Let's Go Home!

More than just a holiday, going home is a tradition of faith in an idea called "hometown". We go back to the village and go to the town, not the other way around, because the house is where all the other family members are. The city separates every human based on roles and functions, in vertically and horizontally spaced social and economic classes. Kampung do the opposite, embracing everyone in the same family room. Get together, eat, drink, joke with family and friends, party!

So like the salmon that goes against the stream to the place of original hatching, the village is crowned as a pilgrim’s destination for at least 30 million inhabitants this year. They are lucky people to still have 'origins', the beginning of a long story about urbanization, travel, rituals of going to the city started by them or their parents and ancestors. Some go joyfully in search of new experiences, others with grief away from hunger and despair in their hometown.

Urbanization in the land of Java is an incredible collection of stories for survival and livelihood for ones self and loved ones. Going home to the Kampung is a similar process though in the reverse direction. Because happiness is only real when it is shared *

* quote from ".. happiness only real when shared ..", a last clip of the phrase from the tragic traveler record Christopher McCandless.