Until now, I’m still confused if there is people give me question ‘what is your identity?’ or ‘where are you from?’ the first answer from me is Jakarta. Then, I have to explain from my parent’s culture until me. I give answer like that because I think every people have different perspective about culture, so my answer will let them interpreted what my culture is based on their perspective.
Mostly, my culture is influenced by my mother. My mother is from Pekanbaru, I often hear my mother talks to my auntie with Melayu language. Automatically, it makes me understand what they are talking about, but I cannot speak it. My cousins were also married with Melayu culture and I often asked to help them when they were married. My father also from Sumatra area, but he is from Aceh. The language is more complicated than Melayu, so it’s difficult to understand it. My father’s background culture is not really dominant, moreover, I have visited Aceh only once until now. Those background cultures makes me confused, because I have been live in Jakarta from long time ago. I was born, live, and school in Jakarta. Sometimes, I said to my friends that I don’t have hometown. Therefore, I envy to my friends when they go to their hometown. So, I prefer to consider myself as Jakartans.
Mostly, people consider themselves about their identity because they are from that area (they were born and used to live), he/she also can speak the language from that area, and they also follow the culture/habit from that area. Whereas, I cannot speak in Melayu or Aceh language, I’m not from Aceh or Pekanbaru, and I’m not following habit/culture from that area. According to me, culture is about habit which people follow.
I’m still considering my background culture as my culture, that’s why, I always explain to them about it. It is one of my actions to respect my parents’ culture, besides I follow their culture. Based on my case, cultural identity is not always descent from the parents. Every people have their own perspective about culture. They can describe their own identity based on their perspective. I realize that having a culture is very important because people need to have identity, in order to others will recognize. However, is there anyone who doesn’t have cultural identity? Is it good or bad? For me, I think no good or bad thing about cultural identity. Probably, that person just doesn’t recognize his/her culture.
