Church Party: Chinese New Year

On Thursday morning after the lively evening on Wednesday, we went to a church party to celebrate Chinese New Year. We rode with a neighbor to a church member's house, maybe thirty minutes from the middle of our town.

When we got there at 8:30am, thing were so calm you could hear the crickets chirping.

And the caged birds singing.

Our hosts have a home with a covered area in the back.

And we felt the Zen of the bonsai tree quietly refraining from growing.

But then an exercise instructor arrived, bearing a lot of energy, and leading us in ten minutes of aerobics.

And then ten more minutes of aerobics.

And then, still ten minutes more of aerobics.

And finally, after the first 30 minutes, we really started doing some aerobics.

W was a good sport about all of these aerobics.

Sierra and one of her new acquaintances weren't so sure they wanted to be involved.

But I felt like if I came to a party, I was there to party!

And so did N.

Put your right arm in the air if you're here to party!

As the aerobics continued into the late morning, Sierra was contemplative.

During the aerobics, the bishop (who had his heart rate as high as any of us), looked over at me and said, "Enak ya?" (This is delicious/great isn't it?) I said I agreed. And after the aerobics, we had something to drink and some food.

N is so studious in learning Indonesian. She talked for quite awhile with a new friend of ours, writing down words and definitions as she went.

Once the party was less structured (not so much aerobics going on), S found herself among some friends.

After the eating and drinking, the MC announced that there would be some games.

We wondered, though, if W and S would participate, since they seemed to have fallen in with a crowd (note the "GAME OVER" caption on the shirt) that might think they were too cool for games.

But I joined up with the games. True to myself, I was quickly disqualified. It seemed like a version of rock paper scissors but it was played with the pinky and pointer fingers. I didn't know the rules, and I was out after the first round.

I had never seen S look so disappointed in me.

But I was call upon to participate in another game, this one involving, at points, giving a massage to the person who happened to be standing next to me. 

Then there was a game where people were tied together and needed to walk through a set of boxes to the finish line.

Apparently I had done well enough during the second game that I was called upon to join up with this new game.

We had called it: S's friendship with the partier who was "so over games" had blossomed, and S now seemed completely uninterested in my successes and failures in the games. 

But W joined up with the kids' group. That's him in the blue shorts with flowers.

I was exhausted so I was glad that N went out onto the court to join up with the newspaper tower game. The point was to make your tower as tall as you could without having it fall. There were several teams. N's was called "Keluarga Cemara" (The Pine Tree Family).

N at the awards ceremony.

Inside hour hosts' house, several people slept, weary from the party as it continued into the afternoon. One of the guests, who has a band here in town, played a bluesy piano.

We had some more food, and then we were led in some line dancing to a country song, "The Boot-scoot Boogy." The MC commented that country music is all about losing things, and then he crooned a little in English: "I lost my mother in the mountains..."

Several times during the party, which lasted from 8:30am through 3:30pm, fellow partiers asked me if this was how church parties are where I come from. I told them it was somewhat similar, except usually just one time eating, and very limited aerobic activity.

At the party, I also thought back to a conversation I recently had with an Indonesian colleague of mine, who told me that parties in the United States felt disorienting to her (she had lived in the US for graduate study). She said that in the US, a party starts at an indefinite time and ends at an indefinite time, and there's no structure during the time you're at the party. She said she liked Indonesian parties better because there's a beginning, and then there's a program, and then there's an end. Our family enjoyed the beginning, and then we enjoyed the program, and then we enjoyed the end.