MAIN TOPIC 6

INDONESIA
 Objectives
❑ Determine the meanings of unfamiliar words through picture clues.
❑ Distinguish the components of attitude as through completing a concept
map.
❑ Identify the attitude of the main character towards marriage.
❑ Infer the feelings or emotions depicted in the dialogues of the main
character.
 Pre-reading Activity
Examine the given pictures depicting unfamiliar terms listed in
the first column and match each word to its meaning from
the choices found in the second column by connecting dots
between them.
 While-reading Activity
Read Mrs. Geni in December by Arswendo Atmowiloto
and pay attention to the emotions expressed by
dialogues delivered by the main character. Complete
the table by selecting an emoticon that can best
describe the emotion/feeling depicted in each
dialogue lifted from the story.
 Mrs. Geni in December
by Arswendo Atmowiloto

“For Mrs. Geni, every month is December. Last month, the present month, or
next month, they all mean December. So, if you have to deal with Mrs.
Geni, it is better not to rely on dates, but rather on the day. If you want to
book her, you have to say, “Two Fridays from this Friday.” If you say the
seventeenth, you could be in trouble because the seventeenth won’t
necessarily be a Friday. If you book her for the seventeenth, she might
just not show up on the day.

The problem is a great many people deal with Mrs. Geni. For anyone wanting
to arrange the wedding of a child, there is only one choice. Mrs. Geni.
Bridal makeup artist. There are many other bridal makeup artists, but
none can match Mrs. Geni. Even after considering the many other beauty
salons, people stay with the choice of Mrs. Geni.
According to past clients, Mrs. Geni is no ordinary makeup artist. She can
transform a would-be bride and make her so beautiful she is truly
stunning. Unrecognizable. One of her specialities is to infuse cigarette
smoke onto the face of the would-be bride. According to tradition, she
explains, this is bronzing, applying a bronze, not gold, hue to the skin.
Almost every bridal makeup artist uses this technique, but none can
match her skill. One time at a wedding the host fainted because she
thought the daughter she was marrying off had disappeared. The mother
of the bride-to-be fainted, the father became embarrassed, and all the
relatives started to search for the bride at friends’ houses. Even after she
was found, the mother of the bride-to-be could not accept it. “That is not
my child. That is not my child,” she exclaimed.
“Well, if it is not your child, that makes her my child. Let’s go home.”
Only later the mother of the bride-to-be realized, and said, “How is it possible
that my child could be as beautiful as this?”
Despite this, Mrs. Geni does not always please everyone. Her voice is loud
and the people who have to listen to her do become annoyed. “This child
is already pregnant. Why are you hiding it? Why are you embarrassed?
To have children, to be able to fall pregnant, this is a gift. This is not
something to cover up, to be squeeze down inside clothes. It is your own
child, right.”
If I’m not wrong, the incident happened at the district head’s house. As a result, the
news spread and continued to reverberate long after the incident was over.
Another wedding ceremony was almost cancelled simply because Mrs. Geni
saw a sad face on the bride-to-be. Usually two or three days before a ceremony,
Mrs. Geni needs to meet the bride-to-be in person. Why not with the
bridegroom-to-be? “Well, his fate rests right here, right?”

When she met the soon-to-be-bride who she felt had the sad face, Mrs. Geni said,
“Can’t be like this. You have to be happy first.” No matter that the invitations
had already been sent out, the reception hall been paid for in advance, and,
more importantly, the food been prepared. The story wouldn’t have been
unusual if it had ended in cancellation. What was unusual was that two days
later, a bus crashed off a cliff into a gorge. As it turned out, if the wedding had
actually gone ahead and not been cancelled, there was a big chance the
bridegroom-to-be would have gone into the gorge because he had in fact
planned to travel on that very bus, at that very time.
Mrs. Geni’s story continues next with the time she was asked to do the
makeup of the daughter of a government minister – possibly a senior
coordinating minister – but she replied, “Just tell the daughter to come to
my house. A lot of people here are going to be put out if I leave them.”
Last seventeenth of August, the neighbors in her area waited to see whether
Mrs. Geni would put up the national red and white flag at her house,
because in Mrs. Geni’s estimation that was the same as 17 August. As it
turned out, Mrs. Geni did have a flag put up. “What’s wrong with flying
the flag on the seventeenth of December?” she asked.
The officials in the village were happy too, because if Mrs. Geni hadn’t put
out the flag on the anniversary of independence, there could have been a
problem. On the following thirty-first of December, Mrs. Geni did not
object to having a party at her house. But to her, the following day was
not New Year’s Day, but rather 1 December again.

Many people say that Mrs. Geni’s magic is to always look young. And Mrs.
Geni does indeed seem to have always looked the same, whether it’s
doing the makeup for a neighbor, or doing it for her own child. Her face
and appearance are the same. The photos taken at the time can prove this,
along with the photos taken over the following 20 years. Or maybe also
the 20 years before that.
Many people say that Mrs. Geni’s magic is to always look young. And Mrs.
Geni does indeed seem to have always looked the same, whether it’s doing
the makeup for a neighbor, or doing it for her own child. Her face
andappearance are the same. The photos taken at the time can prove this,
along with the photos taken over the following 20 years. Or maybe also the
20 years before that. “Marriage is the most illogical of ceremonies. It
causes a lot of trouble. You all stress about working out an auspicious date,
what sort of matching clothes to have, and it all has no connection with the
marriage itself. Just look at the people who make the speeches at a
wedding, the people who delivery advice to the newlyweds. That is the
most boring part, the part that is listened to the least. But it is always
included. That’s weddings for you.” It is somewhat odd for these words to
come from Mrs. Geni, because she in fact makes her living from weddings.
“Yes, it is strange. Isn’t marriage a strange thing. Because something
strange is thought of as normal, the people who do not marry, who are
widows or widowers, are even thought of as strange.”
On a different occasion, Mrs. Geni said, “The strange expression ‘soul mate’
hides the fear or questions that we do not have the courage to answer.
‘Oh, such and such is my soul mate.’ We commonly speak like that. Or if
it fails, ‘Oh, such and such was not my soul mate.'” Mrs. Geni then
laughs at length. “So, is my soul mate actually Mr. Geni? Because I
married Mr. Geni, he becomes my soul mate. Not, because Mr. Geni was
my soul mate therefore I married him. It would have been different if
before that I had not married Mr. Geni. Then he would not have been my
soul mate.”
Why marry Mr. Geni at the time?
“Yes, because it was time to get married, like everyone else.”
Does that then mean it wasn’t out of love that I married Mr. Geni?
“As with soul mates, as soon as you marry, well, that has to be accepted as
love. That is more important. Because if you rely on love beforehand it
might not last. What you have, that is what you love, whether there is
love before or not.”

The question arises because there is word that Mr. Geni is to marry again.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it. And I will do the makeup for the bride,” she
says easily, in a flat, almost emotionless, tone. “To try to forbid it would
be hard, and it would be useless anyway. Just let him do it.”
Maybe that is the reason Mrs. Geni is still happy to do the makeup for the
soon-to-be-brides who are to become second or third wives. “Let people
feel joy once in their lives.” For Mrs. Geni, marriage is joy, happiness.
“If someone does not even feel happy when they get married, they aren’t
going to find any other joy.”

According to Mrs. Geni, no marriage really fails because marriage itself is

not a success. “All you need is a little courage and a lot of foolishness.
That is what is needed for a marriage. In order to divorce on the other
hand, you need to have a lot of courage and a small amount of
foolishness.”
Has Mrs. Geni ever thought about divorcing Mr. Geni?
“I’ve never thought about getting divorced. Have I thought about killing him?
Often.”
And so, Mrs. Geni, bridal makeup artist, has done the makeup for all the
women in her village. You could say, for everyone who has been
married, and for those who have not. The latter are done by Mrs. Geni as
bodies when women pass away having never married. Before burial, Mrs.
Geni makes them up fully. Many disapprove, for many it is regrettable,
still others fear being made up. “Frightened it will come true in the
marriage. Frightened of being too happy, too free, too enjoyable, so that’s
why we commit ourselves to a marriage that regulates responsibilities so
much, regulates obligations, including the provision of a living, and the
raising of children. Only it’s strange, but basically, we are afraid of our
own happiness, and restrict it through the existence of God’s power.”
Even though she says that humanity’s most restricting and frightening
discovery is marriage, Mrs. Geni continues to do peoples’ makeup, still
uses the infusion of cigarette smoke. For someone able to make time for
herself – even though it is still tied to December – Mrs. Geni is able to do
the makeup for people, bodies, bridal statues and trees as well as
buffaloes. Mrs. Geni also chants the bridal mantra, breathes the three
breaths onto the bride’s crown, with the same seriousness she uses to fast
before making someone up. “Let the buffaloes experience happiness, just
as we have believed all this time that marriage is happiness.”
Fortunately, all of this only happens in December.
 Post Reading Activity
Theme
1. What belief does Mrs. Geni hold about marriage? How does this belief influence
her work as a makeup artist for bride-to-be?
2. Mrs. Geni considers marriage as “not a success,” how does this idea relate to her
own marriage and her reason for marrying her husband?
3. How does Mrs. Geni react on the upcoming marriage of his husband to his
second bride? What does she mean when she says that she will personally do
the makeup for her husband’s second bride?
4. Whenever Mrs. Geni does the makeup for the brides who are second and third
wives, she makes them feel the joy of wedding ceremony. What does this
action reveal about her attitude toward marriage?
5. What is the significance of this concluding statement from Mrs. Geni, “Let the
buffaloes experience happiness, just as we have believed all this time that
marriage is happiness”?
Literary Approach: Formalism
1. Which situation is emphasized in the story? What do you
think is the writer’s attitude towards this situation? Explain.
2. What is the dominant mood expressed among the dialogues of
the main character in the story? How does this mood affect
the readers?
 Creating with Them
Accomplish any of the following tasks.
1. Create a meme on marriage and relationship.
2. Take a photo of any object available at home that
can symbolize marriage and
relationship and compose a quotation to express this
idea.
3. Film a short monologue on your attitude towards
marriage and relationship.