To thee I protest, dear Fatma

I was on my ride to work when I noticed that there was a...red-and-white flag in front of an apartment complex at the Florence suburbs.

Hyaw.

It was a simple, trivial thing, but of large significance to me howsoever.

Unless when I am on the phone with my Indonesian folks, I haven't spoken a single Indonesian word for months. I don't speak a word at all, not even in vulgarities, because all my profanities are almost always in English.

In multicultural cities like Chicago or Phoenix or New York, the chances to have some gado-gado are almost the same as having the Scottish Haggis.

But in a mid-sized Midwest town of 25,000 people in Northern of Kentucky? Almost zero.

So now...how was the mirth to find that there might be somebody else who also shares the love for tempe bacem in town?

Overwhelming.

Now let me share a bit of history first.

They have two theories for how the Indonesian flag.

First, it came from a torn Dutch flag, which has red-white-blue stripes on the order from top to bottom. The Sulawesian nationalists torn the blue stripe, and proclaims the new flag as an Indonesian one.

The second theory is that Fatmawati, one of Soekarno's most beloved wife, had sewn it.

Both theories are truthful in a certain way, though some people believe more in one than the other. I tend to believe that Fatmawati had sewn it, and after the red-and-white flag was established, then the Sulawesian nationalists made it famous by their tearing of the Dutch flag.

But oh my dear Fatma, if only you have learned Geography more.

Because after second thought, it dawned upon me that the red-and-white flag I saw that day might have been the flag of Monaco.

Geez.

Look, I know I have written on the different dimensions on both flags last year, but when the flag is hanging on the pole, how can you measure the size of the flag?

So the apartment complex I saw might have been an Indonesian complex, or a Monegasque one. I guess I'm going to come find out someday.