Writing Indonesian Characters
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@bluebxlle_writer on Instagram
Growing up, I thought that books needed to be about white people in order for it to be a best-seller. So when I wrote my first novel, I made everyone white, made the setting in the classical NeW YoRk, and yeeted in like, a Chinese token character (I’M SORRY HAJSHKAHS Y’ALL CAN GO PUNCH 11-YEAR-OLD ME) - Since it’s Indonesia’s independence day, I decided to repost this in case anyone needs it!
1. Physical appearances
Indonesia has LOTS of islands - more than 17k of them - so you better expect that we don’t look the same. Our skin colors vary from pale, fair, light brown, to dark brown. We also have different hair types - wavy, straight, curly, and coily, but all dark- colored, either brown or black. Our eyes are also commonly dark brown. There are three unique tribes that consist of people with blue eyes, though - the Lingon, Lamno, and Simpou tribe.
2. Names
Okay not gonna lie, about 90% of my friends have modernized names (Look I have a friend named Karen), but in this post I’ll only be covering our native names. Our name structures are incredibly diverse, some have patronymic names, some have their surnames placed before their name. But I’ll focus on the structure I’m most familiar with - the standard ones with the name-surname format.
Masculine first names : Agung, Adika, Adit, Banyu, Dharma, Genta, Hadrian, Reza, Raditya, Raka
Feminine first names : Aster, Citra, Indah, Jelita, Juwita, Kemala, Mawar, Nirmala, Ratih, Ratu, Ratna
Surnames : Ang, Hioe, Heryanto, Susanto, Hartanto, Widjaja, Wijaya, Winata, Sianturi
If you need more reference, @lintang.docx has this wholeass series about Indonesian names in their page, so go check it out!
3. Tribes
What tribe your character belongs to isn’t THAT relevant tbh, but I’ll talk about them anyway. Indonesia has lots of tribes (even I can’t memorize them all rip), but the most common ones are Jawa, Sunda, Betawi, Dayak, Batak, Bugis, Ambon, and Chinese Indonesians (me!!). Chinese Indonesians are divided into MORE tribes, like Kanton, Hokkian, Tiochiu, etc. (Lmao yes this is complicated af, so if you have any follow- up questions, feel free to dm me!)
4. Common cultures
• Smiling at strangers as a form of politeness - we tend to smile at strangers we make eye contact with.
• Using the left hand to eat or to receive/give something from/to others when you’re not left-handed is considered incredibly impolite, because the left hand is usually used to clean oneself in the bathroom.
• Referring to someone older without honorifics is disrespectful. Common honorifics include “pak” (sir), “ibu” (ma'am) “tante” (aunt), “om” (uncle), “mbak” (miss), and “mas” (Mr).
• Silence during meals is common.
• Praying before eating is encouraged.
• Shaking people’s hands as a form of greeting. Don’t squeeze to hard though, it’ll be seen as a form of agression.
• Indonesians tend to be religious. The most common religion is Islam, followed by Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.
5. Other facts
• We only has two seasons, the dry season and the monsoon season.
• Lots of Indonesians love spicy food for some reason lol.
• There are over 400 volcanoes here, and around 130 are active. Yikes.
• We produce the most expensive coffee - the Luwak coffee.
• Our schools start a new academic year in July (Yes, July. 0.0)
