Celebrate Harlequin's Diamond Anniversary!
Kimberly Lang hid romance novels behind her textbooks starting in junior high, and even a master’s program in English couldn’t break the obsession with dashing heroes and Happily Ever After. A ballet dancer turned English teacher, Kimberly married an electrical engineer and turned her life into an ongoing episode of “When Dilbert Met Frasier.” She and her Darling Geek live in beautiful North Alabama with their one Amazing Child—who, unfortunately, shows an aptitude to sports.
Kimberly is a founding member of The Writing Playground, a website for aspiring authors, and she blogs with her Playfriends there every Tuesday.
In my workplace, besides being assigned to teach English and Bahasa Indonesia, I am also responsible to watch students during ‘library’ sessions. Every student is assigned to read one book—minimally 100 pages for grade 7, 150 pages for grades 8 and 9—every one term. After finishing reading one book, they are to write ‘book review’. In writing the book review, I must check whether they write good English sentences or not. If not, I will return it and have them revise it.
The main reason why students have library sessions (two slots per week) is to help them improve their vocabulary and also skill in reading English books. As a language as well as literature teacher, I am of opinion that this reading assignment is also important to balance students’ left and right brain. Literature—a part of art—is essential to smoothen people’s soul, to be more humane.
I have read some articles related to some criticism addressed to schoolteachers—especially who teach Bahasa Indonesia subject—in some sites. Some complained because many teachers themselves do not like reading. Even in one article I read several months ago—sorry, I forgot to cite the site address—the writer stated that many Bahasa Indonesia teachers he interviewed had not read LASKAR PELANGI novel yet, one very famous novel by Andrea Hirata recently, moreover this novel portrayed the life of schoolchildren studying in a remote and poor school, but still they had very high spirit and enthusiasm to study. Isn’t it a very good example to boost students’ enthusiasm to go to school. Why did those teachers not read LASKAR PELANGI yet? Several reasons gathered were: they did not like reading; they were busy teaching (at school as well as had part time job outside to get more income) so that they could not spare their time to read; the price of books was expensive and teachers who got low salary could not afford to buy them.
For the first reason, it is indeed very shameful if teachers do not like reading. I have loved reading since I was a kid. Feeling unhappy with the fact cited by the writer in that article, I commented that not all teachers did not enjoy reading. Some did, including me.
For the second and the third reasons, I think they come from the same background: lack of sufficient income. When teachers get enough income, they do not need to have part time jobs, in order that they get enough spare time to read, to improve their knowledge and skill as well. For the third reason, schools can be of any help by providing books to be lent to teachers.
I think my educational background has made me a bit different from those teachers interviewed by the writer of the article. I did not graduate from Teachers’ College. Instead, I graduated from Faculty of Letters, especially English Department, and American Studies, with literature interest. When teaching Bahasa Indonesia in my workplace, I just need to adjust the material: from American literary works (or any other work written in English), to any literary works written by Indonesian, in Bahasa Indonesia.
Talking about educational background, this is also a very crucial issue. Many schools prefer having teachers graduating from Teachers’ College. They are assumed to be supplied with teaching techniques and methods. On the other hand, people graduating from other than Teachers’ College only get science and knowledge, minus teaching techniques/methods. As a result, they are not considered to be capable to teach, or to transfer their knowledge to students.
When it comes to teaching literature at high schools, it is understandable when teachers teaching literature (who graduated from Teachers’ College) do not really master anything related to literature, they even do not enjoy reading any piece of literature. When they themselves do not enjoy reading it, they do not know how to make their students enjoy it either. How can they make their students enjoy studying literature and make them realize that studying literature is as fun and important as studying any other exact subjects, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology?
Going back to my job—assigning students to read and ask them to write reviews—I can conclude that many students from grades 7 and 8 enjoy this assignment. However, only a few grade 9 students who enjoy it. It seems to me that their concentration is more absorbed by the National Examination they will face a few months again.
PT56 21.21 250109
I remember one day during my college days, a male senior lecturer of mine protested the portrayal of ‘modern’ women in many soap operas in television (Indonesians call them ‘sinetrons’). ‘Modern’ women were portrayed as women who left behind the stereotypical characteristics of ‘traditional’ ones, such as submissive, soft-spoken, feminine, weak, motherly, etc. To my disappointment, he also opined that that kind of portrayal of women was triggered by feminist movement; feminist movement seemed to be the scapegoat that eventually resulted in women’s hatred to anything feminine.
Since I hardly ever watched sinetrons on television, I did not have any idea what kind of portrayal he meant. Therefore, I did not debate my lecturer at that time although I was strongly convinced it was not merely because of feminist movement.
Years passed by.
Today I remembered it again, especially when reading one article in a scientific journal ANTROPOLOGI INDONESIA vol. 30, No. 1, 2006; the title of the article is “Menjadi Perempuan di dalam Sinetron: Kekinian Femininitas” (“Becoming women in Sinetrons: the recent femininity”) by Widjajanti Mulyono Santoso. This article was resulted from her research based on one sinetron played on television in 2004; the title was “Inikah Rasanya”.
What kinds of women were portrayed in “Inikah Rasanya”?
First, a woman who has a crush on a man. Since feminist movement believed that women also had right to express their feeling to men earlier (until now I still find many men and women who find it embarrassing and unfeminine for women to ‘shoot’ men first), it was okay then for a woman to do it. However, in this sinetron, Rena, one female character was portrayed very aggressive so that she made the boy whom she had crush on feel insecure and threatened. She was highly emotional and temperamental.
Second, a single mother/woman who was illogically emotional. Jason’s mother as well as Nadia’s aunt was portrayed as a woman who had psychological problems since none of them had a spouse. Having these problems made them treat their kid or niece cruelly. In fact this is not far from the portrayal of single women—especially those who have reached certain age brackets—in patriarchal society. Since people adore marriage and consider only in marriage both men and women will achieve ultimate happiness, they—especially women—are accused of feeling insecure when they are single. Therefore, they will do anything to cut the insecure feeling, even sometimes by grabbing any guy. Oftentimes, to express their depression due to the society’s insecure accusation to them, they do aggressive things to people close to them, such as kids and nieces. Feminist movement teaching women to be more expressive seemed to be the best media (as a scapegoat): because of it Jason’s mother and Nadia’s aunt became uncontrollably aggressive.
Third, a female teacher who was irrationally annoying and irritating. Women with capabilities are considered unconventional in patriarchal society. Power that (female) teachers usually have in front of their students is a weird thing. This resulted in the students’ laughter at their female teachers. Mostly female teachers are also illustrated as old maid that have mental problems because of no spouse. Worse, they are also portrayed physically unaccepted: their voice is ridiculously high-pitched, wearing thick glasses, stiff uniform, unfriendly facial expression.
I am of opinion that the visualization of three women above is not only in “Inikah Rasanya”. Many other sinetrons portray similar characteristics of women like that. Realizing that many scriptwriters are male, I concluded that there was a very wrong deviant of feminist movement on men’s head. Or I can also say that men (although not all) felt threatened by feminist movement so that they portrayed very cruel images of women who were independent. What kind of men blaming feminist movement (READ => movement for equality between men and women)? They are men who feel confident before women ONLY when women are weak, stupid or uneducated, submissive, controllable.
What did they expect? Society will stop feminist movement because it will make women heartless, monsters, unfeminine, against natural law for women, etc.
PT56 22.33 240109
The ladies at The Writing Playground have donated some items which any reader or author would appreciate. For more info here.
Stop over at Dearauthor.com or Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for a chance to win a camcorder and Jill Shavis latest release. Smart Bitches and on Dear Author
How to Give
Do You Want To Share The Love? Here’s how you can participate right now:
1. Get a box.
2. Start filling it with romance novels you’ve read, but don’t imagine re-reading.
3. Send the box to one of the following locations or check back here to see if we’ll be doing a collection in your area. Your donation will be given to one of the organizations listed on our
Receive The Love list.
Share The Love
c/o Maya Rodale
511 Avenue of The Americas, #90
New York, NY 10011-8436
(212) 924-4002
- - - - - - - - - -
Share the Love
c/o Ann Bleakley
P.O. BOX 19313
Minneapolis, MN 55419-0313
612-823-2726
We’ve checked out your shipping options, and are of the opinion that USPS parcel post is the best. If you want to ship UPS, be sure to include the phone number on the label.
The fine print: Share The Love, Inc. is a tax-exempt organization described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and has an applied for recognition of its exemption with the Internal Revenue Service.
Posted on December 31, 2008
Filed Under Blogger Indonesia, Indonesia, blogging
The essence of blogging, as I put it as a jargon in my Bahasa Indonesia blog, is to culturalize the tradition of writing and reading. Many Indonesians, like those who are from developing or underdeveloped nation, don’t have the habit of writing and reading. They talk a lot. Write and read less. And that’s why, some foreign academicians who come to Indonesia were a bit shocked to find out the lack of reading and writing habit among Indonesians even within the so-called middle class family. The lack of reading naturally would end up in the lack of blog content “charisma”.
There are a few exception, however. Those who can adopt a new positive tradition of modernity–in reading a lot. As a result they write many good articles, creating nice and unique posts and even making an enlightening comments in other blogs.
That’s one reason among others why I’d like to dedicate this year’s Top Ten Blogger Indonesia 2008 specifically to those who consistently make a good content, and no less important, write relatively regularly. A content which is unique and enlightening. By so doing I hope what they have done will be emulated by others especially those bloggers who come later. It’s also my own way to appreciate and encourage those who passionately write good blog articles without worrying or thinking about traffics. A good content blog may not make a big traffic, and thus, a big impact in a short term, but certainly they will in a long shot.
Blogs has grown rapidly in Indonesia. Ten or even hundreds of blogs are born everyday. They start blogging for various reasons. Either way they are an asset to make the tradition of writing and reading blossom in the unlikely place like Indonesia in which the middle class hobby and dream is nothing but to have a nice house, fancy cars and the collection of Chinese old ceramic instead of books.
Last but not the least, there are so many good blogs with good content. It’s a pity that I can pick only ten. It should not be understood, therefore, that the others ten are less good. The links in the bloggers’ name will direct you to the Blogger Indonesia of the Week review of a particular blogger from which you will find the blogger’s URL.
***
The Top Ten Blogger Indonesia 2008
3. Rima Fauzi
5. Agni Amorita
7. Mulya Amri
10. Dedi W. Sanusi
Happy New Year 2009 Everyone! Nothing like feeling anew and start afresh all the time! 
Are you an author with a January 2009 release (this includes anyone who was released in late December as well). Tell the readers all about it. Include a blurb! an excerpt link! a buy link! anything that you think will help a reader be a) interested in your work and b) buy it.Dearauthor.com
The rules for Author Promo Night Open Thread are as follows:
The book has to be released in that month (i.e., anything released during the last week of April would be a May release)
You can post for yourself or you can have a friend post for you if the idea of posting about your book paralyzes you .
No self published authors unless you write romance. No, I am not a POD hater, I am just thinking about the manageability of the thread.
Think about the readership. I.e., does your non fiction book about psoriasis really fit?
This one is more of a guideline than a rule, but be smart about your comment because if it is just a link to your website and the title of your book, I doubt you are going to get any interest.
DA reserves the right to delete the post if it promotes objectionable content (i.e., no daddy/daughter incest recommends are going to be allowed. Sorry.)
That’s it. Post away.
