Root and Home

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I was born in Semarang and grew up for the first 26 years of my life in Bandung, in a house in Oranjeplein or to be precise, Riau street number 112. The new name of the street is LLRE Martadinata. After 26 years I moved to several places either in Indonesia or outside Indonesia until I reached my current coordinate in Amsterdam. If I think of my root in term of place then I will always think of that house in Riau street. I have stronger memories of my childhood there than other period of my life. If I could recall what a home was, it would be also that same house.

When Dian and I moved to the Netherlands in 2005, the hardest decision I had to take was not about myself but the realization about root and home for Dian. I realized that if Dian grows up and lives in the Netherlands, it would be her root and home with all their consequences : language, norm, value, lifestyle, way of living, way of thinking, culture, habits. To some degree naturally she will receive Indonesian influence from me as her mother but in the years to come she will counts where she grows up as her root and home. At least in term of place. She is born in Indonesia but she lives too short there to have memories. Similar to my experience with Semarang, I have barely memories about Semarang.

At the end I realized that nothing wrong for Dian (or any other children) of being someone with different root and home than her mother. Any root is fine, any culture is equal, any language is fascinating, and as the lyrics of 'Ebony and Ivory' said, "We all know that people are the same where ever we go."

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