| Hello again my dear friends. Today I thought that I would talk about where we live, the customs and what there is to do here. Probolinggo is located in Java and is a small town. This seems to have two effects. Firstly, the girls here have not been too exposed to Western culture, except maybe a little on television. The result of them watching TV and seeing all those new cars and big houses etc is that they think that all Westerners are super rich. They are not aware of the outrageously high cost of living there. Secondly, religion plays a large part in public life. The modern generation of girls, do not necessarily wear head scarves and it is extremely rare to see a young girl wearing the all encompassing robe. However, even if the children do not follow religion steadfastly, they have to respect the wishes of their family. Young people can go out in groups without any problem but when it comes to romance, the boy is supposed to only visit the girl at her home. Many of the local boys have no desire to meet the family of their girlfriends so tend to meet in secret. Virtually everyone here owns a cell phone so making arrangements nowadays is fairly simple. Used to be that girls remained virgins until they were married but that appears to be changing. On the other hand, it is not common for a girl to have multiple partners or to sleep around. Legally, only married couples can sleep together. Here, many people have nothing else to do but to sit outside their homes and watch the local goings-on. Thus, in the small villages, taking a girl to whom you are not married to your home us likely to cause the local residents to beat on the door and demand that she leave. Here there are virtually no bars as liquor is actually illegal. However one can purchase beer in some of the food stores. So where DO you take your new girlfriend to? Well, she will probably be happy to go for a motorbike ride or a walk on the beach (not in the sun). Or maybe for a meal. If you want to travel for a couple of hours you could go to Surabaya where there is a nice zoo and a water park. Locally there is rafting and fairly close there is Mont Bromo, one of the main tourist attractions in this area. See you soon...Yuyun |