Nov.14, 2008

Today is Friday. There is no class at school. I got up at 5:00 in the morning, taking a bath, drinking some milk and eating bread. After brushing my teeth, I got downstairs and waited for the car at six. SLAMET said yesterday it would be the headmaster’s car. After 6 a.m., SLAMET called me to ask whether SYAMSUL was here. I told him that he had not come the day before. He’d better fetch him at school, he agreed. I didn’t got into the car until 6:50 a.m..When I was getting in, they insisted that I sit in the front row to show their respect. I found there were 6 people in the car besides me, if I feasted them , the cost would be a lot. On the way, SLAMET talked with me in English, laughing and making the atmosphere lively. After 8 a.m., the car stopped before a restaurant on the roadside, they said they would have breakfast. They asked whether I had had breakfast and I said yes, but I asked for a bottle of water. What they had for breakfast was nearly the same as lunch and supper, such as rice, fried fish, chicken and so on. After breakfast, they asked for cigarettes. Almost half an hour later, we went on our way. CMK sent a message to tell me that if it was too late, there might be trouble. I also replied to him in a message. My mobile phone couldn’t call other volunteers with Xl numbers at home, but out of PROBOLINGGO, I still couldn’t. this puzzled me.

After 3 hours’drive, we reached Surabaya Immigration Office at over 11a.m. .SLAMET went to ask a woman clerk at the window and she told him that we needed to go to Malang, because we belonged to Malang County. I asked SLAMET, can’t we do it here? And he told me no.  Outside the office, I told SLAMET our superiors had told us to come here to the provincial immigration office. At that time, SYAMSUL tried to explain and I was a little anxious. I waved him away and directly asked SLAMET in English. But it seemed hopeless. I suddenly remembered Mr Henry Dermawan  who was in charge of Surabaya Cooperation Institute of Chinese Education. So I called him and introduced myself and the current situation. After he heard what I said, he asked me to hand the phone to the accompanying person, so I handed it to SLAMET and they talked for a while in Indonesian. SLAMET handed back the phone to me and Mr Li (Henry Dermawan) told me I had to go to Malang and he asked me to see him at once and he had told his address to SLAMET. I sent a message to CMK and told him to come but he said it was not easy to find the place. I phoned Mr Li again and he said his driver was out and couldn’t go to fetch him. I had to postpone the plan. So we drove to SHERATON HOTEL, it was only over 10 minutes.

After Mr Li found us, he took us (in fact, only me, SLAMET、READ ONE, the three) to have dinner in a restaurant upstairs of TUNJUNGAN PLAZA beside the hotel. As the conditions were good, I felt that the Indonesian food was good. Only the sour taste of TEMPE was not suitable for me. During the course, I was very careful because it was a high-class restaurant and I should not lose my face. Meanwhile, Mr Li continued to serve us food and made conversations between the three of us. He asked me, “Are you used to it?”, I said yes. He encouraged me to learn Indonesian and communicate with the locals. He said he could speak four languages, Indonesian, Chinese, German (he had studied in Germany) and English. From his name card he gave me, he got a doctor’s degree and ran a company, doing a lot of businesses, mainly mechanic and electrical products from Germany or Japan. He asked how old I was. And he told me he was 55. Mr Li talked of the former volunteer in our school, our school thought highly of him and his mother was a muslim. Later we talked about another volunteer in East Java, her name was How Lei, who worked in a solitary area and did a good job. I had read about her conclusion report and it was very good. I referred Mr Li about the USB Internet card and he was not quite sure. He asked, “Could you log onto the Internet?”. I answered that I could do it in the office and could not at home. He told the two accompanying teachers to install the Internet facilities and he would pay for it.(I don’t know the effect of his words. SLAMET returned and could have reported to the school authority and they said next week they would asked someone to come to see the situation.) we talked about the transportation and Mr Li said he would pay to buy a bike for me. After dinner, we took a photo before the plaza and Mr Li drove away. While we were waiting for our car, I looked around and saw that we were beside SHERATON HOTEL. I had lived behind SHERATON HOTEL in XI’an during the May Day holiday in 2005 when I traveled there. I took a few photos with my mobile phones and found they couldn’t be displayed. Later when I got home and found the virus hid the file and after I changed its properties, they could be displayed. SLAMET said emotionally that people there(in Surabaya) were fashionable and few women were wearing towels and few men were wearing hats, so he took off his hat.

I asked SLAMET if i could see my friend and he said no problem. So i contacted CMK and told him that we would go to their school. He sent us the name of the school and told us it was near the municipal government, only a few minutes’ drive. We drove 20 minutes and came to a school: SMA NEGARY 5 SURABAYA(National 5th High School of Surabaya). I sent a message, asking him if it was his school, he relied yes. We parked our car inside the school and CMK phoned and found us. He took us to the headmaster’s office. I had known the headmaster in Jakarta. This time Syamsul came with the three of us. The headmaster treated us warmly. After introducing to each other, CMK showed me around his school, while the other three talking with the headmaster. As CMK told me before, it was a national high school, ranking front in Surabaya. I visited their teachers’ office, taking photos of CMK with his colleagues. In their office, men teachers and women teachers were together and their clothes were at will. On that day, they would have a parent-teacher meeting, so there were lots of parents at school. CMK took me to see every corner of the school, but i failed to see the advanced multimedia room(locked). But i guessed in it, there were computers and projectors, and so on, just like my school in my home country. Back to the headmaster’s office, they served us with lunch. I told them that i had had it. But as the other people who came with me were not there, i ate again. When eating something like lemon, I brought laughingstock to them. That thing should be made juice and put it in the soup, but i ate the fruit directly. SLAMET laughed at this quite a few times, later on. Finishing eating, we said goodbye to the headmaster and CMK, going on our way home. It seemed that the situation for CMK was good and he lived in the headmaster’s house. There were servants in the headmaster’s home, he needn’t cook and even needn’t wash clothes. And there were Internet facilities, he went to school in the headmaster’s car. But there were shortcomings, he felt. He didn’t get salary and he couldn’t go around freely.   

Surabaya was large. The prosperity degree could rival to Large and medium-sized cities in China, so to speak. There were lots of pedestrians, cars and motorcycles. The air was much polluted. In Surabaya I found there was a branch of Industrial Bank of China.

As we came out of National 5th High School of Surabaya, we first went to a place to get posters with “BNKU”on. We asked them what was that, they said that the headmaster was interested in election. It’s understandable that there was one on the car and one on the door of my neighbour. When we came out waiting for the car, SLAMET made a joke on me, saying how i could spend one year? Better find another one. I answered:it’s forbidden. After laughing, i suggested that i would host them in the evening in Probolinggo. They said it was unnecessary and the school would pay for all these cost. I didn’t persist. Then we went shopping in ROYAL PLAZA. READ ONE asked me if i could remember this place. It turned out to be the place when the headmaster took me to buy the dictionary when we flew from Jakarta. I bought the map of Surabaya, the map of Indonesia,both in Indonesian.later i found they were not of much use. What i wanted to buy was a map of Probolinggo, but there was not. I thought when i lost my way, i could show people the map and they could tell me the way.i also bought a pocket Indonesian-Chinese and Chinese-Indonesian dictionary for 25,000RP. I found i should not buy the heavy Chinese-Indonesian dictionary in Beijing.   

ZWY sent a message, asking about going to the Immigration Office. I told him to do it in Malang. I also told him about CMK and that my phone could not call other volunteers, only sending messages. He told me to change the card.

Out of the plaza, the others may have gone eating and we waited there for over one hour. I murmured why not plan well in advance? During that hour, we had to watch the traffic. The cars were many and lot of them were Germany-made or Japan-made. There were lots of motorcycles and they went very fast. The others were buses. People could get on or off the minibuses at will, just like the vans in previous China, but these minibuses were a little bigger.

After our car came,we got in and drove back. The driver played music which i found was similar to the tone i listened when i first came to East Java. But my feelings were better than that night. Though i had not had the thing done, i had seen CMK, looked around Surabaya and felt relaxed. In the roadside restaurant, we had supper. They used their hands, i tried but finally i used forks and spoons.

On the way back, something dangerous happened. As the driver drove a whole day and felt tired, he let another teacher drive the car. But when the teacher drove, i felt nervous. On the whole way, i had  the safety belt fastened. Not to my surprise, after a while, he overtook a car, another car was coming and our teacher changed the lane back and scratched the following car. He stopped at the roadside and found there was sign of impact. The driver murmured and got a little angry.but i didn’t know what he was murmuring about. The driver had to drive himself and we got home at over 9 pm.

On the way, SLAMET talked with me about China’s economic growth and the Chinese in Indonesia. But it was stopped by the head of the executive office.