Reading in America

What a day we have just had. The consulate had asked us to give a talk at Tronojoyu university in Madura on the general topic of American literature and drama. We tried to get more specific information, but it was not forthcoming. So I put together a short general PowerPoint called "Reading in America" where I talked about encouraging readers from an early age by bedtime stories and school activities to promote reading, summer reading lists, and on to book clubs, best seller lists (which they don't have) and so on. Then I talked about what genres are popular, and finally trends like ebooks. I showed my kindle.
Tom prepared a part on drama from Broadway to Community theatre and high school musicals, etc. and listed some of the drama critic award winners from the last few years.
Thus our preparation. My supervisor was very surprised that the consulate was not sending anyone along with us in case there were any problems, so she asked a student, Fitri, to go with us. The university would send a car and driver to collect us.
So this morning we set off for Madura, Tom and I, Fitri, the driver, and two students from Tronojoyu univ. for the hour long drive. Madura is an island off the coast of Java, about 70 miles long and 20 miles wide, famous for batik. The landscape changed dramatically once we crossed the bridge from urban congestion to agricultural land and narrow roads. We saw rice paddies, and goats on the road as we made our way to the campus. What can one say about any campus here? It is clear that there is little money for infrastructure or buildings and grounds maintenance. So no beauty awards. Anyway we went to the building and received a warm welcome. We were to speak in a theater type classroom with tables at the front and tiers of seats sloping up. The room was packed with about 100 or more. The first surprise was that everyone took their shoes off when entering the classroom, professors and students alike, so we did also. After introductions and several welcoming remarks, I began my part of the program and when I finished and asked for questions, there were none. I had been warned of this (I donesian students never ask questions in class although they are very inquisitive if you meet them on the street) so I had brought a few bookmarks and pencils from home and offered them to students who would ask questions, so slowly they began to ask. Tom then did his part and by now the questions were coming quickly of both of us. We got some great questions as follows:
How can We develop a reading culture like you have in the US?
does the military ever put on plays? (we had talked about community theater groups)
What is the value of reading?
Are there plays that celebrate folk tales?
Is there street theater? ( No but we talked about flash mobs)
Are mysteries always about ghosts?
A question about feminism.
The question that took the cake for me was:
Did we know of any plays written in the great depression that dealt with LGBT issues? Wow, where to begin with that?
We talked almost two hours and really enjoyed ourselves. I think the students learned quite a bit about the US. The class was american studies which uses american literature to learn american history. The teachers were ecstatic at the interaction.
Afterwards there were many photos and some more questions. I gave out my email address quite a few times so we'll see what that brings.
somehow they had figured out that we were interested in shopping for batik so a large contingent of faculty and staff headed off for lunch with first a stop at a batik store. The shop was not air-conditioned and i was so hot the clothes were sticking to me as I tried things on. I don't much care for shopping in the best of times and it was a bit un- nerving to have 8 or 10 people hanging around and giving advice. I finally bought something just to bring an end to it. Tom got a shirt also. Later it turned out that they gave us presents of batik sarongs.
On to the restaurant. It was open air and supposedly famous for duck. After we sat around for a long time, they indicated it would be much longer, so suggested a different place. Fine, and it was air-conditioned. All the food is served to be shared, so much discussion ensued, very little with our input. When the food arrived it was all very good. We had duck and several types of fish and rice and vegetables. They had ordered a traditional soup. I am not very fond of their soups as they are mostly bones or chicken feet and they spoon the broth and meat(?) over rice. But of course I took some.
After another round of photos we headed home. All in all, a great day. Feeling like we made a difference in someone's life, priceless.
PS. I was very impressed with Fitri. I mentioned the Jodi Picoult book, My Sister's keeper in my talk. She told me later that she had just read it- in English.