Editing Listianingsih's posting in her Blog about review for interviewing a waria.

He is Beautiful

  Gone to Bali for the last two weeks for an important agenda, Mas Dalih, our creative writing lecturer, sent his friends Mbak Abmi to substitute for him. She had come as a guest speaker before. As I mentioned in my previous post, one Monday she played the movie Bag It which we had to review. Last week, she brought a guest, a beautiful guest with long hair, a pointed nose, and a proportional body. She sat in a back row. She might appear as a woman, but something unusual about her. I kept wondering if she was actually a “he”. To our surprise, Mbak Abmi mentioned that she was a waria.

  Her introduction began with her name, Olivia Sonya Aresta which ushered us into her world. A nocturnal world whose residents are notoriously known as waria or transvestite. Born in Klaten, she is now living in Yogya, her home since her vocational education. However, her jobs outnumbered her homes. She did odd-jobs like being a volunteer for PKBI (Persatuan Keluarga Berencana Indonesia), a seller of online shop and rather specialized jobs such as a bridal make-up artist.

  She has to struggle in finding her identity because her family, especially her mother, cannot accept her as a waria. She also got mockery from her friends because she is girly. This condition made her to decide for going out from her hometown to get free and searched the place which could accept her just the way she is.

  She went to some places such as Yogyakarta, Solo, Bandung, Jakarta, and Bali several times. But somehow, she feels that Yogya is the pleasant place for her and also the atmosphere is different from others. In Yogya, she found many lessons such as she is more confidence with herself especially when she was a volunteer. She wants to help people and also prove that the identity as a waria has the real contribution to the world by doing useful things.

  There is no doubt again if I said “he is beautiful”. Although she is a marginal but she still keeps beauty inside. Thank you for your inspiration Mbak Sonya.

                    

Art Curatorial : Kim Yeeseul's Painting

It is Kim Yeeseul' painting when she was 16 years. It is her dream car whose color is pink. She wanna have a car like a car which she has painted. Although it's just a car but She also added a background to make she feel like she really drive the car. The background is a sunny-blue weather which can make it like in the real life.