Matcha Monologues - Jakarta

Social Dragonfly

What if I told you, you used to live in a big house and it was nice. Then that family had to move away for reasons too complicated to explain. Life took you and your family to another country and away from that homeland and eventually to North America. Then after 65 years and more of life, you have a chance to return and find that house, or know if it even exists. How would you do it? How do you even start something like that? Then let me tell you that this house was in the city of Jakarta, one of the most overpopulated cities in the world and it's not getting any better. The country and the public planning build more and more houses around that house and other houses. Thus, it's just going to make it harder and harder to find any remnants of the past. In March of 2023, I traveled with my mother and my aunt to Jakarta as part of a Southeast Asia family trip. I was determined to try and find this house and I detail what went into it and add some family history about why my family doesn't think positively about China. There was a lot of work and sometimes all the work you put into something like this, will not be enough for the end goal. This is a story I would have loved to go back in time and tell my past self at the age of 13. It's a story about love for a big family and looking to help the family achieve what is possible despite unfair circumstances. But it's also a story of a child of one generation, trying to take in every moment of the previous generation and relive all the nostalgia they can handle.