Printed Book

Javanese Gentry

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In my mind rose a misty picture of a little girl in a floral dress. As for her face: nothing. I could only hope that she had been pretty. I sat overcome. What a procession of developments in one day! Only that morning I had left Madiun; at midday I was wobbling on a buggy past an ocean of rice fields; tonight, suddenly, I had been renamed by my parents and handed a wife.

Thus begins Sastrodarsono's life, returning to his village as a newly- appointed schoolteacher, and by virtue of that position, a member of the priyayi - functionary gentry awesomely elevated above the peasantry of his origins. From those most traditional of Javanese institutions - change of name and a virtually imposed marriage-he moves on with his bride to found a line of modernizing generations active across the whole span of recent Indonesian history: the 20th century late-colonial period, Japanese occupation, war of independence and two decades of social disorder ending in the mid-1960s with the rise of Suharto's authoritarian New Order government.

The ideal of gentrification threads through this saga, both in the implicit concerns of a variety of characters and in the hopes of wretched villagers for whom the literacy necessary to approach that higher status is largely a forlorn dream.

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Detail Information

Series Title

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Call Number

959.8 KAY

Publisher

Jakarta : Lontar., 2013

Collation

398p.

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9789798083952

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

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Subject(s)

History of Indonesia

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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