Old People and Their Coffee
I never dreamed to visit this city, Singkawang, the city which never been in the discussion of our Geography study during my elementary, junior nor even high school.
We had an assignment to write about Bugis people who transport the log from Pontianak to Jakarta by using their traditional boat.
We near to finished our assingment, when my friend got an invitation to visit Sintang, another city near Pontianak.
We were in the middle of admiring the sparkle of traditonal boat, when my friend told us about Singkawang, where had been known as the traditional chinesse ceramic village.
We found that as an opportunity to wrote something about their tradition, the people and the ceramic.
We arrived there in the evening …. humid, hot, seemed that no one ever touched that city, and went straight to the ceramic crafts village.
The village were far away from the center. We had to across the coarse grass desert … like a village in the Vietnam War.
We felt like a stranger. Yes .. a stranger in our own country
We did understand that we will visit the village but found out that they could not understand Indonesian language… was something that we never know, something that never been taught nor even written in the newspaper, was something beyond my imagination.
It seems that their skilled … their ceramic … had overcome the languange barrier, had overcome the difficulties of a modern trade rules.
No wonder people had forgotten that they could not speak Indonesian.
Started from that day…everytime I saw a ceramic with chinese motif, or green color or with antique color…my mind always go to that place….
It was not only the ceramic … I found something that also interesting…. the traditional cafe …
We found that traditional cafe during our morning walk on the next day, our last day in that city.
Suddenly we were in the middle of several traditional cafe where the old people enjoyed the morning sun with the coffe kettle in the middle of the table.
It was not only 1 couple..it seemed that all of old people stayed in that city went out to enjoy their morning talk with the traditional coffee…
Dressed in Chinessed tradition … grey hair … hot water kettle in the middle of the table, aroma of the coffee…
That was the second things…that always remind me of that city.
The ceramic and the coffee…
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