Conclusion // Wrapping Up

Q: How does a comparison of a real person interviewed and the book you read add to or change your understanding of the information and artifacts you collected?

A: Interviewing Radhitya Badudu and reading The Rainbow Troops added a significant amount of weight and value to my overall collection. Both experiences opened my eyes and showed me a new depth of Indonesian culture that I wouldn't have noticed otherwise. It's crazy how separated from a culture you can be while collecting artifacts pertaining to it. The personal interview made Indonesia come alive for the first time and the novel painted an entirely new perspective of Indonesia right before my eyes. Ultimately these two materials altered the way I perceive Indonesia by demonstrating their diversity to me firsthand.

     Comparing the book and the interview leads to even more discoveries about Indonesian culture. Due to the fact that both resources represent completely different perspectives, it's easy to find variance between them. For example, while interviewing Radhitya, he mentioned that in Indonesia, teachers are very highly respected. So much so that teachers are considered extremely higher-up and even unapproachable. Contrasting that with the book we see that the teacher is not quite as distant as Radhitya described initially. In the book, the teacher, Bu Mus, is fifteen years old and incredibly involved. This made me wonder if it has anything to do with the setting of the book because it does take place a bit in the past I'm curious if the status and availability of teachers has been changing recently in Indonesia due to modernization and decrease of poverty. This is just one example of diversity in Indonesia, which is incredibly inspiring but also a little bit overwhelming at first. 

     I have loved the addition of the interview and novel aspects of this Culture Cache and I'm looking forward to presenting my discoveries to my peers.