When the phrase “Human Being” is mentioned, what comes into your mind? Perhaps you would say “social life”, “interaction”, “civilization”, “networking”, “humanity”?

True. All these things are just unavoidable in human daily life. We are social creatures, we will always deal with one another, we will always interact with the others close to our place, area, neighborhood, friends and teachers at schools or colleges, other employees at working places, and so on, and even on Internet … we also interact with the others who are using the same sites we browse. An online forum is the best example.

During our interaction between us and the others, sometimes we find happy situations, sometimes we find sad situations, or there would be something that makes us feel upset, get mad, or laugh out loud. Some people find the interaction is quite easy for them, but the others find it is just difficult to interact with some people. Even the interaction itself sometimes brings different outcome for different people:

• A is happy with that interaction
• B is skeptical
• C is trying to leave the place as soon as possible
• D is trying the best to make everyone happy
• E is just frustrated with the interaction.

How come?

Well. You can’t always get what you want. That’s the point I want to show. And those who meet worse situation would have some conflicts arise between them.

Even some people just feel that the small interaction within their core family will bring them trouble, or the least bad situation for them is … getting upset and small conflicts happening.

I know a friend who is still living with her parents. The only reason she still lives with them is because she just feels she cannot leave her parents like that. Her staying versus leaving has also become a dilemma. It has been ‘hard’ to deal with. It is her parents’ house. Actually she didn’t want to deal with her parents’ things, and for example when we mentioned about “kitchen”, you would still see resentment on her face. This is just a small example, because actually she has a lot of trouble with the parents, however, so far she still tries to handle the situation, at least for the sake of this family’s peace.

It started from the different characteristic between her and her mother. And the kitchen was only one of the small examples of how the resentment will pile up and become a hill of bitterness. So if we ask her where is the worst place within her house, or the most part she hates within the house, she would certainly say “The kitchen”.

Maybe half of you are wondering, what kind of kitchen that has brought such a trouble between her and her mother? I know some mothers and daughters might share the kitchen happily and without any problem, however it doesn’t happen between these two. It seems like this friend can’t get what she wants from her mother and her mother can’t get what she wants from this daughter either, and in this example, something related to the kitchen. There are other things, but it would be a very long story to tell you, so let’s just mention the kitchen.

My friend loves dry kitchen, and she has always tried to keep all the utensils, every dishes, pan, spoons, forks, etc. already dry before she stores them back into the storing cabinets, but her mother will just store all these things without even bothering about whether these things are still wet or already dry. So perhaps you can imagine when every parts within the cabinets are ‘contaminated’ with the remaining waters from the plates or whatever the mother put in the cupboard back then. Everything was a mess.

And not to mention, most of the cabinets were made from woods, with these things just being placed like that. The cabinets will not last for a long time, for sure.

Also, the stain of the remaining waters, left on some utensils made from metal. Sometimes my friend found a spoon still having the stain of detergent, already dry, within the spoon cabinet. And then, she would be the person who washed the spoon * again *. So what’s the point of the mother’s previous cleaning towards this spoon back then?

And, some certain living creatures will just love the wet area. So mostly, when the daughter just didn’t notice that the wet dishes were stored within the cabinets, later she would find some disgusting creatures were staying or were just running here and there within the storing area. So you can imagine the conflict that later arose between these mother and daughter? After all, they shared the same kitchen for cooking; they shared the same kitchen utensils for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the whole members of the family.

I forgot to mention that my friend took the house cleaning task within the house. So she would be the one who always found the disgusting creatures playing in the hidden area, which was supposed to be clean and hygienic, because all the things were for cooking or placing the foods. Later, we would have the situations when she found herself rushing to wash the dishes herself before her mother did it. She said “I had better become the one who washes all these things and stores it for myself. I can’t stand finding all the mess of these jerks. This is the kitchen, not the toilet. It stenches, you know?”

I can’t blame the mother’s laziness, perhaps also her arrogance, since she was the owner of the kitchen so she couldn’t have someone else complaining about her kitchen, even from her own daughter (or perhaps also from the father at some occasion). After all, she was the mistress within the house and my friend was the daughter. But I can’t blame the daughter, because it seems like her mother had always taken her for granted, never paid attention to her warning, and I wonder if this mother really did what her daughter had often suspected, toying with her daughter, probably the mother just tried to kick her out of their house?

“If it is true, then that’s good news,” my friend said, laughing.

At least, the daughter had ever told all these things to her mother, more than twice, even more than five times and she complained to me, that she had been too tired of speaking the same thing again and again to her mother. And then the conflicts arose.

That’s just a small example, that in life, we can’t always get what we want. Sometimes some people still try to tolerate the others, but when they are no longer able to tolerate the situation or the behavior, what should be done? Some peace talk might work for some people, but it doesn’t work for the others.

Don’t ask the question: “where’s the father?” towards this friend. The father already has more things to deal with, so the daughter will just leave these things between her and her mother. So, hmm, I just keep hoping that she would be able to deal with the situation better.

I ever offered an advice to her, telling her that she might to move out of the house and start living her own life. Well, she told me that she actually had the plan but she still couldn’t do it yet. She said that she couldn’t leave her parents that way until the family’s life got better, when the financial part would no longer be a problem for the parents. In fact, since the high school age she had been thinking of leaving the family, walking on her own paths alone (yes, she chose the path of single hood), and joining some voluntary jobs when she really leaves the family one day.

And what a coincidence about voluntaries, I believe. So I told her, “Don’t you think that when you become a volunteer one day, you will meet worse ladies than your Mom?” She was pondering for a while, and then she said, “Could be.”

“So what’s the point of getting upset with your Mom nowadays? You say you want to go volunteering in religious mission, if you have not been able to manage your emotion with your current situation and this is your own Mom, do you think you will have better reaction towards the strangers in your voluntary jobs?” I asked her.

No, I didn’t say that she was at the wrong side, that’s normal concerning the emotional side of a human being, and I knew her valid points somehow. However, I just wanted to remind her own future ‘chosen path’, that’s why I asked her that question.

“Perhaps this is a test from The One Above to prove whether you will really qualify for the mission.” I added, “I think that once you have passed the test, your parents will meet the better financial situations you have always prayed for them, and that’s when you finally can make your own ‘flight’. At that time, nobody will blame you for leaving them then.”

She only nodded back then, no more words, and I just left it for her own consideration. I think I would still admire this person; she had planned something I’m sure very few people would still do for the parents.

She said that she was still working hard these days for her parents’ future. She has decided that when the day finally arrives, she would leave all her belongings and treasures, including the money she has earned, leave all these things for her parents, and make her first step to join the missions. It was hard to believe, indeed. Most parents are the ones who would leave heritage for their kids, but … has the world been turned upside-down for her life?

I told her, “Your parents might not need that, what would be left for yourself?”

But she said, “I can live on my own. I can survive. You said that my parents worried about me so much, but you all just never know. Actually I am the one who should worry about them. I had ever died and came back to this life again by The Grace, that’s why I am still here now, and I know how life exactly would work for me. But my parents don’t know any kind of these things, they never entered the phase of between life-and-death, they never believed it, so they would never understand my choice.”

“I think that most people would just never understand. I know my parents will find hard times to deal with my leaving. But like you said, we can’t always get what we want. Now I am inside the situation, and next time, it will be my parents’ turn.” she said again.

“To be or not to be … that is the question,” I replied, “I guess your parents are even thinking that they already have it now.”

My friend chuckled.

“You can’t always get what you want,” she said back, “the question is … how would you react towards this situation? Blame it? Rant? I have found that’s not a wise decision.”

Yeah, I think it is a very valid point. If we can always get everything we want, then what’s the point of the “NO” word?

Well, yes. That’s what had happened back then.

I was around a swimming pool when I noticed this little kid. I have to admit that I didn’t really notice her as she was just a common little girl playing with her peers in the water, and I was waiting for someone else and couldn’t stand the boredom of waiting and then I turned my attention around, and noticed some cheerful little kids playing with waters.

There was nothing special because I had seen this excitement everytime I went to the pool area. But that day was exceptional when that kid suddenly stopped laughing and paid attention to something.

And my eyes also caught something in the swimming pool near them. Some movement and it seemed like some certain insect had fallen down to the water and struggled to survive to keep on the surface.

That little kid, ignored her peers suddenly and swam towards the small living thing that still struggled for life.

And I would never forget that day, when I watched this little kid cupped her hand under the water and lifted the poor little insect up and put it to a dry area at the side of the swimming pool. I could hear her peers were mocking: “Hey, it’s just an insect, oh, come on, do you really need to save it?”

“Yes,” she said, “It has a life too.”

“It’s just an insect. Who cares if it will still be alive or dead?” the other said.

“Well, at least I care,” she said. And I could also hear the exclamation of disagreement from her peers before she continued her words.

And then she continued, “Just think about myself, back then when I wasn’t able to swim, I got trouble in the water, and nobody noticed that I needed help at that time. If Papa didn’t come to rescue me, I would have ended up like that insect would have, if I listened to your words to ignore the insect.”

I think I noticed the abrupt silence among the kids, and even some grown ups were watching.

Well, there was such a tension between them, before the insect started its first fly after its ‘near death experience’. And I have to admit that somehow I was grateful that the kid had been there when it was struggling for survival from the water. It seemed like The Great One Above There had appointed this kid to be the insect’s savior.

I saw the little girl smiling as she watched the insect finally made its flight. I just couldn’t keep myself from smiling too …

I have to admit, I love animals but not insects. However, that day I found a lesson of life from a little girl. I learned that whatever you called something as, as long as he / she / it had the life, it was still worth to save them.

Not only plants, not only insects, not only animals, not only the grown ups that already can think or talk or respond you, not only the children who can shout back at you …

The little girl surely had voiced out the multi-million lives who could never voice out for themselves. Those that were abandoned till the end of their breath, a lot of them were even murdered in silence, by those who didn’t want to admit that they murdered. Both victims were the animals and a lot of little creatures whom were forsaken by humanity … in the name of the right and freedom of the same humanity.

To whom it may concern, please think about it. Even a little kid know the value of “worthless” creature’s life. Don’t you think that a baby is worth more than insect?

Or do you think that both of this girl and the insect had chosen to fall into the water? Or … do you even think that a baby has chosen to come to a womb belongs to someone who would abort them?

This is a lesson of life from a little kid. And she didn’t say anything about ‘having choice’ to save or to not save. She was talking about herself ‘caring about it’, which meant that she would have not cared about the insect and herself if she decided to let it die.

If she had decided to let the insect die when she knew this little creature needed help for survival, then it meant she implied that she wished her Papa should have never saved her out of the water either, and should have let her drown back then.

If she had done it … do you think that her Papa would wish … that back then he had never saved her out of the water and should have let her drown instead?

You judge it.

And to ponder …

• How have I lost my energy lately?

• Where have I been putting my attention lately?

• Have I been putting my focus on useful things or useless ones?

• Have I been focusing on peace or focusing on war?

• Are my conversations of anything leaving me feeling good, or feeling bad?

• Have I treated myself with unconditional love and compassion? Or have I even treated myself with critical thoughts?

• Have I spent most of my time with joy, or have I spent most of my time with being upset and yelling?

• Do I create positive connection with surrounding people, have I been opened and listening fully, or have I involved in bitter argumentation?

• Have I become overworked but feeling that this doesn’t even help me much?

• Have I really wanted this way of life? A life full with worries and thinking about how this world will become?

• A life full of tension and stress? Is it worth it?

Phew!

Rumors of wars, prices rising high, many people getting fired from their jobs, traffic jams, people getting more emotional everyday, strikes everywhere, some places have fighting all the time, riots in other places, some nations have famines, starvation, environmental crisis, moral crisis, economy crisis, everywhere never seems have peaceful atmosphere.

So much worries come into our life. How to survive within these situations of daily life?

I believe we need to focus and acknowledge the times when we had better chosen peace over conflict. We need to focus and acknowledge when we experience peace internally and in our external world. We need to move our focus away from the stress, from the triggers of emotional distress. The life still has the positive over the negative.

We need positive filling. We need to be restored. But how to become positive in the midst of this negative filling world?

We need to make peace with ourselves. To experience peace ourselves, we need to notice each act of peace, no matter how small it is. When our inner feels the sense of peace, we will experience clear thinking, the absorbed feeling of the internal peace will give good impact to our mind, our way of thinking and act will reflect the inner peace and the actions will influence the whole part in our life.

So the conclusion is, if we are going to experience the peace, we have to start with ourselves and BE the first person(s) that have peace.

It could be just a small step, but would have a big impact in our life. Possibly by starting a new small activity, reorganizing the schedule, do the same thing but do it the new way, spare some times with new community, have a short vacation, meet new people, perhaps also donate to a charity, play with children, have a fun walk with friends or even pets. There are so much things that may seem useless for some people, but these can refresh our minds again, bring refreshment into our life again, after so much tension comes into our daily life.

Making Peace with Ourselves. We need it badly. We need to drive the positive energy back into our inner selves. We need to create a clear vision of what we want, start experiencing it internally, and bring it into the real act.

Stress, anger, fear, pain, resentment, everything. All of these things will never stop coming into our surroundings. The important thing is about how we react towards these tensions. That’s why we need a different way, a different act.

It’s not about when the tensions stop coming into our lives. It is about how we react towards these things.

We have to stop beating ourselves. Enough with the tensions that have been coming into our daily lives.

It’s time to make peace with ourselves.

“Sister, how is an ideal life, according to you?” she asked.

What a question! I was struck dumb. This question suddenly brought another question in my mind: “Yeah, how is an ideal life, have I lived it today?”

How is an ideal life like … according to you all?

Each person will have different opinion, different hope, different dream, and will give different answer. For some people who feel unsatisfied with their financial lives, would say that a life with financial freedom is an ideal life. Some others who encounter difficulties with their jobs, would say that getting a better job is a way to live a better life thus to achieve an ideal life. Some people would complain about this, some people would complain about that, which implied their points of view about how an ideal life would be … according to them.

• The education fees are getting more and more expensive. I wonder how to solve this problem, my kids are still in their early primary schools. I wish I had better financial solver for this family.

• I need a better house, but I can’t afford it right now.

• If only the boss paid me three times higher than my current salary …

• I wish I could have a better life than today. I love my current working field but I wish I worked for a better company.

• I’m working at the wrong field and the good position was taken, if only I realized it sooner before I took this job.

• The job isn’t promising, I need a wage increase but I’ve been overworking. I need to solve this or I will never have time for my family anymore.

Rich people also have their own complaints, which imply their points of view about an ideal life. “What if …” and more “what if …” thoughts also haunt their lives. Some wealthy people have been feeling these ways:

• I have so much money now, what if one day I lose them all? Where and how should I save these money?

• I just knew this person and he / she is just too friendly. Does he / she have pure intention of becoming a friend, or is it because I have a lot of money?

• I wonder if my old friends would have no hidden intention behind their approach after I become richer nowadays. Their inner ones might have hidden behind masks now. I can’t really trust them any longer.

• My old friend’s son is interested in my daughter. Does he really love my daughter or is this just a trick used by his father to have a part in my business?

• I’m rich, but I still feel lack of something … what is that? Why?

• I have worked all the time for these money, but now I feel that all these money are useless, they never brought happiness for me. Was it worth it?

Even kids have their own complaint about life.

• Mom and Dad have been pushing me too much. I wish I didn’t have to get high ranks in school.

• The neighbor kids are making fun of me. I wish I were as popular as my older sister.

• Why Mom has always scolded me just because I am not as good as my brother?

• Why Dad always told me to never cry? Are boys not allowed to cry?

• I wish Momma never compared me with my cousins. I hate that.

• I wish we never moved into this area. I lost a lot of old friends since we moved, I miss them and I know nobody in this area.

Teenagers and adolescence do have their complaint about life too.

• I hate my current appearance. I wish I were as beautiful as her so he would also notice me.

• My academic records are getting worse. Will I make it to the favorite university?

• I wish I could leave this house, I’m not getting well with my parents nowadays. Pa and Ma have always told me to never do this or do that and told me that I had to do this or do that. When will they allow me to do everything on my own?

• Should I give up joining my friends and accept myself being treated as an outsider by them? They are actually nice but sometimes I just can’t stand following their lifestyles because I don’t feel that it is right.

And the list still goes on with the rests. There are unsettled things coming in life, the fear, the rejection, feeling unsatisfied, lack of freedom, not being able to achieve certain targets, not having what other people have, conflicts with the others, and the list goes on about “if only … then my life would be complete.” Everybody is seeking for an ideal life.

So what is an ideal life like? On the one hand, some people who feel lack of what the others have, they probably imagine how ideal life would become if they had what they don’t have now. On the other hand, for those who have what these people wish they had, also have their own complaint that life is still not ideal for them.

Seems like everybody doesn’t have ideal life, huh? A lot of people would see the others have lived ideally, but in fact, those other people might also have their complaint about their current lives.

So the question of the young fellow “how is an ideal life, according to you?” would get different answers by different people. Perhaps, this question would even get different answers by the same person in different situations. We probably don’t feel the need of this or that in current situation, but when we realize that we have the lack of it, we start to think that by having the lack of that thing, our current life is no longer ideal.

But life, to be ideal or not to be ideal, is the ideal of life really to be measured that way?

During this life, many people have wished and hoped for many things, especially when they face many kind of situations. There are several conclusion of people’s hopes and wishes in general:

• I wish I had been able to live without becoming dependent on other people in a way or another. A freedom. This includes financially, materially, mentally, emotionally, physically, etc.

• I know the need to manage myself and solve my problems more quickly than ever. Advices from the others are welcome, but I have the need to take decision on my own, not by dictation.

• I know I can’t satisfy everyone but I want to be able to interact with other people well, and it won’t be about being popular or accepted by everyone, but it is about how to deal with different kinds of people and personalities and about how to cope with their demands and how to say “No” to their demands sometimes.

• I would be able to stand current situation and to survive, no matter how hard it is, without losing my manner and temper.

• I would still be able to have a desirable environment for my own, even when I am not in the middle of a good one, I wish I could still create a good one for my own sake and for anybody else, if possible.

• Life is not only about work, money, foods, house, style and socialization. Life is about living it fully myself. Having a good environment with other living creatures is also a need. The matter is how to deal with them and how to get the good and healthy environment that would include the animals, the trees and plants, the ecosystem, the Earth.

• If only my current life could go on without complaining, without conflict, and everyone can get benefits by the outcome of my life and vice-versa.

Yes, that’s a conclusion I got so far about an ideal life for some people in general, and to shorten words “an ideal life” for me would be:

• a responsible life without demanding too much each other
• a life with the ability to cope with difficult things, conflicts and situations
• a life without fear, without the feeling of being insecure
• a life where I stop complaining for what I have been lack of, and being content with what I have had
• a life without any bondage of each others’ dependencies
• a simple life, without oppression from the others, where I still have my own private space but not becoming desolate
• and a life where I know that this is the Earth where I enjoy my living on, with the ecosystem and the environment.

That’s what I call as an ideal life and honestly, I’m still on my way of achieving this way of living by accepting the life as it is and accepting the fact that life is not always like what we have often pictured in our mind.

How about you?

Quoted from www.theage.com.au:

Record keeping is a mess in Indonesia in the best of times. There’s little computerisation. Even when there is, there’s often basic confusion about how to record people’s names. There’s no standard system of names across Indonesia. Many Indonesians have just one name and no surname. Many have aliases.

Many, might be an understatement. Half population of Indonesians might be giving you a better description of how messed the naming by the parents back then. Okay, some Indonesian who have surnames might protest me right now. But don’t forget, those people have already had this naming convention from their forefathers, like those with surnames have from their forefathers too. There are, of course, half others that do have surnames because their (clans / tribes) forefathers passed to them time by time, generation by generation.

And another quote, from en.allexperts.com:

Honestly, I’ve never heard this used as a first name anywhere in Indonesia, and I’ve heard some very confusing ones in my time here. In addition, people here can have several given names but no surname. Then again, some have both.

True. You can have name like “Mario Ananda” aka “Ahai” aka “Boy” here, or any full name like “Sekar Dewi”, or “Sarah Ayu Sari” (all of them are combination of first names or first name and middle name, given names, still without any surname), or you can even have, for example, “Dono Sukamto Ignanto” as your full name (Sukamto and Ignanto are both surnames, might be a combination of both parents’ surnames), as long as it was how your parents named you.

Some Indonesian people might protest the claiming about “many” Indonesian people without surname, they might tell you otherwise. But how they had come to this conclusion, I would try to explain it later, I will continue talking about their experiences first.

I heard so many times about those people (with no surname) getting trouble in International bureaucracy, on the other hand, bureaucracy in Indonesia doesn’t require parents giving surname to their children. Moreover if the parents themselves don’t have surname, what surname they should give to their children? But somehow, this is totally a mess, indeed, because when these people have to go abroad, the passport would require on having surnames or mostly they would not be able to apply for a passport. Sad but it was true. I don’t know about current situation for the passport applying, but many friends in Indonesia who once had no surname, later could go study abroad. How they finally did it? Maybe they got their name changed legally. I don’t know. I will ask my friends about it one day.

Anyway, from the discussion of these people in “Sarapan Ekonomi” blog, the newer regulations practically banned single name. According to one visitor of the blog, in most places in Indonesia (at least big cities) you can’t have a single name when you register your baby names. Also when you want to apply for new passport (this happened to a colleague of the blog visitor), so then many MUST change to have two names - at least a family names.

Hmm, okay, that explains a lot about how the phone books are getting more “more than single word” named people nowadays. Anyway, that’s another story.

So how come there have been those being born without being given any surname? Some writers might have been implying that these Indonesian people are not well educated but this is a very subjective point of view, and I need to stress the point that this case has no relation with any educational level. Indonesia is a multicultural country, and talking about multicultural, there are patrilineal (some tribes like Batak, Chinese), matrilineal (like Padang) do have family name, but there are also a lot of tribes that are neither patrilineal nor matrilineal (to tell you the truth, some Chinese-Indonesian are also part of this category), and mostly these ones didn’t attach their family names into their formal names.

And don’t assume that only Indonesian have this exceptional case. Take a look at this one:

“The use of family names varies among cultures. In particular, Icelanders, Tibetans, Burmese, and Javanese often do not use a family name.”
(from Wikipedia)

Please don’t mistake Javanese for Japanese. Javanese are the tribes in Java island, Indonesia. And Japanese, you know them, the people from Japan.

By the way, I was told by a Japanese e-pal back then, every Japanese citizen must have surname, even the abandoned babies would be given a common surname by the local administrative officers once they were found and delivered to any orphanage. However, their emperor and the whole members of the Japanese royalty have no surname.

Interesting.

One more confirmation here:

“The crown prince of Japan has no surname, nor does the emperor of the country. Royalty in Japan do not have surnames, but are differentiated in name from their predecessors entirely by their given names.”

Wikipedia has also stated:

The Japanese emperor and his families have no surname for historical reasons, only a given name such as Hirohito (??), which is rarely used in Japan: Japanese prefer to say “the Emperor” or “the Crown Prince”, out of respect and as a measure of politeness.

Anyway, what had also caught my interest about “having no surname” lately, was that one man out there even decided on his own to change his name into one word name, and became a sensation in his country:

http://yhwh.com/namechange.htm

http://yhwh.com/Gallery/NameLegal.htm

http://yhwh.com/DaveRossArticle.htm

and I don’t know if this man would have any difficulties in applying for the passport. I just found his page from another friend, now this is getting interesting when we are going back to talk about … joining any company program or affiliation … what I mean are the International ones.

Mostly the get paid programs or affiliations will require you to enter “last name” column in sign up page. For those people who don’t have surname, moreover when their name even only consists of one word name, this would get them into trouble.

For what entry they would have to put into the “last name” column? The dash (-) character? Now, this is getting serious when we are facing those person(s) in charge of the affiliations. For example like the PTR / PTC programs, for those of you who have ever participated in these kinds of get paid programs, you might remember their terms of not providing false personal information when you are joining their programs, or your account would be suspended without notice.

And for some “no surname” fellows, the dash (-) entry is surely unacceptable for the owners of these programs. If you can read or understand Indonesian language, in the forums or blog entries out there, you might ever find some complaining by Indonesian participants of these programs, who were … unfortunately, suspended from their International get paid programs because the PTR / PTC or any programs’ owners didn’t accept their explanation of “having no surname”. In fact, they entered ‘-’ character in the “last name” column in the profile information page, because they had no surname and their “last name” blank entry would be rejected when they signed up. But many of these “get paid programs” owners misunderstood them, and labeled them “giving false personal information”, and then decided to terminate these people’s participation in their programs.

Sounds awful and unfair huh? But that’s what happened to these people back then. Sure, it was not their fault to have “no surname”. Moreover, these people never thought of this case as out of ordinary, because these “having no surname” situations have been passed from generation to generation, if we are talking about the country Indonesia. Again, I need to stress the point that “giving children no surname” has no relation with any educational level.

And back to the suspension of these people’s participation in PTR / PTC; the PTR / PTC termination of their participation was just a small example of their experiences. Talking about applying for a passport, or dealing with International documentation, studying abroad, the bureaucracy which urges people having surname in many kind of official processing, I just can’t imagine how they have been through. Some would blame their own parents, but again, who can blame whom? That’s why those who learned these painful experiences urged the new parents to add “second word” first name when they named their children, so their children would have “second word” after their “first word” name.

Confused?

So, one day if you find any Indonesian whose name is more than one word, it doesn’t mean that the last name is surely their surname, it is probably still their first name, but they have two words first name.

One might also have more than two words name, for example “Raden Roro Ayu Sekar Dyah Chantika” … For your information, “Raden Roro” is a title for young lady from a certain royal line in Java island, but don’t assume that Chantika is her surname. All those words contain no surname. Surprised? Yeah, you might want to know better about their names usage then, just do some searching on Google and you’ll find more fascinating information about this nation’s people’s names.

Okay, so for those of you who have no surname, how to anticipate the situation like those participants of PTR / PTC programs who had ever been suspended because of the last name case? If you have already been suspended, and if it is still a short time after the suspension, I would suggest you to contact the owner of the programs and to give proofs of your single name, whatever you can use as a proof for them. Let them know that you are one of the proofs of those who were not given any surname by their parents. The owners of the programs might be asking your passport, but since you have no passport, tell them about it and you can ask them whether you can provide your current valid identity as a proof. Give explanation, just try to still be polite, don’t get emotional, I know having no surname often hurts for some of you but there are a lot of people out there just don’t get it, they might never know that such things exist. Anyway, don’t blame your parents, but let them learn about your experience for having no surname.

And for those who have not join any programs or business affiliation, but want to, my suggestion would be: Before signing up, contact the company of the programs / affiliations! Ask them about the procedure of signing up for those who do not have surname. I heard from some friends back then, that one of their friend (without surname) was misunderstood by Google adsense team when he signed up without giving surname entry. But later, Google team finally accepted his explanation and proof, and maybe there were also similar case with Indonesian adsense publishers-to-be back then, I heard that Google finally decided to merge the “first name” and “last name” columns as one “full name” column in their sign up page.

That’s what I heard from the Indonesian friends. I have never joined Google adsense program till today (January 9, 2008), so I wouldn’t know.

Finally, to satisfy your curiosity … if people are looking for someone whose name is only one word, just take one example … “Annie”? How would the people know that she is the “Annie” they are looking for?

If this “Annie” came from specific ethnic in Indonesia, for example … Chinese-Indonesian. Those who would seek her would just mention:

• “I’m looking for Annie whose Chinese name is ….” or
• “I’m looking for Annie whose father’s name is …” or
• “I’m looking for Annie who is usually called by the name ….” or
• “Oh … Annie. She is around … years old”, or
• “She is from class A, her friends and teachers usually call her … (then mention the nickname addressed to her by them)”, or
• the most obvious description: “She wears glasses, has ponytails, the skinny.”

Anything they can mention to help people find out which one they are looking for.

Last word for today:

for the parents and parents-to-be who also have similar case in their countries:
to avoid facing similar difficulties, next time, give your children surname or ’second word’ name when you are giving birth to them. Don’t let this painful experience come to your children. Learn from the others’ experiences. Again, we are not talking about who is guilty or not, we are talking about anticipation for your children towards any complicated bureaucracy.

Hope this article means something for you all. Have a good day!

PS: This article and the mentioning of some names are not intended to bring any disrespect towards those mentioned above. The reason I wrote this article was because I found so many “single name” people had been misunderstood by those who have never heard of “having no surname”. It wasn’t their fault for having no surname, by the way. I guess it’s needless to blame any parents, their parents have also learned it the harsh way. And so did my parents.