On flight to Jakarta...

Until today, I had never really thought of why some countries choose to group their names as FIRST and LAST and others as GIVEN and FAMILY or SURNAME...

The flight attendant hands me the customs declaration and the arrival card to fill in. I pull out a pen and find myself mulling over the FULL NAME field unsure whether the given or family name should come first. Then it strikes me: Hartono and Tina had told me: INDONESIANS DON'T HAVE FAMILY NAMES.

Yup, no last names, only first. Now, imagine you have no last name and you are applying for a passport for international travel? You just come up with one. Your last name is given and sometimes given by... yourself! I remember when Hartono's daughter was born and he needed to get her passport immediately to take her to Poland with his wife. They had a double task of coming up with and agreeing on two names for her: first and last! He was concerned about all the paperwork the Europeans would require and I remember recommending that he better give her the same last name as his, or else paperwork trouble was guaranteed.

How funny is this: I am sitting wondering whether FIRST name should come first or last. What a dumb question! So, back to the form: first name first. Except the field says: AS APPEARS IN PASSPORT. Take this: more often than not, in your passport your LAST name appears FIRST! He-heh...

Now, imagine an Indonesian filling out a form wondering which of his names to put as GIVEN! He-heh. And guess what, their second given name is not necessarily LAST! They can give themselves more than two names, if they need or want to, so very often they have three or four. Kind of like those Portuguese kilometer-long full names. And trust me, on an Indonesian form, the Portuguese would have all the space they need for their FULL NAME: the field was reeeeeeeeeeeeally long.

P.S.
The flight attendant was a true beauty. That face of an unmatched proportion and harmony that just strikes you at first sight, that would come out in any crowd and just draw your attention and leave you with your eyes helplessly glued to it. She probably noticed me staring at her as I was diligently looking for the fulfillment of the golden rectangle rule in her face or any other rule that could provide the key to the mystery of this remarkable harmony. And not surprisingly, I was absolutely unable to place her face geographically, although she reminded me a lot of Sayuri, Stephen's wife, half Japanese, half Sri-Lankan. Certainly, she was not Chinese like, surprisingly, most attendants on this Cathay Pacific flight.

No, I didn't dare ask if I could photograph her. If she agreed, I knew her face were going to end up here. Would you ever want your face published on the Internet by a stranger?

P.P.S.
You must have noticed: Asians are not only short; as a rule, they are also very slim (unless your stereotype is dominated by Sumo-fighters). My Cantonese colleague once proposed a theory that it must be in the genes, which sounds quite sensible.

Well, the Cathay seat belt, unlike the American-sized seat belts I am used to, certainly would not fit a Sumo-fighter. It was hardly long enough for me!.