Ini tentang aku dan Lee Eunkyung, seorang sahabat dekat yang kutemui di tahun keduaku di Yonsei University. Eun Kyung mungkin adalah teman Korea paling tercerahkan (baca: enlightened) yang pernah kutemui. Fakta bahwa Eun Kyung lulus dari SMA elit kelas satu di daerah Gangnam dan memilih Korean Studies berbahasa Inggris (yang hanya tersedia di Yonsei University) tidaklah penting. Ia luar biasa karena ia memberikan perhatian luar biasa besar pada sejarah (aku menemukan dia, sahabat terbesarku dalam hal ini), dan punya harapan besar.
Ini tentang surat-surat kami.
Ah, email-email kami. Yang kami tulis untuk satu sama lain. Biasanya aku tidak mempublikasikan surat-surat pribadi yang kutulis untuk orang-orang terdekatku dan balasan-balasan dari mereka. Namun surat-surat yang kutulis untuk Eunkyung dan surat-suratnya untukku sangat universal. Dan aku ingin membagi harapan-harapan kami. Karena kami tidak bisa mengubah dunia sendirian. Surat balasan Eunkyung, mungkin adalah surat paling optimis yang pernah ditulis untukku. Dan tentu aku sudah mendapat izin darinya untuk mempublikasikan surat-suratnya.
Surat pertamaku untuk Eunkyung:
Bangkalan, March 20, 2012
Dear Eun Kyung,
I wrote a letter on papers for you on March 20, 2012. I planned to send the letter to you via postal mail but I didn’t remember I ever kept your address. So I thought, rather than keeping this letter until I know your address, I would just type it and send it to you via email.
How are you, Eun Kyung?
How is school?
How is Seoul?
I miss winter’s air temperature.
It is extremely hot here in Madura, my hometown.
Eun Kyung, home is good. I got to see my family, relatives, enjoy my favorite foods. Even small things like the fresh air after rain or a cloudy sky in a morning stun me. It is rainy season this month. It will probably last until May. But yesterday was super hot. So was today. But, home is different, Eun Kyung. Korea was different. There are things I found absurd in Korea. For example, the seniority culture, the soju culture, the nepotism culture. Unfortunately, I found thins done differently here in my hometown. But in my country, even basic things are absurd for me. Especially in my hometown, Madura.
For your information, my hometown is an-hour flight distant from the nation’s capital, Jakarta. It is a small island in East Java. Like other areas in Indonesia, it is now having increasing number of middle-class society. People buy more houses, lands, cars, etc. But my people are suffering from laziness disease. During my two-week stay at my hometown, I sent two complaint letters to a private hospital and the department of health for letting its security officer smoke in the patient’s waiting room.
You also won’t believe this, Eun Kyung. A good number of local government officials here go for early lunches before the clock even reaches twelve. I saw some of them just sitting in front of their offices, smoking while playing with their Blackberries smartphones. I feel ashamed because I had left my people continue to be lazy these times. I had enjoyed first class education, in an extremely competitive environment, enjoyed an education based on meritocracy. I also enjoyed my first-class undergraduate education in Jakarta, the nation’s capital, far away form my hometown. Far away from my people.
There is another funny thing I found here, Eun Kyung. The local library is full with interesting books. But they put on full music through amplifiers in the library. I was extremely surprised and annoyed by this. They have more officers in the library than the number of visitors. And I found some valuable old documents during the Dutch colonizations kept in the library. Unfortunately they are poorly stored.
I feel a calling to change all these. But I don’t know from where I can do it. I don’t know how and with whose help can I change my people.
Anyway, I miss talking to you about things.
Feel free to update me about life there. I look forward to receiving your interesting stories about thesis ^^
I wish you success in your thesis writing and your future concerns.
My best regards,
(Namaku)
I write you my home address here, in case you feel like sending me letters ^^
Surat balasan pertama Eunkyung:
Dear Nana,
I was worried whether your letter was missed in the half way of its delivery, so it was good timing for me to receive your e-mail.^^
Korea is in its best season of a year now. Though slightly hot in mid-afternoon, mornings and evenings are really pleasant these days with warm sunshine and cool breeze mixed together. I am not a particularly pessimistic person, but, you know, my state of mind is generally anxious and nervous about all things I encounter.(Maybe just because I am chicken-hearted)
In this period of a year, however, I am light-hearted and optimistic than ever. It would be hard to feel anxious when cups of flowers are opening and everything outside the door are shining white. The downside is that this precious season is too short- maybe that’s why it is precious in the first place-, and that I generally stay indoors these days.
[12 lines deleted because of personal contents they carry]
….. I may not be successful in time to time, but I would not give a chance to ‘failure’.
When I got the job and the master’s degree- hopefully sometime in next year-, I will travel around for a month or so before I start working, to reward myself. I might visit Indonesia to see you.
Speaking of laziness disease and irrationalities of people you mentioned, I see similar cases everywhere here in Korea, too. Of course, this is competitive society and people are impatient enough so that they would not tolerate when something is ‘inconvenient’. But sadly, many people(well, including I, shamefully) are quite tolerant about ‘injustice’ occurring to ‘others’. I used to be very sensitive and touchy about social injustice, but nowadays, I think I often turn blind eye on the spot and think only about my own good… Well… I think I have to change my indifferent attitude first before I become an official. Otherwise I might settle myself as an unambitious official as dull as the ones you described(dashing for lunch and playing with smartphone things), who cannot be imagined to become an UN official or a writer. As government sector is known to be stable and unchallenging workplace in Korea, I have to watch out and constantly remind myself of my dreams. As for you and your people, Nana, I don’t worry. Not because it is not my country, but because people like you will change and lead the country and the people in the future.
You said you don’t know where, how, and with whose help you can change your people. I feel the same way. But as we are young, maybe that feeling of helplessness is what really strengthens us. Maybe it is natural that we don’t know what we can do in our stage of life. I think what is important is not knowing what to do now, but doing what we know when we get to know what to do.
I feel bad about the problems of library than other problems that you mentioned. Library and school are perhaps the most important pillars to the future. I think they have to turn off the amplifier and behave themselves as librarian.(they have to know librarian should know better than a mere office worker) Speaking of library, I visit local library(not a school library) time to time. There are so many people, so in first glance, it looks rather hopeful for the nation’s future. But sadly, only few people are reading a book. Most are preparing for exams of this kind and that- job hunting, TOEIC, public service exam, and so on. I hope this people, in someday, can put down their exam book and really enjoy voluntary reading.
This is Monday morning. I think it is good to end the letter here, otherwise I will keep attaching things so that I never send it to you. So, let’s keep in touch with e-mail, and sometimes hopefully via postal mail.
Always take care,
Yours best,
Lee, Eunkyung
Ardhyana 