Dimas and Satrio's Excellent Adventure

[whynot]

I signed up for Racebending Revenge at dark_agenda because do you know how long I've been threatening to write Indonesian!Winchesters? Since March, apparently. And then I missed the July 2 posting deadline because I was off celebrating someone else's independence day. LOL. Better late than never! ALSO, the icon for my Dreamwidth post is pretty much the appropriatest in many ways. Someone randomly made a map of Indonesia the background for a Winchesters icon, and hey! Now it's time for Indochesters.

I have grand plans to write more in this 'verse, but here are two ficlets for now. 'Verse summary: They follow the trail of the thing that killed their mother from West Java, Indonesia to the USA. This is Satrio. This is Dimas. Handy-dandy Indonesian/Sundanese translations are here.

North for the Winter
Pre-series. One of the few times their father took them north in the wintertime. "Do we even have a word for snow?" 590 words.

Jejak Kaki
Early S1. Brothers on the road, rediscovering. The title means 'footprints'. "It's not that Satrio has anything against his mothertongue, but Dimas speaks it like he's making a point." Also 590 words.

And now for some cultural identity soapboxing!

Differing attitudes about multilingualism is something I brought up in my aforelinked post about Indonesian!Winchesters, wherein I realized that to racebend them into Indonesian immigrants, I had to languagebend as well. In the USA, the kind of multilingual exchanges that Dimas and Satrio have seem to be associated almost exclusively with immigrant/multicultural families. Sure, both Indonesia and the USA have their lingua franca (Indonesian and English respectively), but Indonesia also has hundreds of living languages, several of them older than the lingua franca itself. A lot of people grow up speaking the regional language(s) alongside Indonesian.

As an exercise, I tried writing SPN fic in Indonesian, and one of the things that struck me was how compelled I was to have Sam and Dean switch between Indonesian and Sundanese. It's pretty common in Indonesia to switch between Indonesian and the regional language, but I was weirded out writing it because Supernatural, like much of the media I consume, is adamantly monolingual. But it's like, if I were writing SPN fic in Indonesian (and not even with Indonesian!Winchesters! Even if I were still writing about white American Winchesters, but in Indonesian), I couldn't have it be 'authentic' or whatever without also having Sam and Dean slip into Sundanese occasionally. And that's just 'cos I'm from West Java. If I were from Sumatra, Sam and Dean might slip into Batak, and if they were from Bali, they might slip into Balinese. I love to complain about how stiff and formal Indonesian subtitles for movies and television are, but I guess it makes sense now that I think about it. If the subtitles were gonna include slang and authentic cadences, which region's slang and cadence would they go with?

I reckon one of the things about American bilingualism is that there seems to be this tendency to assume that the non-dominant language is imported. In the US, the Spanish comes from Latin America, the Mandarin from China, etc. In Indonesia, languages like Javanese and Sundanese have been around for over a thousand years. Indonesian is the new kid on the block, its current incarnation having branched off from Malaysian during colonial times and standardized under the self-interested eye of the Dutch. This is not to say that Sundanese and other regional languages have remained unchanged throughout the years, and neither is it to say that these languages coexist without hierarchy and threat, but that is a whole 'nother kettle of fish for another time. My point is that multilingualism is more the norm in Indonesia than it is in the USA, and I reckon part of it is because in Indonesia, it is not perceived to be a sign of foreignness.

So now throw English into the mix! My family and I talk pretty much like how Dimas and Satrio talk, except not about killing monsters. A sentence has at least two languages, and we conjugate interlingually. Convention seems to favor monolingual stories, and translation seems to assume Language1-to-Language2 transitions. For purposes of this project, however, I decided to keep Dimas and Satrio's dialogue multilingual. After all, if your default is Indonesian and English, how do you decide which parts of your identity to italicize?


I've also been wanting to write Indonesian!Pevensies since a year ago. That's still on the to-do list, as is Muslim Indonesian Jimmy Novak. I also just signed up for mundane_bingo and spnsupporting because I am a crazy person. I've yet to get my bingo card, but my spnsupporting characters are pretty predictable.

[originally posted at http://whynot.dreamwidth.org/27062.html | comments]

Comments

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Huh, wow. Fascinating.

How do Indonesian authors of published fiction deal with multilingualism? Are the regional tongues intelligible to people from other areas? What about local Indonesian TV shows (I'm thinking particularly narrative shows)- do they incorporate the regional languages, or stick to the lingua franca?

[lexhibition.livejournal.com]

I find that what little Bahasa Indonesia I know (I managed to puzzle out most of the bits from your fics! Go me!) goes a lot further in Malaysia than it does in Indonesia, especially outside the cities where my understanding of what people are saying to me drops from about 50% to maybe 10%. Because there's all those variations of the regional languages, too! I don't know much about Sundanese, but I remember being amazed by Javanese and how there's all different levels of formality in that that are separate again from Indonesian. I'm in awe of the ability to mix and match it all, really.

In conclusion: please write Muslim Indonesian Jimmy.

[anjali-organna.livejournal.com]

This is so interesting. I am super jealous because poor Anjali has failed to learn like three languages now, or at least failed to retain them after the schooling stopped. I have a couple friends who grew up speaking other languages, and it's fascinating because I almost never hear one of them speak in her native tongue to her parents, while the other one slips in and out of Mandarin and English much as you described above.

Obviously, the monolingualism in the US is also partially a factor of political considerations ("English as the National Language! We are scared of these Immigrants Taking Over!"). However, I just spent several months babysitting for a toddler, and it was astounding to me (in a good way) how many children's shows today are devoted to teaching another language (Dora the Explorer, Diego, there's another one that teaches Chinese).

Of course, there are parents, especially educated upper-middle class parents, tend to view learning languages as another way to get their kids ahead in life. But one can only hope that a by-product of this is that we end up producing a new generation of kids for whom multiculturalism isn't so Foreign and Scary after all.

[labseraph.livejournal.com]

Dimas yang kacak! *pengsan*

Boleh ku peluk? *grin*

Yay that you finally writes Indo!Winchesters!

*hops off to look*

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

I am very much looking forward to reading these, and your casting is amazingly spot on, judging from appearances:)

*bookmarks for when I'm not moving rooms*

[nyoka.livejournal.com]

Just wanted to let you know that I recced your fics here (http://community.livejournal.com/sawedoff_recs/74263.html) at sawedoff_recs.

[kimboosan.livejournal.com]

I wish I had something constructive to say about the Satrio and Dimas series, but I really don't. I enjoy it, and I find it fascinating and eye-(mind-)opening, but it is not as if I have anything to add to the discussion about it. I admit there is a part of me that exoticizes the characters in this form, even as I knead the reading into a more complex social context...that sort of goes hand in hand, I think. *ponders*

Which is my way of saying thanks for writing fic that makes me THINK. <3

[maerhys.livejournal.com]

Your take on linguistics is fascinating. I really, really wish more people would write in languages other than English (even if that means I can't read it).

My point is that multilingualism is more the norm in Indonesia than it is in the USA, and I reckon part of it is because in Indonesia, it is not perceived to be a sign of foreignness.

Definitely, and it works out that way because the only languages being spoken fluently by a group larger than a few thousand people are new "immigrants" (quotes because often the border crossed the people, not the other way around) and America's xenophobia, oh lawd. Because the USA is so monolingual, I wonder if that is why people in my area take regionalisms, dialects, and code-switching very seriously? I was taught from the time I can remember that there is home-speak and everywhere else. Home-speak is a blend of purposeful accents, regionalisms, English, Cherokee, and a mix of the two.

I am also doing mudane_bingo and thanks for the heads up on spnsupporting.

[chibifrieza.livejournal.com]

I am really excited to see more of Satrio and Dimas. I'm not at all familiar with Indonesian or Sundanese, but it's actually easier switching between tabs to get the translations than it would be flipping back and forth between pages in a book. And I like the little translation notes, too - I've only studied mostly latinate/germanic languages, so it's really cool to get this glimpse of something I've never been exposed to before. I guess my reasons for reading Indonesian Winchesters are probably really different from your reasons for writing, but I think it's awesome, and I hope that's okay.

[claudiapriscus.livejournal.com]

I think in the US it might vary a little bit depending on where you are. I mean, in the larger 'American Broadcast Culture' you're a hundred percent right about bilingual being a sign of foreign-ness. But I wonder if it would still hold true, for example, in regards to say certain parts of California or Texas. And then there are things like Cajun. Hmm.

My guess would be that it's a relatively recent development ('recent' as in, 'the last 150 years').

It all seems to come down to identity*...I'm thinking about the Californios and the Amish and their perspectives- and now I'm just thinking aloud (so to speak) so I'll stop. But it's an interesting thing to think about.

ETA : * by which I mean, of course it involves identity, but that's too deep an issue to think through quickly.

[animus-wyrmis.livejournal.com]

I never commented on this! Because when you posted it I was only on like episode one and did not want to be SPOILED. But. But. omfg. You are right that it is kind of jarring to have people switching languages in SPN fic because SPN is all English all the time (except when there are random dead languages, or whatever) but I like it so much more this way. Also, Satrio and how going home would not be going home for him! D: