Do you wanna be a Rock Star?

If you are a blond, light eyed Caucasian, especially a pretty young female go to Java (maybe the rest of Indonesia as well) and you will be mobbed as much as you allow from people who want to take your picture and be in a picture with them.

Jessica has a friend from the University of Texas who is African American.  His parents are with the US Embassy in Jakarta.  He visited and somehow got invited to a formal dinner.  The host announced at the end of dinner:  "We are honored to have an African American with us tonight and he will entertain us by dancing like Chris Brown!".  Her friend said he is a good dancer, but no Chris Brown, so everyone was polite but disappointed.

At Borobudur what is odd about this picture?

Before the picture - the women were all smiling and laughing, after the picture they were smiling and laughing but just like in the famous American Gothic picture, smiles seem to not be allowed in pictures. 

Or maybe she has English like teeth.

This was at the end of out first day at Borobudur - we are walking off the temple at 5:00 - closing time and come across this school group and start talking with some of the kids and adult supervisors - it quickly became apparent that we were comfortable with our picture being taken.  The shout went up! Then the echo was dozens of kids running back down the path chatteringly excitedly (assumed translation - pictures with white people!).  But when the picture time came

Deadpan - then chattering away after the pose.

We saw these guys clowning around and doing martial arts poses - now that we were used to being Rock Stars - we introduced ourselves and it quickly became picture time - Amazing Race here we come!

These guys were jumping and clowning around more than the picture captured - lots of laughs all around.  Maybe the smiling / not smiling is related to gender.

The batik diapers were the pass onto the Borobudur temple. 

As we wandered around the local community - everyone noticed us

 Ok to smile if you are not posing for a picture?  Cultural norms are always opaque for outsiders.

Sometimes there was serious pushing and shoving to see who got into which picture - the older sister is used to be in charge.

Additional rock star adventure - inviting ourselves into a football (soccer) warm up

The boys were better than either Jess or I but gave us encouragement everytime we kicked the ball.  I was able to juggle 5 - 6 times and pass in the air to one kid (dumb luck) which allowed us to leave with our heads held high.  Jess tried to get some of the girls to play - but they were having none of that and ran away from her.

Walking off the pitch, a family was waiting (we had drawn a crowd) and asked for Jess to hold their baby.  We talked for several minutes - a very proud father with shy mom and a baby who is wondering what is this green thing is in my hand.

The funny/oddest Rock Star story was while sitting in our seats waiting for the Ramayana Ballet to start, some locals moved from another seating area and sat behind us and then others walked in front and started taking pictures (initially like we didn't know what was going on and then we had then sit with us).