Emerging from the Fireworks in One Piece

For New Year’s Eve, I thought I’d shake up my tradition of watching really bad movies until midnight, while drinking homemade cocktails and quickly switching the channel at midnight to watch the ball drop. Lame, ya? So what, pray tell, precipitated such a momentous change? Well, first, cuz they don’t have footage of NY ball-dropping here, and second cuz I don’t actually think anyone ever fully appreciated that tradition, even amongst us tradition-followers. So, instead, I bought a train ticket: destination Yogyakarta, and celebrated New Year's Eve with my first-ever Indonesian friend, and former language tutor, Ipung.

Going to Yogya was definitely the right decision. It just so happens that this New Year’s Eve coincided with a lovely Muslim holiday, which involves the sacrificing of a great many goats. Now, because Ipung also has a great many friends, we went from place to place, cooking sate over campfires, and eating until there was absolutely no way that anything else had even a teeny-tiny possibility of fitting into our stomachs. At that point, we began a tour of local coffee houses where some Javanese men tried to scare me by telling me that they were in fact terrorists and manufacturers of bombs, and other Javanese men impressed upon me the importance of Javanese philosophy and taught me songs from their childhood.

Fully satiated and appropriately caffeinated, midnight found us beneath a fairly clear sky on the main town square, on a grassy field filled with anticipation, fire-crackers, and motorbikes. I was pretty much afraid for my life as we meandered through the crowds of motorcycles and mopeds on foot, each one just a little too close for comfort, driving what seemed like just a little too fast. Finally, Ipung and I found a fairly secluded sidewalk to call our own, a bit apart from the crowds, where we took our seats and waited for the action to start. It was easy to tell when it was close to midnight, because the noise level reached new heights with the synchronized blowing of cheap noisemakers bought from street venders, the revving of motorbike engines, and the honking of horns. And then the fireworks started. Now, this was nothing like the pre-arranged fireworks shows in the states, which are organized by one contracted company and that start off strong, and ends with a big finale. No, not at all… Instead, individuals bring their own fireworks and set them off from within the crowd, to the wonderment of those who did not plan ahead and bring their own fireworks. Did I mention yet that I was afraid for my life? Actually it was pretty amazing. It felt like we were part of the fireworks, rather than spectators, far away from the action. Did I also mention that it was really noisy? It was really noisy. But no one got hurt, and New Year was welcomed in an appropriately happy and festive manner.