Padhang Mbulan is one of the view blogs written not in the official Indonesian language but in one of the traditional languages, Javanese. The blog is concerned with Javanese customs, traditions and events, and written by a group of writes. After an initial euphoric start the blog died down and has not been updated regularly. It’s last entry is from November 2007…

One of the authors goes by the name of 'Q' and has agreed to answer some of my questions via email. Here is a summary of his answers, grouped into thematic blocks and translated into English. Q also is the author of a personal blog.



The concept

The concept from what it started is very simple. To make a blog in Javanese language is still very rare. Even though there are many Javanese speaking people that own a blog, it shows when they use Javanese expressions in their blog that is actually Indonesian, whether it is in postings, comments, or in a shoutbox.

And we did not intend to make a blog with a serious deiscussion about Javanese culture. We only wanted to speak about light things concerning traditions and culture of Java that we have experienced ourselves.

The original concept, when it was just in the form of idealistic ambition, was to help foster the Javanese culture so it would not be simply forgotten and so it’s values can still be benefitial for today’s way of life.

This is our mother tongue, our language in our environment. Part of our contributors actually don’t live in a Javanese language environment, but they are still Javanese that can still speak Javanese and understand Javanese culture up to a certain point.

And to make a blog in Javanese is something quite unique. A blog authors who want their blosg to get a lot of visitors, one of the requirements ist hat it needs to have a unique quiality, that makes it different to other blogs. Even though by making a blog in Javanese it limits the amount of visitors who will come, but never the less some of those visitors can be hoped to become regulars.

Padhang Mbulan menas moonlight. The name was inspired by a Javanese children’s playing song that it very famous that is also called ‚Padhang Bulan’. The song asks children to come play in the garden at the time of a bright moonlight. That fits to the concept of the blog that is like playing, to make light postings like a chat with neighbors while enjoying the moonlight.

The blog was started in 2005. But until now there are only 50 postings. Where 10 of them actually were written within the first month of the start.

In the beginning there were 9 contributors, it can be seen in the part "Ingkang Mbaurekso" : Eni, Isna, Kere Kemplu, Lantip, Nauval, Qyu, Rhay, Siberia, and Wisa (who wanted to be deleted because he stopped blogging). Then the last post her eis a writing that I received from another person, outside of the contributors. They sent a text via email to put it on the blog.

Bloggers often seem have that kind of ‘sickness’, enthusiastic and regularly posting when first owning a blog. But then when it has been running for a while they run out of ideas, don´t know any more what to write about, bored because they don’t feel any real value that could motivate them to keep on writing.

Some of the bloggers who were contributors at Padhang Mbulan totally stopped to blog. Maybe because of the reasons mentioned abbove, maybe other reasons.

Then there are others who still sometimes make a post in their private bog, who have just run out of ideas what to write in Padhang Mbulan. That includes myself!

Blogs and traditional culture

I do think it is important to document and make public all the cultures of Nusatengara. From the blog Padhang Mbulan I could increase my knowledge about Javanese culture in the area of yoygakarta, for example, that has subtle differences to the Javanese Culture at Malang, where I grew up.

By an easy approach and a simple language you can raise the interest of people to at least involve themselves by reading.

Benefits of blogging

The Indonesian people are a people that like to socialize a lot. They like to have many friends from various bckgroungs. And through a blog they can make many friends by visiting each other´s blog. Those that are trapped in a routine work everyday where you have to sit facing a computer for hours and hours need a momentary compensation that they can get without going far from their computer, and that´s blogging. They can make a posting about whatever and wait for the comments from their fellow blogger friends, or they can visit the blogs of their friends to leave a comment or simply say hello in the shoutbox.

I´m not a jounalist blogger that writes postings to make a comment on every current event in the real world. I also very rarely visit blogs commited to these topics. I prefer going straight to the website of the media that can be hod responsible, that write news as they happen without mixing in their personal opinions. So I can´t say much about what people say about that one day blogs will be a medium next to newspapers and television.

What I can predict is if all people get used to share an array of issues to the public via blogs, that could become a very huge source of knowledge. But it has to be pointed out that blogs have no filter that can choose between writing that is reliable and trustworthy and writing that is of low quality.