The express train to Jakarta was already stopped at the platform of Cirebon station

Train stopping at Cirebon Station — Train stopped at Cirebon station

I arrived at the railroad station in Cirebon. I bought a ticket to Jakarta and went to the platform, where the express train I was going to take had already entered the platform. There was a long train with a white locomotive at the front.

There was no overpass at this station. In order to get to the platform across the tracks from the station building, I had to cross the tracks on foot. Even though I knew there was no train coming, walking directly on the tracks made me a little nervous. Instead, the sky was wide open.

Incidentally, in Indonesian, the official language of the country, the sky is called Langit, and in Sundanese, the language of this region, the sky is also called Langit. They are similar. The only difference is the intonation. However, Indonesian and Sundanese are supposed to be different languages.

Indonesian, the official language of Indonesia, was originally a trading language (lingua franca) used around the Strait of Malacca, but was made into a unified national language during the independence movement from the Netherlands. It was made the official language of the country when it was founded. In other words, although the number of people who speak it as their mother tongue is increasing, it was originally a language used by a wide range of people in business, not a language used in the home. As a result of making the trade language the official language, Indonesians are now bilingual, receiving their education in Indonesian but using the local language at home, for example, Sundanese here in Cirebon.

Fortunately, Japan is a country where one can receive higher education in the mother language. As a person who was educated in my mother tongue, the situation of taking classes in a language that is not my mother tongue is not quite clear to me. However, I feel that it raises the bar for studying a notch or two. It must be difficult to understand a concept I don't understand when it is explained in a language that is not my mother tongue.

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