“He” Is Beautiful - Edited

The last two weeks my Creative Writing lecturer, Mas Dalih, did not come to the class because he was in Bali for his business. However, his friend, Mbak Abmi, kindheartedly substituted him for the class. Last Monday she did not come alone. She brought a guest, she told us in the beginning of the class. The guest came in as she called her in, a beautiful one; long dark brown hair, pierced pointed nose, make up on, and her body was like a Spain guitar. At the first glance, the guest looked female. But I did not think so at the second. I was not the only one who felt she was strange, somehow. The class started being full with murmurs as she took her seat in the corner of the class.  

Mbak Abmi asked us to interview the guest. She made some topics to be questioned and divided us into some groups. Before we started the interview, Mbak Abmi introduced her guest a little. In the middle of her guest introductory, she called the guest with “he”. The second hand stopped for a few minutes. My brain worked a little hard. Okay, everything was clear. The guest was a waria, a man but a half woman. Case closed.  

She took a seat in the middle of the class. She started introduce herself with her mixing man’s and woman’s voice. Her name was quite pretty, Olivia Sonya Aresta. We called her as Mbak Sonya then. In the beginning of her life story, she told us about her currently jobs. She was an activist of PKBI (an organization who get move on planning of family), she was also a beauty consultant, online-shop-seller, and make up bride. If I can conclude, she was an amazing multitalented waria. She was different like other waria which we usually meet on streets, perhaps.

Mbak Sonya spent her childhood in Klaten. She lived there with her family until he graduated from high school. In her childhood, she preferred to play with girls than boys. “Boys are naughty. Boys will fight when playing. While playing with girls are more safety. We only played dolls and cook,” she told us while smiling.

Playing with girls somehow leaded Mbak Sonya feeling comfortable being a female. She began love making up and dressing like a girl. It kept continuing as she grew up. She still wore trouser to the school, but she would wear skirt if she hang out in the night. She told us a funny story when one of her friend caught her up when she was dressing like a girl in a mall in Yogyakarta. “I threw shoes on them and runaway,” she said while giggling. Her friend started to mock him since that day. That is why she decided to continue her study in vocational school UGM, Yogyakarta.  

In Yogyakarta, Mbak Sonya found her identity as a waria, but she was not ashamed of it, she was even proud of it. When men or women did not too care for each other, she who was as a waria had done so many things for others. She took a part in PKBI, doing counseling about healthy reproduction to marginal people, and she also had been a volunteer when earthquake attacked Yogyakarta in 2006. She also got new family in Yogyakarta. Her friends, who are always by her side, supporting her. That is why she always comes back to Yogyakarta even she had tried to move to Bali, Bandung, Jakarta. “Yogyakarta is the most pleasant one. It is different from other cities,” she admitted.

Even she was looked fine, smiled during the interview, inserted jokes in her answers, but who knows that she also experienced hard part of life like others waria. Her family, especially her mother, still could not accept that Mbak Sonya chose to be a waria. They had fought, and have terrible on communication until now. “Fixing the relationship between me and my family still becomes homework for me,” she said.  

However, Mbak Sonya was an extraordinary waria if I could say. She is a marginal in public’s sight perhaps. She is not woman, neither a man too, perhaps. But she does what man and woman does not. She is beautiful like what I saw her at the first time, even not everybody are able to see it. We need to see her deeper if we want to see her beauty, because she keeps it inside her heart.  

Edited from Tian's writing : He is Beautiful

http://tiyannuno.blogspot.com/2013/05/he-is-beautiful.html