression, you can use these words for polite call to other person regardless their ethnics.

To address officers? There are more expressions e.g. you should say “pak” or “bu” before the occupation of those officers., e.g. “Pak Menteri” (pak=sir, menteri=minister).

What about “anda”? It’s a good expression of “you”, but then again, you should figure out the social context.

bla bla bla etc etc etc …. in short…. it’s pretty complicated ^_^

If that’s kinda a bad news, the good news is: you can speak proper Indonesian at quite fluent level just by doing conversation with local people as often as possible.

Lami La can speak Indonesian properly within 8 months from zero by hanging out (almost) every day at warung (little restaurant) and doing conversation with the owner and anyone there.

Learning by doing without too much complicated theories of grammar and social contexts.~

For vocation and seeing his sister, he visited Lombok island for the first time.

Lombok island is next to Bali island, also a good tourism destination. In the year 2018, American travel publication Travel+Leisure places Lombok as the 3rd best island, after Java (1st) and Bali (2nd).

Here is a Q&A on his channel: Noa Liepin

“Indonesia is heaven and beautiful”

“It’s earth’s heaven”

“I love Indonesia and that’s because of its local people”

“Yes, I want to live in Indonesia”

“And that is already planned”

“I feel comfortable in here because the local people are very kind”

“Enak” means “good”, or “delicious”, but I never heard “denak” which means “not good” or “not delicious”.

In Indonesian, “denak” is not popular at all. It actually means “animal as a ‘bait’ for hunting”.

“Denak” is probably a new slang made by foreigners by using word playing. Perhaps enak is preceded with “d” (English). 🤔

Such cloth is actually related to a local ghost called “Pocong”. Entertainment logic: Different, unique thing attracts more attention even if it looks simple and has less effort to perform.

She speaks bahasa Indonesia with messed up grammar, inaccurate dictions, unclear meaning, along with Indonesian way of speaking e.g. “woi” (=slang of “hey”) also Rusian one e.g. “woi monyet” (hey monkey). All of them make her unique and more than funny before Indonesian viewers. Even, to be frank, she could beat Indonesian best comedians.

It seems her husband — Robby Shine, half Indonesian & half Indian — shaped such character of Natasya with big success. It might be started with misuse of wrong dictions and incorrect grammar spoken by Natasya, and then it in turned getting processed to become packages of entertainment.

“Bagus Istri” (=good wife) is her trademark. Why is it so funny to hear that? Because such phrase is not found in Indonesian. The proper expression for “good wife” is “istri (yang) baik”. Istri = wife, baik = good. While “bagus” is synonymous with “baik”.

Even if she was called “istri bagus”, it would not really be common Indonesian expression. There is different impression or usage between “baik” and “bagus”.

When the phrase is twisted to be “bagus Istri”, the viewer’s laugh starts. See? Incorrect grammar becomes special at the right place, called entertainment.

Such character seems solely for Natasya. If other woman played this role, they most probably wouldn’t be as good as Natasya.

Here is how “Shine and Shine” perform their play. The husband complains about the messed up language by her wife. And it’s impossible to be translated. ^_^.

Note for Robby Shine: He uses Medan city dialect, which gives comedy touch even better. 😎

First time ate J.CO donut more than ten years ago, I was surprised. That’s what I remember. 🙂

Jangan remehkan wanita, sekali mereka mau bekerja, fisik nya melebihi pria. pic.twitter.com/FGuGtObCvn

— Archeology, Volcano,geology, Adventure (@RANGERmounts) September 9, 2022

Bule Barbie AKA Daria Dasha, is a newcomer in Indonesia’s entertainment world which has unique, funny character. She and her family moved to Bandung, and within 8 month she can speak Indonesian quite good. She loves Sundanese culture, and once she ‘declares’ as a Sundanese with white look ~ in her performance.

Bandung is a city with relatively good temperature for people from cold countries, i.e. around below 18°C to 31°C. It had the title ‘Paris van Java’, Flower City, and its residents are creative with various good works from food to fashion, music etc.

She once interviewed the boss of Rocksdenim fashion brand. And it’s revealed that one of his keys to success is “Honesty” ~ as also advised by his parents since his childhood.

Wait a minute,

Is Honesty really secret in business world? 🤔

I’m not management expert, nor student, but so far the strategy to success are standard: hardworking, networking, discipline, or such.

But “honesty”? Do schools teach it in their business theory?

Maybe, I’m not sure. But it is a logical way to run a business. Trust business is not only for banking, but also for all kind of businesses.

Once customers lose their trust on a particular company, it means its doomsday is near. 😂

Daria likes living in Indonesia for Indonesians are of more relax society, like to laugh and humor, not in a hurry etc. (Any culture has plus and minus I guess)

And I see her way of joke is outstanding.

She likes bonteng (Sundanese for cucumber, or ketimun/mentimun in Indonesian) and this cucumber is regarded as her boyfriend. She brings cucumber as her trademark, and gives it to people she meets.

Quite weird but funny. 😎 Yes, uniqueness is kinda the Bible in entertainment.