History UsefulNotes / Indonesia

* WebAnimation/Hololive has an entire branch dedicated for Indonesian talents. In fact, they are the second overseas branch established by Cover (after the now defunct Chinese branch) even before the English branch.

Lately, PoliticalOvercorrectness there. For example, smoking scenes are censored now. This is also the reason of why ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'', ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'', and ''Manga/OnePiece'' got censored there too. Which is ironic, because mothers in '90s there didn't care at all about violent shows like ''Series/KamenRiderBlack'' or ''Manga/DragonBall'', and they even watched WCW Nitro at 1 P.M (yeah. It got showed there at that time slot) and brought their CHILDREN to watch it with them. It also had something to do with the increasingly rudeness of kids there. The phrase "Bodoh" (meaning "stupid") there has been turned by kids into an insult, so the parents heavily blamed it on entertainment. The rudeness also came with the BloodierAndGorier Soap Opera there became more common (it's quite common to have a scene where someone bleeding profusely shown in a 6 P.M SHOW!), so they have some reasons. Censoring has been quite a problem that entertainment industry had to be careful on people who blamed them for anything. For instance, once upon a time there was a commercial of a telephone card which involves two salary men discussing about them and one of them invoking TemptingFate that if such a cheap deal of telephone card exists (which is being promoted), he'll go off marry a monkey... and then they encountered a billboard that advertised that yes, such cheap deal existed, and the commercial ended with the awkward marriage ensuing. The commercial actually ''has a sequel'' where said salaryman hasn't heard the lesson and again, tempts fate that if a cheaper deal exists, he'll re-marry with a goat. It happened again, and now the monkey is mad that it has to share with the goat. Several times passed and then after a group of conservative people protested that the commercial is like an insult to the humankind nature for marrying animals, the commercial sets were banned. The more proactive people in the future would eventually point out that such censoring would be severely limiting creativity of the entertainment industry (and in a way, it could have been showing).\\\

Around the eighties and nineties, Indonesia had a lot of {{Toku}}satsu shows available in VHS format, paving way to its popularity. ''Series/KyojuuTokusouJuspion'' was pretty popular in Indonesia, although older ''Series/MetalHeroes'' series like ''Series/SpaceSheriffGavan'' and ''Series/SpaceSheriffSharivan'' were also aired. ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' and ''Franchise/KamenRider'', on the other hand, are a different story. For ''Franchise/SuperSentai''; it's true that ''Series/HimitsuSentaiGoranger'' was available in VHS. But the one who reached popularity in Indonesia was ''Series/DaiSentaiGoggleFive''. To this day, Indonesians remember it as "the essential Super Sentai of Indonesia". It also helps that it stars Junichi Haruta (Goggle Black), who starred in Juspion as Madgalant. Hell, the whole cast of Goggle V once visited Indonesia! ''Gavan'' is a special case where it was a popular show back then, but many younger people actualy never watched the actual show, let alone know anything about it. However, the MemeticMutation term associated with the show are a general daily life term. The MemeticMutation in question: "Segede Gavan" (As Big As Gavan, referring to its popularity, to refer to something big or popular). Gavan himself, along with Goggle V above, visited Indonesia in the ''same stage show'', and years later, his influence was still known in Indonesian entertainment that even the classic comedy group Creator/WarkopDKI gave him a tribute with one segment featuring one of its members (Dono) transforming to a low budget Gavan. For ''Franchise/KamenRider'', the original [[Series/KamenRider series]] also was available in VHS, but it wasn't as popular as the other show available in VHS (''Series/DaiSentaiGoggleFive''). It wasn't until the TV Station RCTI aired ''Series/KamenRiderBlack'' (rechristened as "Ksatria Baja Hitam"/"Black Steel Knight") that ''Kamen Rider'' became a sensation in Indonesia. ''Series/KamenRiderBlackRX'', which aired next, also enjoyed huge popularity. They even changed the name of the next aired Franchise/KamenRider (though it was technically one of the previous installments), ''Series/KamenRiderSuper1'', as 'Ksatria Baja Hitam Super-1', even if Super-1 doesn't have big black color motif. In short, just like how Goggle Five is the essential Super Sentai of Indonesia, ''Black'' is the essential ''Kamen Rider'' of Indonesia; and probably even bigger for Indonesian Tokusatsu. So much that, if Indonesian shows decided to make reference to ''Kamen Rider'' in general, they'd use ''Black'' rather than the original. These days are a bit different. The only Tokusatsu show that is still remembered to these days are ''Power Rangers'' in name only (as in not to specific show, just power rangers in general), but ''Black'' is pretty much untouched in term of popularity of the name. To put this into perspective, the bit about changing the names of Super-1 sticks, and "Ksatria Baja Hitam"/"Black Steel Knight" is essentially the local translation of ''Kamen Rider''. Often times, Indonesian subtitled version of Kamen Rider movies shown in the cinema would often refer to Kamen Rider as "Ksatria Baja Hitam". Indonesia has attempted their own flair and style in creating their own Toku shows, but the qualities were usually questionable. That is, until the near present, where MNC TV decided to give another Indonesian Tokusatsu show a go, mostly basing it from, [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff of course]], ''Series/KamenRiderBlack'', and they ain't joking when they even got [[Creator/ShotaroIshinomori Ishinomori Production]] to oversee and collaborate. The result? Series/BimaSatriaGaruda. And the reception? [[SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome Mostly pretty good!]] The season even got enough popularity for a second season, and even brought out Creator/TetsuoKurata ([[Series/KamenRiderBlack Kotaro Minami/Kamen Rider Black]]) to guest star! It kind of continues with the Toku love. For the first time ever, [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-24/power-rangers-dino-charge-cast-revealed-at-power-morphicon-4/.77967 after the cast announcement]] of ''Series/PowerRangersDinoCharge'', an Indonesian actor/stuntman, Yoshi Sudarso, will take part as one of the main core cast, as the Blue Ranger! Even moreso in the successor show, ''Series/PowerRangersNinjaSteel'', the Blue Ranger is also Indonesian, Yoshi's younger brother Peter, in fact.\\\

In the realm of manga, ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' was hugely popular in Indonesia in 2006. A Malay animated series ''Animation/UpinAndIpin'' is wildly popular, mostly because [[YouNoTakeCandle Malay sounds hilarious to Indonesians]], especially when spoken by two bald village boys. Naruto is still very popular to this day. Some people had came across some books that mostly talk about "Naruto vs Pain fight analysis" or "Naruto's various jutsu analysis" which its contents are mostly taken from Wikipedia. In the mid-nineties, pretty much all kids have read and watched Dragon Ball (mostly boys), Sailor Moon (mostly girls) and Doraemon (both). Speaking of Doraemon, it is without a doubt the longest lasting, most popular anime and manga in Indonesia. There is still some Doraemon based events at times, and its still running to this day(even longer than Dragon Ball, which still run to this day). ''Manga/{{Doraemon}}'', ''Manga/DragonBall'', and ''Manga/'' currently hold the position of three most long lasting show in Indonesia, and all three of them still has their Mangas sold on local bookstores, and Doraemon constantly has education books (such as Math, PE, and Sports) and special collective editions which includes story that centers around one point from the whole series. In fact, during Holidays season, Doraemon movies always has a time spot (on that note, Doraemon is also the only anime to ever has its movie to be run in Indonesia). Aside of ''Doraemon'', the otherwise obscure manga ''Manga/TekkenChinmi'' (retitled as ''Kung-Fu Boy'') was really [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff big in Indonesia]], it forms one of the most classic manga series (alongside ''Doraemon'' and several others) in the country. In general, during the old days, ''[[Anime/PokemonTheSeries Pokémon]], Franchise/{{Digimon}}, Manga/{{Doraemon}}, Manga/CrayonShinChan, WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry, WesternAnimation/ClassicDisneyShorts'', a ''Franchise/PowerRangers'' show, ''Franchise/KamenRider'', ''Anime/YuGiOh'', and ''Franchise/DragonBall'' are the kids shows of choice.\\\

Mecha anime didn't hit it big in Indonesia, but in the 80's, there is one anime that hit the VHS and its national television channel (TVRI) and became a hit in a similar way to the Tokusatsu entries above: ''Anime/VoltesV''. It's didn't reach the 'virtually worshipped' level as the Phillipines did, but kids of that age held great nostalgic feelings to ''Voltes V''. If anything, back in the days, Soeharto was smart enough not to ban ''Voltes V'' and letting it run to its end unlike Ferdinand Marcos.\\\

Indonesian's taste in comic and magazines are influenced a lot by the European impact, especially Dutch influences. Disney comics have been published there since 1976 on various form, and most of the translations appeared to lean on Dutch's translation of the same books. After several changes of name, Album Donal Bebek (Donald Duck's Album) and Poket Paman Gober (Uncle Scrooge's pocket comic, [[DubNameChange "Gober" being taken from Dagobert Duck, Scrooge's name in Dutch]]) has been the main stayer since 90s. The most apparent influence is the triplet's name, which is lifted straight from the Dutch: Kwik, Kwek, and Kwak. FrancoBelgianComics are also mainstayers in bookstores. {{ComicBook/Tintin}} sells quite well enough that the publisher reprint the books ''and'' the translation[[note]][[DubNameChange Earlier translation used American names of the characters (i.e. Thompson and Thomson, Calculus)]], while the newer ones are more faithful to the original names (i.e. Dupond and Dupont, Lithmus)[[/note]]. ComicBook/LuckyLuke and {{ComicBook/Asterix}} are also mainstayers since the 90s.\\\

Several obscure Comics and Show has became popular (or at least a cult-classic). Kobochan, an obscure comic-strip from Japan, is still printed there in comic form. An obscure Slapstick {{Manhwa}} called "Kungfu Komang" is also a cult classic here for the insanity of it's slapstick and infamous common FaceFault with addition of mouth foaming and puking scenes.\\\

Korean SoapOpera, and Boybands/Girlbands are a huge hit on Indonesia come the 2010s, concurrent with the Korean Wave. A bit of HypeBacklash came out from there, as some people disliked Korean stuffs for being corny. Before the Korean Wave, Indonesia used to have an obsession with Taiwanese media circa the early 2000s, thanks to ''Meteor Garden'' (an adaptation of ''Manga/BoysOverFlowers'', which itself was re-adapted to a popular K-drama in 2009). This "Chinese boom" actually started during TheNineties, when {{Wuxia}} TV Series got a pretty big boom in Indonesia. Two series stands out in the eyes of many: ''Literature/TheReturnOfTheCondorHeroes'' and ''White Snake Legend'' (based on a tale similar to Film/GreenSnake, only more on the POV of the titular White Snake), the former even moreso because it's the one that starred Creator/AndyLau (and shot him to big popularity amongst Indonesians). Many who were around TheNineties would at least know more about either [[Literature/TheReturnOfTheCondorHeroes Yang Guo]] or Bai Suzen (the titular White Snake from the latter). [[Literature/TheLegendOfTheCondorHeroes The prequel of the former]] were also aired, giving Guo Jing a good deal of popularity too (though not as much as Yang Guo). The popularity of {{Wuxia}} eventually led to Mandarin drama craze, beginning with ''Meteor Garden'', which starred the quartet [=F4=]. For old school Indonesians living in the 90's and early 2000's, they'd recognize the name 'Dao Ming Shi' (Mandarin version) more than 'Tsukasa Domyoji' (the original). The popularity of ''Meteor Garden'' actually led to one Indonesian TV channel developing a remake: ''Siapa Takut Jatuh Cinta?'' (''Who's Afraid of Falling in Love?''), which was inspired by the Taiwanese drama rather than the original manga.\\\

Are you a FightingGame fan who likes going to Arcades? Well, it might hard for you to live in Indonesia, for Arcade booths are sorely lacking them (said to be too violent for kids), with the exception of ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}}'' machines (mainline series and Tag Tournament). Racing simulations (such as ''Videogame/WanganMidnight''), rhythm games, or light gun shooters (such as ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis'') are more common, though. And you'll mostly find the fighter machines in theaters, rather than concentrated in one place. In the wake of the decline of Arcades, it seemed inevitable. However, ask any Indonesian people that had their childhood in UsefulNotes/TheNineties, and they will remember that Indonesia, especially Jakarta, used to have Arcade stands with classic Arcade games available for play. In the 2010s, however, Creator/BandaiNamcoEntertainment created an Indonesian division that localizes Namco arcade games into Indonesian, something of a rarity in the arcade game industry. Indonesian-localized games include ''VideoGame/TimeCrisis 5'' and ''VideoGame/{{Aikatsu}}''. This is perhaps why ''Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune'' has an Indonesia region, something of an issue as it means that Indonesian players cannot race player ghosts from or officially compete in Time Attack with most of the Eastern Pacific, of a vice versa.\\\

Indonesians are specialized in PlayerVersusPlayer-oriented VideoGames. Especially the MMO ones. Though ''VideoGame/LeagueOfLegends'' does have its following and local server here provided by Garena, most Indonesians usually stuck with the original ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncientsAllStars'' or ''VideoGame/{{Dota 2}}'' as it was around for quite longer and the former supports LAN play, because as stated above, Indonesian internet are rather slow for dedicated online multiplayer (thus League could not take advantage of its early start until Garena provided the local server). As of late, the MOBA scene has grown big enough in Indonesia that some championships were held in Indonesia, though it's mostly ''Dota 2'' and some mobile games, like ''VideoGame/MobileLegendsBangBang'' or ''VideoGame/ArenaOfValor'', but ''VideoGame/{{Dota 2}}'' was also not forgotten. In 2021, one Indonesian ''VideoGame/{{Dota 2}}'' players, Xepher (part of the [=T1=] team), managed to enter the 10th International tournament and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hwxw5s29m8 during an interview]], he's allowed to send a message and he spoke: "Mama, aku di TI" ("Mom, I'm at TI"), which immediately became immortalized as a playable chat voice, the first Indonesian voice chat in the game. ''Arena of Valor'' has gotten big enough in Indonesia that the country hosted a demonstration tournament during the 2018 Asian Games (which took place in Jakarta and Palembang), in which many Asian countries participate. Additionally, AOV becomes the first MOBA to host an Indonesian playable character based on one of their local novels, Literature/WiroSableng. ''VideoGame/MobileLegendsBangBang'' is also wildly popular in Indonesia that it also got a few Indonesian heroes: Gatotkaca (the local version, not the default giant version in ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'', and Kadita, who is based on the local legend Nyi Roro Kidul (Queen of the Southern Seas, kind of like a local version of sea sirens including all its horrors, mostly known for her horror film played by Suzanna) On the other hand, Indonesian gamers [[SelfDeprecation tend to admit that]] they are the most toxic gamer crowd in Southeast Asia, rivaling that of the Filipino, or saying that they're worse. It's still unclear on who's actually worse (the Filipino are most likely not willing to admit that they're not the worst, and none of the Indonesian gaming insult words has become a little more known in the other world as opposed to the Filipino's "putang ina mo" or "bobo").\\\

Speaking of MMO, VideoGame/RagnarokOnline is pretty popular in Indonesia. How popular? Enough to have [[GottaCatchEmAll collectible cards sets]] included in snacks, numerous ads in local television channels for a while, having Anime/RagnarokTheAnimation aired immediately after it ended in Japan, and several official doujin contests (with most of the winners ended up being professional artists/illustrators/designers, to boot). Several [[MemeticMutation memes]] it created are being used as Indonesians' internet slangs, the most infamous one being "hode"[[note]]Named after a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything suspiciously strange-looking]] sandworm monster Hode. The term itself has the same meaning as GuyInRealLife[[/note]]. Naturally, most of MMO that brought after RO's success FollowTheLeader. And if you ask the older generations what PC games they know, there's a good chance they will answer either RO or Nexia. Yeah, it's ''that'' popular. When the [[VideoGame/RagnarokIILegendOfTheSecond sequel]] is finally brought to Indonesia, it got promoted as much as when the first game reached its peak in popularity. And as the era of mobile-gaming enters, once again Indonesians quickly fell in love with [[VideoGame/RagnarokMEternalLove Ragnarok's mobile version.]] Most of its success could be traced from how Gravity Co. pushed a lot of its ads to the country and also allowed Indonesian players to play ''for free'' (though there are some items that required payment with real money, predating the Pay To Win model decades before it became a notorious term). Considering Indonesia's economic state, it was a match made in heaven. And it also helped that it got popular before ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' took the world by storm, so even if many Indonesian turned towards ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' (at one point, even there was a private Indonesian server for ''The Burning Crusade'', until they're forced to deal with the international prices) later, ''Ragnarok Online'' has left its legacy in the nation.\\\

Indonesia has a peculiar history when it comes to Video Game Consoles and the gamer generation. The earliest known video game consoles within Indonesia was naturally the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem from the 80's. Come the late 80's to 90's, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis and later on UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo took over the console gaming scene and the effects of the first UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars era spread into Indonesia as well. It should be noted that just like other countries, the earlier era of video games was quite harsh for Indonesian gamers, with parents citing that it's a game just for kids and nerds, if you grow up and still play video games at the time, you could get considered very childish. At the very least though, there was no movements to demonize video games just like in other countries. The turning point of video game history was at 1998, when the Trisakti Incident happened. The resulting riot targetted many video game stores (a lot of them ran by Chinese-Indonesians) and resulted one of the most central video game store-containing malls in Jakarta, Glodok Bridge, to be burnt down. This, combined with the decline of Indonesian economy power, forced gamers to think of other ways to get their games, since both Sega and Nintendo game prices ended up very expensive with their cartridges and their main hub (Glodok Bridge) was destroyed. Additionally, both consoles were at their final years, quality games from those would be scarce at that point. Around this time, the medium [=CD=] saw a rise, and with it, [[UsefulNotes/{{Playstation}} Sony Playstation]] and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, where developers flocked to make their new games after departing from SNES and Genesis. Piracy ran amok thanks to how easy the [=CD=] was pirated, and Playstation and Saturn was no exception, but Indonesia was in the middle of restructurization thus the government didn't put much attention to piracy laws... and the [=CD=] format eventually made these games very cheap and affordable as opposed to the super expensive 16 bit cartridges; and they have a 'general price' system: No games would be more expensive than other games, and there was no region-locking, therefore Japanese language games can also be played just as fine as English language games. Thanks to this, Indonesian gamers decided to embrace piracy and the 32-bit gaming era, with Playstation taking the lead (Saturn lost the race, staying as a CultClassic, while UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 didn't sell that well here due to using cartridges). While Sony did not mind much on this, they were incidentally building a legacy in the heart of video gamers in Indonesia. When DVD rose in the next generation, naturally Indonesian gamers switched onto Playstation 2, there was no other question, since DVD was also easy to pirate. Because of this piracy thing, there's quite [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff a lot of games that would be usually considered niche everywhere else but became fondly remembered as cult classics amongst Indonesian console gamers.]] When Playstation 3 was released, Sony has noted about the rampant piracy within their game console and decided to do something about it: Blu-Ray disc format, firmware updates and internet connection. They also noticed the legacy they accidentally built in Indonesia and capitalized on it by opening their own office branch in Indonesia, and Indonesia has stabilized itself a bit so they finally could push on more original-quality disc. With this, piracy was curbed down, and the generation of gamers in Indonesia realized that they have to get back to the age of expensive original quality games. Luckily for them, at that point, they're at the age where they could make money on its own and no longer needed permission from their parents to get video games. And around the same time, it turned out that those who ran their store at Glodok Bridge successfully made their exodus and reopened their stores in the nearby Mangga Dua district and specializing in original games[[note]]Glodok Bridge was rebuilt, but it was no longer the video game hub it was before.[[/note]]. Thanks to the legacy Sony built from their consoles, the majority of Indonesian gamers stuck with Playstation 3 despite its troubling launch history and it paid off: When Sony finally sorted out the issues in Playstation 3 (around the release of the Slim model), Indonesian gamers have already flocked onto Playstation 3 and matured from depending on piracy into being able to support Sony by buying their products. While there were competitors that still allowed measures of piracy (such as Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii), they still lost to the sheer legacy that Playstation had over Indonesia. Only in the next generation that things began to shake up: While Playstation 4 still had a strong following, Nintendo provided its more capable console: Nintendo Switch, which means that they pose strong competition with Sony within Indonesia. Xbox One gamers existed, but they seem less outspoken compared to Sony and Nintendo gamers within Indonesia. Regardless of Nintendo's rise, it's already clear that as far as Indonesian gamers think of, their choice for legendary console would be the Playstation family.\\\

As for fauna, Indonesia is home to the Komodo dragons, orangutans, rhinoceroses, and proboscis/long-nosed monkeys (known in Indonesian as 'bekantan', and known for being [[https://s.kaskus.id/images/2017/12/30/5746853_20171230102207.jpg the mascot of Jakarta's biggest theme park, Dunia Fantasi/Dufan (Fantasy World)]]). There are also a lot of snakes, including around 360 species and 76 of them are venomous (and one of them being the most venomous King Cobra, it's a good thing that the Black Mamba didn't live there) and yet they only have antivenoms for three species so far. For the most part, snake bites were handled with a more 'general' antivenom, or traditional healing. Therefore, getting bitten by a snake in Indonesia can be one of the deadliest things in the nation. With less knowledge on snakes and Indonesia still pushing on modernization on rural areas, it's only a matter of time that the modern people encounter the snakes that were driven away from their habitat (usually by accident, since there are lots of tall grasses in rural areas of Indonesia where farmers work, farmers are more likely to encounter snakes by chance while either cutting grasses or walking through the territory, accidentally provoking the snakes), though death by snake bites is still rare in the country.[[note]]There was a snake-based accident where a dangdut singer, who was known to perform with snakes for a long time, died in the hospital after being bitten on stage. Later revealed that the snake was tamed by a pseudo-snake charmer.[[/note]]\\\

If you have been speaking Indonesian language for some time, you'd notice that Indonesians [[Portmanteau love to make portmanteaus of just about anything]], probably related to the aforementioned military influence. Some are even done very much in a tongue-in-cheek way, often referencing multiple things at one time. Fine examples include Jabodetabek = the Jakarta metropolitan area ('''Ja'''karta, '''Bo'''gor, '''De'''pok, '''Ta'''ngerang, and '''Bek'''asi.); Puskesmas = Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat ("Community Health Center," think of public clinics. Though unlike others below (except Kopaska), this is kind of accepted as an 'official' abbreviation unlike others that mostly would be considered slangs); Kopaska = Kommando Pasukan Katak ("Frog-Diver Command," think Indonesian equivalent to Navy [=SEALs=]); Pamer paha = padat merayap tanpa harapan (The joke goes twofold: Pamer paha means "ShowSomeLeg" (literally "thigh"), but the long form stands for "(traffic) extremely congested, abandon all hope"); Titi DJ = Hati-hati di jalan (Same joke: Titi DJ is the stage name of a famous TV Personality while the expanded form means "be careful in the road"); ABG = Anak Baru Gede, Angkatan Babe Gue, Audisi Band Gelo, Aku Baru Gajian ("insolent teenager", "my dad's generation", "band audition went shitty", and "I just got paid"; all from the same abbreviation, with many other variations not listed.); Anjal = Anak Jalanan ("street kids", nowadays used as a local substitute of the PrecisionFStrike by youths.); Bucin = Budak Cinta (PropertyOfLove).\\\

If you have been speaking Indonesian language for some time, you'd notice that Indonesians [[FunWithAcronyms love to abbreviate just about anything]], probably related to the aforementioned military influence. Some are even done very much in a tongue-in-cheek way, often referencing multiple things at one time. Fine examples include Jabodetabek = the Jakarta metropolitan area ('''Ja'''karta, '''Bo'''gor, '''De'''pok, '''Ta'''ngerang, and '''Bek'''asi.); Puskesmas = Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat ("Community Health Center," think of public clinics. Though unlike others below (except Kopaska), this is kind of accepted as an 'official' abbreviation unlike others that mostly would be considered slangs); Kopaska = Kommando Pasukan Katak ("Frog-Diver Command," think Indonesian equivalent to Navy [=SEALs=]); Pamer paha = padat merayap tanpa harapan (The joke goes twofold: Pamer paha means "ShowSomeLeg" (literally "thigh"), but the long form stands for "(traffic) extremely congested, abandon all hope"); Titi DJ = Hati-hati di jalan (Same joke: Titi DJ is the stage name of a famous TV Personality while the expanded form means "be careful in the road"); ABG = Anak Baru Gede, Angkatan Babe Gue, Audisi Band Gelo, Aku Baru Gajian ("insolent teenager", "my dad's generation", "band audition went shitty", and "I just got paid"; all from the same abbreviation, with many other variations not listed.); Anjal = Anak Jalanan ("street kids", nowadays used as a local substitute of the PrecisionFStrike by youths.); Bucin = Budak Cinta (PropertyOfLove).\\\

The Singhasari Kingdom went on to become the major power in Java, but depending on which source you read, you might get confused on who exactly was the ruler at the time. The two sources for Singhasari's history were the books ''Negarakertagama'' and ''Pararaton''. The former was closer to history and generally mundane, but the second one was a semi-mythical history book akin of ''Literature/RomanceOfTheThreeKingdoms'', so it was most likely that the latter would pop up in people's memory more often (though it wasn't a breakthrough hit like the Chinese one). Both books revolve around tracing the bloodline of Singhasari's rulers, and what both agree is that King Rangga Rajasa of Tumapel subdued Kediri, established Singhasari, passed his kingdom to his son, Anusapati, who fathered Ranggawuni/Wisnuwardhana, who fathered Kertanegara, the last king of Singhasari. ''Negarakertama'' had a laconic version of this history, while ''Pararaton'' embellished it with details that are certainly legendary. If you're interested, buckle up as this is going to take a while.[[labelnote:A very long read]]The ruler of Tumapel was a certain Tunggul Ametung. While visiting a Buddhist priest named Mpu Purwa, he came across his daughter, Ken Dedes, who was considered at that time [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman a divine beauty]]. Falling in love and also getting a little impatient for permission from her father meditating, Tunggul Ametung kidnapped Ken Dedes against her will. When her father came back seeing his daughter gone, he let out a curse that may whoever kidnapped his daughter die by a kris.\\\

Majapahit's downfall was set in motion thanks to a dispute with Sunda, Majapahit's western neighbor in Java. Hayam Wuruk wanted to make Dyah Pitaloka Citaresmi, a Sundanese princess, his wife, but Gajah Mada wanted to make Sunda a vassal and the princess Hayam Wuruk's concubine instead. Sunda did not take this insult well, [[TheDogBitesBack they ended up fighting]] in a grueling LastStand[=/=]CurbStompBattle that ended with Pitaloka being DrivenToSuicide by their defeat. [[DisappointedInYou Even Hayam Wuruk was not pleased with the result]], so Gajah Mada took the blame, was exiled, and died in obscurity. [[note]]The sudden eagerness of Gajah Mada was also a source of debate. Some say that it just happens like that (or the fact that he was this close to complete his Sumpah Palapa that he cited to Tribhuwana, so he got a little too gung-ho [[IGaveMyWord to fulfill the oath]], in some sources he did tell Hayam Wuruk about the oath, but Hayam Wuruk had a sudden moment of indecisiveness out of his love to Pitaloka, so Gajah Mada took (a fatal) initiative), or there was a miscommunication between Gajah Mada and the Sunda kingdom, eventually escalating into that battle. There's a reason that this Bubat Incident is often considered a tragedy on ''both'' sides, not just for Sunda.[[/note]] [[note]]This whole thing eventually became the source of tension between Sundanese with Javanese that lasted for generations, with the people of Sunda refusing to name anything within them as something from Majapahit, [[VillainOfAnotherStory viewed Gajah Mada as a dastardly villain when everyone else in the Nusantara considered him a hero]] and forbade any marriages between Sundanese and Javanese out of 'superstition'. By the tail end of the 2010's, however, the descendants of Sunda and Majapahit Kingdoms thankfully agreed to bury the hatchet and made peace with each other.[[/note]][[note]]And hilariously, this event was surprisingly ''not'' included in ''Negarakertagama'', although it can be assumed that the author, Mpu Prapanca, wished to appease Hayam Wuruk and showcase the greatness of Majapahit with his book and thought including such tragic incident that painted Majapahit in a bad light would piss Hayam Wuruk off instead, so he chose to omit the incident, and the reason of Gajah Mada's fall from grace became unknown in that version.[[/note]]

Cue UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The Netherlands, being an Allied nation, got Indonesia involved in the war, only to be driven away by UsefulNotes/{{Japan}}, ostensibly as an "Eastern Brother" coming to liberate the nation. Unfortunately, the takeover from Japan could be considered to be just as harsh, or even worse than life under the Dutch (unpaid, abused workers known as Romusha is one of the ways to show it), so Indonesia was still suffering big time[[note]]Modern Japanese tends to view this as some sort of NecessaryEvil, apologizing for their ancestors' utter cruelty, but from the point of view of the Japanese back then, the Dutch colonization left Indonesian manpower extremely crippled and weak that they had to whip them up to shape ASAP in order to prepare for any cases of unwanted war emergencies. In other words, they wanted to think like they're being a WellIntentionedExtremist to protect Indonesia, but their prediction was off the mark, the Allied forces never tried to attack Indonesia, making them instead look like a NotSoWellIntentionedExtremist with all their Romusha.[[/note]]. On places strategic to war, however, Japan actually put up a much better treatment to areas they deemed important for war effort, encouraging more education and political sophistication. Educated elites like Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta studied Japanese knowledge and took advantage of UsefulNotes/{{Germany}} and Japan's weakening due to the US dropping [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki]], declaring Indonesia independent on August 17, 1945[[note]]Japan actually considered to finally let Indonesia declare their independence on their accord when they sensed that they might be losing the war in 1944, planning that they could declare independence at August 24th instead, but after Hiroshima and Nagasaki got bombed, their hands were tied enough in coping with their losses and preparing to admit defeat that Sukarno and Hatta (with some pressure from radical youths of Indonesia) beat them to a punch in independence declaration.[[/note]]. The Dutch reestablished their colony afterwards, effectively running the country for four years, but the locals were not in the mind to bow to them again, and by 1949, the UsefulNotes/UnitedNations told them to just cut it out and leave Indonesia alone.[[note]]Within Indonesia, 1945 is celebrated as the year of independence, but the international world (and some Indonesian intellectuals) recognize 1949, when the Dutch left the country, to be the actual year of independence.[[/note]] Cynically speaking, the decolonisation of Southeast Asia was in fact a containment measure against the Communists, and the leading independence movement was staunchly anti-communist already.\\\

In the aftermath of the PKI coup, Sukarno lost even more support and the nation was on the verge of collapsing. A new president had to be elected and thanks to his achievements for quelling the coup, Suharto was elected. It also helped his case that Suharto was also very close to and trusted by Sukarno himself, so it was natural for him to succeed the ailing president. Thanks to Sukarno's antics late in his regime, people demanded him to be court-martialed, but somehow Suharto protected him from those attempts by putting him under house arrest and giving him great honors based on his positive achievements to ensure that Sukarno would still be remembered fondly.\\\

Since the turning point was the downfall of PKI because they murdered the army generals, the victims of the 30 September Movement were posthumously honored as 'Heroes of Revolution' as they refused to give in to PKI's demands, their loyalty being credited for averting the country's collapse from Sukarno's erratic actions. To further strengthen its anti-Communism stance, Suharto also sanctioned a propaganda movie called ''"Pengkhianatan PKI"'' (''PKI's Betrayal''), to be aired on the only television channel in the nation on September 30th every year until his downfall in 1998.\\\

To stabilize Indonesia, Suharto announced his brand of regime called the New Order (''Orde Baru''), while Sukarno's regime was redubbed the Old Order (''Orde Lama''). Indonesia's face would change that day. While Sukarno was hostile against United Nations and Malaysia, Suharto instead opted for peaceful relationship and mended their relationship, rejoining the UN in 1966.[[note]]Since there was no precedent about countries leaving the UN unilaterally, the organization did not regard Indonesia as having left at all, instead being merely on "hiatus".[[/note]] His economic project was leering to liberalism and capitalism, with the United States of America as one of Suharto's chosen allies, and one of the most important goals that Suharto aimed for was national stability and with his chosen allies backing him, he could reach those goals in a short time. Thanks to this, Indonesia's economy grew exponentially, enough that that the world was impressed with the formerly colonized nation to grow in such great pace and gave it the moniker 'Tiger of Asia'.\\\

All seemed well for Indonesia until the 1990s, when everything came crashing down. In 1997, Asia was hit with a great financial crisis, and all of the sudden, after years of economic stability, Suharto's leadership plunged Indonesia to an unprecedented crisis. With poverty rising, people lost their confidence on the president. Demonstrations flared up, and people began to criticize openly against Suharto's autocratic and oligarchic government. People dubbed Suharto's government as a champion of the so-called "KKN": ''Korupsi'' (Corruption), ''Kolusi'' (Collusion), and ''Nepotisme'' (Nepotism). Protesters, including college students, initially demanded Suharto to step down peacefully. Suharto, as most dictators did, responded with force, culminating in the deaths of three college students from the Trisakti University by snipers. The resulting frenzy led to the protests becoming uncontrolled, eventually targeting not just Suharto's government but everyone who were regarded as complicit with him, including, tragically, Chinese Indonesians (general consensus claims to stem from jealousy over how they managed to survive the crisis relatively unscathed, in contrast to most other ethnic groups[[note]]Unlike what some people think, Suharto did not favor the Chinese at all. Several Chinese-Indonesians have claimed that Suharto did not acknowledge them and actually sanctioned several laws that debilitated them. For example, the Chinese New Year wasn't an official holiday season when Suharto was in charge, it was only later during the reign of Gus Dur that it was officialized as a holiday. The Chinese-Indonesians survived the economic crisis because they were simply more experienced in terms of trading and economy despite the lack of support from Suharto.[[/note]]), forcing many of them to flee the country. After realizing how much he lost power and the ensuing chaos that erupted, [[KnowWhenToFoldThem Suharto decided that he truly had to resign, his reign was over.]] Suharto was succeeded by his vice-president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. He lived the rest of his life in retirement, with the media hounding him, but he was never convicted until his natural death by multiple organ failure in 2008.\\\

After the fall of Suharto, with the freedom of press truly freed[[note]]Beforehand, Suharto had his ways to silence his blatant oppositions, where they would be [[ReassignedToAntarctica 'honorably deported' somewhere else]] and then killed there, or secret snipers would be deployed to kill them on the spot, dubbed 'Penembak Misterius', shortened 'Petrus' (which is highly ironic considering Christianity and Catholicism are two of Indonesia's biggest religions just below Islam; Petrus is the Indonesian translation for (Saint) Peter, the first of Jesus Christ's apostles), and the phenomenon is known as 'Petrus Shooting'. Originally it was meant to be a mean to decrease criminal rate and a lot of troublemaking gangs; while it was accepted at the time and was actually a factor of how Indonesia was stabilized and able to advance greatly in Suharto's leadership before the financial crisis, it eventually spiraled out of control and the Petrus Shooters became something of a SecretPolice to eliminate threats of Suharto's rule. This can be considered as a precursor of the Trisakti shooting, whereupon the shooting became the straw that broke the camel's back about the brutality of this shooting. And with Suharto fallen, everyone is free to express their knowledge and news without fear of being suddenly shot to death.[[/note]], many were eager to research about what Suharto was doing in all those years. Chief amongst them, though it is still a topic of considerable contention in Indonesia (because discussing it is a criminal offense), the 30 September Movement was a sort of FalseFlagOperation actually conducted by the very military it was supposed to have targeted. In a failed coup, blame was shifted to the communists, leading to the massacre (generally estimated from 500,000 to 1 million dead). Special point was taken to remind the population afterwards that only the communists (and absolutely ''none from the army'') are to blame through the education system. In actuality, the plotters were mostly army officers (and did include some communist officers). And since all the communists were dead anyway, it worked relatively well, in addition to the aforementioned "Pengkhianatan PKI" film being aired every year, which ended up quite [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]] of Suharto ([[HypocriteHasAPoint though not without a point, even if it's a smaller scale, the murder method was still very inhuman and gruesome]]). Additionally, despite the history of Indonesia being invaded and colonized by the Dutch, it turned out Suharto would end up doing the same thing, except towards UsefulNotes/EastTimor, and doing a lot of inhuman things towards them all while parading that East Timor was part of Indonesia's many provinces. And a majority of them were solely for hoarding whatever resources East Timor had instead of anything defensive.\\\

During the colonial era, Indonesia was known as a producer of spices such as nutmeg, which is endemic to the Maluku islands. Today, Indonesia is a developing country and an important emerging market. It is among the world's 20 largest economies, and thus a member of the G20. Its exports include coal, petroleum oil and gases, and palm oil, while it imports machinery and chemicals. Indonesia was a longtime member of the OPEC, but decreasing oil wealth led to it exiting the bloc in 2008, having failed to meet production quota. Indonesia is well-known for its palm oil production, being the industry's top producer. Unfortunately, clearances for palm plantations have resulted in the rapid depletion of the country's rainforests since the late 20th century. For most of its history, Indonesia's main trade partner is Japan, though by the TurnOfTheMillennium China has been quickly ascending to become a key trade partner. A large chunk of Indonesia's economy is still dominated by state, who owns several important enterprises, including its oil industry.\\\

The Indonesian rupiah is infamous for its [[RidiculousExchangeRates steep official exchange rate]] (1 USD = 15,600 IDR as of January 2023), at least on face value. This was the result of the hyperinflation the country experienced during the 1997 Asian financial crisis, when the currency was floated and ended up depreciating ten times its previous value. Although it has recovered and become stable in recent years, the currency stays around the same range. Do note, however, that the rate is deceptive and no way an indication of living costs, which are generally on the same level as other middle income countries. Nevertheless, the rupiah is frequently the butt of jokes among Asian media for this reason (only the UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}}ese dong suffers more, since it has an even steeper rate than the rupiah).

As for fauna, Indonesia is home to the Komodo dragons, orangutans, rhinoceroses, and proboscis/long-nosed monkeys (known in Indonesian as 'bekantan', and known for being [[https://s.kaskus.id/images/2017/12/30/5746853_20171230102207.jpg the mascot of Jakarta's biggest theme park, Dunia Fantasi/Dufan (Fantasy World)]]). There are also a lot of snakes, including around 360 species and 76 of them are venomous (and one of them being the most venomous King Cobra, it's a good thing that the Black Mamba didn't live there) and yet they only have antivenoms for three species so far. For the most part, snake bites were handled with a more 'general' antivenom, or traditional healing. Therefore, getting bitten by a snake in Indonesia could be one of the deadliest things in the nation, as long as you don't provoke them. However, with less knowledge on snakes and Indonesia still pushing on modernization on rural areas, it's only a matter of time that the modern people encounter the snakes that were driven away from their habitat (usually by accident, since there are lots of tall grasses in rural areas of Indonesia where farmers work, farmers are more likely to encounter snakes by chance while either cutting grasses or walking through the territory, accidentally provoking the snakes), though death by snake bites is still rare in the country.[[note]]There was a snake-based accident where a dangdut singer, who was known to perform with snakes for a long time, died in the hospital after being bitten on stage. Later revealed that the snake was tamed by a pseudo-snake charmer.[[/note]]\\\

Being an archipelagic state, aviation is an important industry in Indonesia, with flights being the primary mode of transportation that connects the major islands. Between 2009 to 2014, air passengers grew threefold, and are expected to increase in the coming years. Indonesia's flag carrier and most popular full-service airline is Garuda Indonesia, while its most popular airline overall is the low-cost Lion Air. These two, alongside Garuda Indonesia's low-cost subsidiary Citilink, as well as Lion Air's three subsidiaries Batik Air (its foray to the full-service market), Wings Air (regional airline best known for its all-turboprop fleet), and Super Air Jet (a low-cost airline that targets young adults) form some 80% of Indonesia's market share, with the remaining 20% being in turn dominated by the hybrid airline Sriwijaya Air, its regional subsidiary NAM Air, and Indonesia [=AirAsia=] (which began as the fully domestic Awair; [=AirAsia=] purchased 49% shares of Awair in 2005 and rebranded it as its Indonesian branch). Garuda Indonesia, Citilink, Lion Air, Batik Air, Sriwijaya Air, and Indonesia [=AirAsia=] all have international routes, though compared to hubs like Singapore, Indonesia's offerings are very lacking; with the exception of Garuda Indonesia, which flies to nine countries, these airlines' scheduled international routes are limited to a combination of Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand, essentially acting as feeders for them ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg plus East Timor]], served by Citilink and Sriwijaya Air to and from Denpasar).[[note]]However, Lion Air also has two foreign subsidiaries, Batik Air Malaysia and Thai Lion Air, which offer more international destinations to better compete in their outward-looking home market.[[/note]] Garuda Indonesia used to service major European and North American destinations before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which forced it to scale back operations, something that it never recovered from (currently, the only European destination it serves nonstop flights to is Amsterdam). Also, Indonesia has a rather notorious reputation in the world for its poor airline safety record, with no less than six plane crashes claiming at least 100 fatalities occurring between 2002 and 2018. The 2007 New Year's Day crash of Adam Air Flight 574, which resulted in the airline [[CreatorKiller ceasing its operation shortly afterwards]], followed by the relatively minor but still deadly crash of Garuda Indonesia Flight 200 later that year, caused the European Union to impose a blanket ban on Indonesian airlines from crossing into its airspace, although the major airlines successfully petitioned to have their individual bans removed, before the law was scrapped completely in 2018.\\\

Aside from the Malays, Sumatra is also home to the Acehnese, the Bataks, the Minangkabau, the Rejang, and the Lampungese. The Acehnese were the first Indonesian ethnic group to convert to Islam, and today (in)famous for imposing Islamic laws in their everyday life. Interestingly, rather than their Sumatran neighbors, the Acehnese language has more in common with the moribund Chamic languages of UsefulNotes/{{Vietnam}} (formerly spoken in Champa, the only Austronesian state in Indochina, it was absorbed by the Vietnamese in the 19th century). The Bataks of North Sumatra are the largest Christian-majority ethnic group in Indonesia, and produce some of the country's best singers, orators, and, lawyers (those ministerial trainings definitely help). The Bataks are a tribal nation, and divide themselves into six major tribes, two of which are majority Muslim. Their religious divide is largely a result of the Padri War, initiated by the Bataks' southern neighbors, the Minangkabau, under the Wahhabi-influenced Padri movement led by independence fighter Tuanku Imam Bonjol. As for the Minang, they speak a language that is closely related to but not mutually intelligible with Malay (and may have been descended from an archaic form of Malay). They are a matriarchal, scholarly nation, and Minang men are traditionally expected to emigrate to seek higher learning and success elsewhere. One result of this is that Minangkabau cuisine is a common sight in cities, as these emigrants set up shop and opened restaurants known as ''Rumah Makan Padang''. A Minang delicacy, rendang, made headlines when a 2011 Creator/{{CNN}} survey voted it the world's most delicious dish. Another result is that Minang people have made disproportionate gains in politics and entertainment relative to their size. A particularly famous Minang politician is one of the country's founding fathers, Vice-President Mohammad Hatta. During the 15th century, waves of Minang emigrants settled the Malay peninsula under the protection of the Malacca Sultanate, and their descendants formed Negeri Sembilan, a federal monarchy that elected rulers (''Yang di-Pertuan Besar'') on a periodical, rotational basis. Their form of government later inspired Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first Prime Minister of Malaysia, to institute Malaysia's current kingship system, which elects a supreme monarch (''Yang di-Pertuan Agong'') on a rotational basis.\\\

The Indonesian language has no past tense or third-person gender-specific pronouns (which results in the English translation for the sentence "he kicks the ball" and "she kicked the ball" being exactly the same: "dia menendang bola").[[note]]Ironically, English singular "they" is practically unheard of there, with many referring to unknown/generic individuals in English as "he/she" or [[MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial generic "he"]].[[/note]] There are several first- and second-person pronouns with varying degrees of appropriateness. "I/me" can be "saya" (neutral/formal), "aku" (casual), "gua/gue" (Jakarta and surrounding areas, loanword from Hokkien Chinese, for close friends and peers only), "beta" (used in Eastern Indonesia), "hamba" (deferrent, usually used ironically or by royal servants), etc. "You" can be "Anda" (very formal and can be seen as rude since it lacks deference), "Saudara" (literally "fellow humankind", mostly used by uniformed services), "kamu" (casual), "lu/lo" (counterpart to "gua/gue"), "Bapak/Ibu" ("Sir/Madam", formal and safest), "Adik" ("Younger sibling", used to address younger and young people), "Kakak" ("Older sibling," used to refer to elder but young people) and so on. There are no articles equivalent to "the/is/are/am/was/were". Also, like Spanish, the '''adjective''' is put ''after'' the noun ("'''Red''' apple" = "Apel '''merah'''", "'''Sky''' blue" = "Biru '''langit'''"), a common source of grief among Indonesians trying to learn English. "Akan" in Indonesian is (usually) the equivalent of "will" (of English future tense).\\\

Islam, as the dominant religion, is practiced all along the archipelago. It is the majority religion in all provinces except for Bali, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and the six Papuan provinces. Explaining Islam in Indonesia can take up pages upon pages showing how different it is to the "orthodox" Islam practiced elsewhere. General consensus is that it is very, very ''lax'' compared to those practiced in the Middle East and South Asia, because the religion was spread in Indonesia through Indian merchants, who mostly practiced Sufism, a mystical branch that mostly mixed folk legends and various other "unorthodox" condiment into the religion base. This made the religion open to acculturation with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; it's often said that had the Arab merchants were the ones who preached Islam in Indonesia, it wouldn't be accepted that easily. That said, Muslim Indonesians generally follow basic Islamic teachings like praying and not eating pork, drinking alcohol, and having sex outside marriage. Hijab is observed by an increasing number of women, when it was rather rare during the New Order period (mostly because Suharto restricted hijab-wearing women from working in government, so it came to be seen as a symbol of defiance against his authority). In the mid 2000s, there's a surge of cultural movement called 'Hijrah', where people choose to become more religious in Islam and has sudden drastic changes in the lifestyle, such as dressing more modestly, and studying and preaching Islam harder. There's always a TokenReligiousTeammate in a group of people. The phenomenon has also led to many media to highlight this, such as ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'' and ''Ketika Cinta Bertasbih''. Music is an even hotter asset, where every year in Ramadan, artists release a "religious song", even when the artists have controversial reputations, with the modest fashion and all. Commerce is no exception, the rise of halal demand made many products want the halal label slapped to them, even for non-edible foods such as clothes and even halal fridge (no, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjpwwm/indonesia-just-got-its-first-halal-fridge-heres-a-list-of-everything-else-that-needs-a-stamp really]]), theres also [[https://evermos.com/ Halal e-commerce]] specifically to cater them.\\\

Christianity is the largest minority religion in Indonesia, and is dominant in North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and Papua. Many provinces like North Sumatra (which actually has the largest Christian population in the country at 4.9 million people), Maluku, and West Kalimantan also have substantial Christian populations. Christianity was brought into Indonesia by the Europeans, and the faith was accepted by natives who formerly practiced tribal religions. Since the Protestant Dutch were the colonial power, Protestantism is considered the "default" Christian branch. When you hear Indonesians say about "Kristen", they're referring to Protestants (Catholics, by contrast, are referred to as "Katolik"). Interestingly, Indonesian Christians call their God "Allah". The tradition of Indonesian Christians calling God "Allah" is rooted in historical Malay translations of the Bible, which tend to utilize Arabic to translate phrases that were seen as being close enough to Muslim concepts (as Malays are traditionally Muslims, and Christian Malays are mostly descended from ex-Muslims). Indonesia actually has a couple of different ways to call God; other than "Allah", they have the Austronesian-rooted "Tuhan" (basically the native synonym of the monotheist God), as well as "Dewa/Dewi", a term that may refer to the universal God but mostly used to refer to polytheistic gods or spirits (the term is derived from the Sanskrit word ''deva/devi''). Aside from Allah, Christians also use Arabic phrases like "Alkitab" (the Bible) and "khutbah" (sermons).\\\

Indonesia has its own version of ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' called Creator/WarkopDKI, consisting of comedians [[FunWithAcronyms Dono, Kasino and Indro]]. In the old days around TheEighties or TheNineties, they're famous locally by releasing many local comedy movies (though not exactly international famous level). Unfortunately, as of now the group has disbanded as first Kasino, then Dono passed away, leaving Indro to be the sole surviving Warkop member. This is made worse by the fact that most comedy made after their era are pure slapstick while theirs are considered 'Undergraduate comedy', which refers to their more 'intelligent' form of comedy compared to other comedians. Though eventually at 2015, Indro himself made a film which is a throwback to the usual classic Warkop style (and starring him as well, but not being the main protagonist) titled "Komedi Moderen Gokil!" (Crazy-Awesome Modern Comedy!). And eventually, Indro gave a green light with a remake of Warkop itself in the modern age... by recasting himself, [[TheOtherDarrin Dono and Kasino with new actors]], thus a new set of movies titled ''Warkop Reborn'' saw releases. Warkop's jokes actually can fell on slapstick category (they usually ended the movie fell on a river after caused chaos on an uncontrolled vehicle). It's just that their movies often had breakthrough jokes and satires. For example, a popular joke there where some people represented some useful knowledge on the same became hilarious for they cutting each other at the worst time (like you talking about how to make some soup, only for someone to cut you and talking about the good way to do service on your bike. As a result, apparently that the best spices for your soup are oil and skrew) were came out from one of their movie.\\\

* [[UsefulNotes/MataHari Margaretha Geertruida Zelle]], the most famous FemmeFatale in the world, even though she was not that successful. She was actually a full-blooded Dutch, but was born and raised in the Dutch East Indies and spoke perfect Malay. Her stage name, Mata Hari, means "sun" in Malay.

But this belies its history and geographical significance. Ever heard of Bali? It's one of Indonesia's many islands, and probably the only ''fairly'' popular one. You've also heard of the Komodo dragons and orangutans, both of which live in Indonesia. History buffs know about the Spice Islands, the source of cloves and other spices for which 16th-century explorers set sail -- today they are known as the Maluku Islands. Krakatoa, the great volcano that erupted in 1883 and (theoretically) caused a near-extinction event long before that? In Indonesia. Java, source of the English slang for coffee (and a programming language)? An island in Indonesia. Indonesia's obscurity in most of the West is partly because, until after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the area was known as the East Indies (to be precise, Indonesia was the Dutch East Indies, UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} the [[UsefulNotes/{{Britain}} British]] East Indies, the UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} the [[UsefulNotes/{{Spain}} Spanish]] East Indies, etc.). So "Indonesia" basically seemed to appear out of nowhere.[[note]]Of course, it actually didn't. In 1850, English ethnologist George Windsor Earl proposed, in his scientific paper "On The Leading Characteristics of the Papuan, Australian and Malay-Polynesian Nations", the terms ''Indunesians'' and ''Malayunesians'' to name the "inhabitants of the 'Indian [as in, East Indies] Archipelago or Malayan Archipelago'" while co-author and Earl's student James Richardson Logan used ''Indonesia'' as a synonym for "Indian Archipelago". The names became popular for the region after 1900, especially in academic circles, however not to the Dutch, who used their own names. Indonesian nationalists found a way to bash the Dutch and adopted this name for their nation as a way of affirming themselves politically.[[/note]]

->"This country, the Republic of Indonesia, does not belong to any group, nor to any religion, nor to any ethnic group, nor to any group with customs and traditions, but is the property of all of us from Sabang to Merauke!"[[labelnote:Note]]"Dari Sabang Sampai Merauke" has since become a well-known Indonesian pan-nationalist slogan.[[/labelnote]]

* Yuuko from ''Manga/{{Nichijou}}'' speaks {{surprisingly good|ForeignLanguage}} Indonesian (or Malay). In Episode 1, Yuuko can be seen greeting her classmates with "Selamat pagi!", Indonesian/Malay for "Good morning!" She also said "Selamat tinggal" (meaning "Goodbye" or "Farewell") in Episode 7.

Western fast food joints like KFC, UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, and A&W are quite popular. Interestingly, Western fast food joints in Indonesia are guaranteed to sell a fried chicken-and-rice combo, no matter how nonsensical the idea sounds in their original country. [=McDonald's=] is actually more well-known among Indonesians for selling fried chickens, and it's almost a ComingOfAgeStory for Indonesians who travel overseas only to learn, to their shock, that the Golden Arches' real specialty is hamburgers. Jokes have it that KFC, whose specialty actually ''is'' fried chicken, is a candidate for the country's seventh religion, and there are countless [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct knockoffs]] that sell similar-tasted, and in some cases even [[BlandNameProduct similar-named]], fried chickens with much more affordable prices. The most popular of these "KFC alternatives" is [[https://www.cfcindonesia.com/home California Fried Chicken]] (CFC), which, oddly enough, began its life as a franchisee of a Western fast food joint, specifically, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Chicken Pioneer Chicken]] (its founders were Indonesians who fell in love with the joint while studying abroad in California, and wanted to bring it back home). CFC cut its ties with Pioneer Chicken in 1989, however, and evolved into something of an Indonesian [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Jollibee]], successfully opening hundreds of stores on its own. It is noted that burgers are generally more expensive than chickens, thus limiting their appeal to the lower-middle class that Indonesians mostly belong to, while many western restaurants add rice to their menu because it's a surefire way to have customers, since the majority of Indonesians have rice as a staple of their diet.\\\

The Indonesian language has no past tense or third-person gender-specific pronouns (which results in the English translation for the sentence "he kicks the ball" and "she kicked the ball" being exactly the same: "dia menendang bola").[[note]]Ironically, English [[GenderNeutralWriting singular "they"]] is practically unheard of there, with many referring to unknown/generic individuals in English as "he/she" or [[MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial generic "he"]].[[/note]] There are several first- and second-person pronouns with varying degrees of appropriateness. "I/me" can be "saya" (neutral/formal), "aku" (casual), "gua/gue" (Jakarta and surrounding areas, loanword from Hokkien Chinese, for close friends and peers only), "beta" (used in Eastern Indonesia), "hamba" (deferrent, usually used ironically or by royal servants), etc. "You" can be "Anda" (very formal and can be seen as rude since it lacks deference), "Saudara" (literally "fellow humankind", mostly used by uniformed services), "kamu" (casual), "lu/lo" (counterpart to "gua/gue"), "Bapak/Ibu" ("Sir/Madam", formal and safest), "Adik" ("Younger sibling", used to address younger and young people), "Kakak" ("Older sibling," used to refer to elder but young people) and so on. There are no articles equivalent to "the/is/are/am/was/were". Also, like Spanish, the '''adjective''' is put ''after'' the noun ("'''Red''' apple" = "Apel '''merah'''", "'''Sky''' blue" = "Biru '''langit'''"), a common source of grief among Indonesians trying to learn English. "Akan" in Indonesian is (usually) the equivalent of "will" (of English future tense).\\\

* The final third of ''Film/EatPrayLove'' is set in Bali. It manages to avoid most of the EastIndies tropes, but does feature [[MagicalAsian a wise Balinese medicine man]] and a mild dose of WhiteMansBurden when Liz (a white American woman) befriends Wayan, a healer and single mother that she decides to help out by supporting her business and raising funds for her to buy land to build a house on.

* Magnus Bane, a [[DarkIsNotEvil heroic and benevolent warlock]] in ''Literature/TheMortalInstruments'' is an Indo (mixed race people of Dutch and Indonesian descent). The author was inspired by a painting of the Dutch EastIndies.

Indonesia has a peculiar history when it comes to Video Game Consoles and the gamer generation. The earliest known video game consoles within Indonesia was naturally the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem from the 80's. Come the late 80's to 90's, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis and later on UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo took over the console gaming scene and the effects of the first UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars era spread into Indonesia as well. It should be noted that just like other countries, the earlier era of video games was quite harsh for Indonesian gamers, with parents citing that it's a game just for kids and nerds, if you grow up and still play video games at the time, you could get considered very childish. At the very least though, there was no movements to demonize video games just like in other countries. The turning point of video game history was at 1998, when the Trisakti Incident happened. The resulting riot targetted many video game stores (a lot of them ran by Chinese-Indonesians) and resulted one of the most central video game store-containing malls in Jakarta, Glodok Bridge, to be burnt down. This, combined with the decline of Indonesian economy power, forced gamers to think of other ways to get their games, since both Sega and Nintendo game prices ended up very expensive with their cartridges and their main hub (Glodok Bridge) was destroyed. Additionally, both consoles were at their final years, quality games from those would be scarce at that point. Around this time, the medium [=CD=] saw a rise, and with it, [[UsefulNotes/{{Playstation}} Sony Playstation]] and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, where developers flocked to make their new games after departing from SNES and Genesis. Piracy ran amok thanks to how easy the [=CD=] was pirated, and Playstation and Saturn was no exception, but Indonesia was in the middle of restructurization thus the government didn't put much attention to piracy laws... and the [=CD=] format eventually made these games very cheap and affordable as opposed to the super expensive 16 bit cartridges; and they have a 'general price' system: No games would be more expensive than other games, and there was no region-locking, therefore Japanese language games can also be played just as fine as English language games. Thanks to this, Indonesian gamers decided to embrace piracy and the 32-bit gaming era, with Playstation taking the lead (Saturn lost the race, staying as a CultClassic, while UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 didn't sell that well here due to using cartridges). While Sony did not mind much on this, they were incidentally building a legacy in the heart of video gamers in Indonesia. When DVD rose in the next generation, naturally Indonesian gamers switched onto Playstation 2, there was no other question, since DVD was also easy to pirate. When Playstation 3 was released, Sony has noted about the rampant piracy within their game console and decided to do something about it: Blu-Ray disc format, firmware updates and internet connection. They also noticed the legacy they accidentally built in Indonesia and capitalized on it by opening their own office branch in Indonesia, and Indonesia has stabilized itself a bit so they finally could push on more original-quality disc. With this, piracy was curbed down, and the generation of gamers in Indonesia realized that they have to get back to the age of expensive original quality games. Luckily for them, at that point, they're at the age where they could make money on its own and no longer needed permission from their parents to get video games. And around the same time, it turned out that those who ran their store at Glodok Bridge successfully made their exodus and reopened their stores in the nearby Mangga Dua district and specializing in original games[[note]]Glodok Bridge was rebuilt, but it was no longer the video game hub it was before.[[/note]]. Thanks to the legacy Sony built from their consoles, the majority of Indonesian gamers stuck with Playstation 3 despite its troubling launch history and it paid off: When Sony finally sorted out the issues in Playstation 3 (around the release of the Slim model), Indonesian gamers have already flocked onto Playstation 3 and matured from depending on piracy into being able to support Sony by buying their products. While there were competitors that still allowed measures of piracy (such as Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii), they still lost to the sheer legacy that Playstation had over Indonesia. Only in the next generation that things began to shake up: While Playstation 4 still had a strong following, Nintendo provided its more capable console: Nintendo Switch, which means that they pose strong competition with Sony within Indonesia. Xbox One gamers existed, but they seem less outspoken compared to Sony and Nintendo gamers within Indonesia. Regardless of Nintendo's rise, it's already clear that as far as Indonesian gamers think of, their choice for legendary console would be the Playstation family.\\\

To this day, even after his death, Suharto remained as one of the most controversial figures of Indonesia. His name would go down in history as one of the worst dictators in the world that ever lived. Like it or not, though, Suharto was responsible for whipping up Indonesia into a regional power, even if he had to use a weak foundation and becoming a hypocritical dictator later in his age. [[NeverSpeakIllOfTheDead Some Indonesians even still think highly of him]].

After the fall of Suharto, with the freedom of press truly freed[[note]]Beforehand, Suharto had his ways to silence his blatant oppositions, where they would be [[ReassignedToAntarctica 'honorably deported' somewhere else]] and then killed there, or secret snipers would be deployed to kill them on the spot, dubbed 'Penembak Misterius', shortened 'Petrus' (which is highly ironic considering Christianity and Catholicism are two of Indonesia's biggest religions just below Islam; Petrus is the Indonesian translation for (Saint) Peter, the first of Jesus Christ's apostles), and the phenomenon is known as 'Petrus Shooting'. Originally it was meant to be a mean to decrease criminal rate and a lot of troublemaking gangs; while it was accepted at the time, it eventually spiraled out of control and the Petrus Shooters became something of a SecretPolice to eliminate threats of Suharto's rule. This can be considered as a precursor of the Trisakti shooting, whereupon the shooting became the straw that broke the camel's back about the brutality of this shooting. And with Suharto fallen, everyone is free to express their knowledge and news without fear of being suddenly shot to death.[[/note]], many were eager to research about what Suharto was doing in all those years. Chief amongst them, though it is still a topic of considerable contention in Indonesia (because discussing it is a criminal offense), the 30 September Movement was a sort of FalseFlagOperation actually conducted by the very military it was supposed to have targeted. In a failed coup, blame was shifted to the communists, leading to the massacre (generally estimated from 500,000 to 1 million dead). Special point was taken to remind the population afterwards that only the communists (and absolutely ''none from the army'') are to blame through the education system. In actuality, the plotters were mostly army officers (and did include some communist officers). And since all the communists were dead anyway, it worked relatively well, in addition to the aforementioned "Pengkhianatan PKI" film being aired every year, which ended up quite [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]] of Suharto ([[HypocriteHasAPoint though not without a point, even if it's a smaller scale, the murder method was still very inhuman and gruesome]]). Additionally, despite the history of Indonesia being invaded and colonized by the Dutch, it turned out Suharto would end up doing the same thing, except towards UsefulNotes/EastTimor, and doing a lot of inhuman things towards them all while parading that East Timor was part of Indonesia's many provinces. And a majority of them were solely for hoarding whatever resources East Timor had instead of anything defensive.\\\

After the fall of Suharto, with the freedom of press truly freed, many were eager to research about what Suharto was doing in all those years. Chief amongst them, though it is still a topic of considerable contention in Indonesia (because discussing it is a criminal offense), the 30 September Movement was a sort of FalseFlagOperation actually conducted by the very military it was supposed to have targeted. In a failed coup, blame was shifted to the communists, leading to the massacre (generally estimated from 500,000 to 1 million dead). Special point was taken to remind the population afterwards that only the communists (and absolutely ''none from the army'') are to blame through the education system. In actuality, the plotters were mostly army officers (and did include some communist officers). And since all the communists were dead anyway, it worked relatively well, in addition to the aforementioned "Pengkhianatan PKI" film being aired every year, which ended up quite [[{{Hypocrite}} hypocritical]] of Suharto ([[HypocriteHasAPoint though not without a point, even if it's a smaller scale, the murder method was still very inhuman and gruesome]]). Additionally, despite the history of Indonesia being invaded and colonized by the Dutch, it turned out Suharto would end up doing the same thing, except towards UsefulNotes/EastTimor, and doing a lot of inhuman things towards them all while parading that East Timor was part of Indonesia's many provinces. And a majority of them were solely for hoarding whatever resources East Timor had instead of anything defensive.\\\

A part of the Pacific Ring of Fire, Indonesia has hundreds of volcanoes, many of which are extremely active and make headlines when they spectacularly erupt. A few volcanoes are noted internationally for their historical eruptions, like Krakatoa (whose 1883 eruption produced the loudest noise ''ever'', and might have inspired Creator/EdvardMunch to paint ''Art/{{The Scream|Munch}}''), Tambora (whose 1815 eruption was the cause for the European Year Without Summer), and Toba (root cause of the so-called Toba catastrophe theory, which posited that [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt an apocalyptic eruption]] of the volcano caused a population bottleneck that reduced humanity to a few thousand people). Volcanoes are both a curse and a blessing; while millions of people live at the mercy of volcanoes, they are also what make the soil fertile in the first place. Indonesia is also infamous for its earthquakes, due to its location at the borders of the Australian, Indian, and Sunda Plates. There is at least one major earthquake each year, and some very large ones cause a tsunami on top of that. Earthquakes were the culprit for Indonesia's deadliest modern-day disasters, like the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed over 160,000 people, and the 2006 Yogyakarta earthquake that killed over 5,000.\\\

Compulsory education in Indonesia spans twelve years, generally between the age of 6 and 18, divided into six years of elementary school (''Sekolah Dasar'', SD) and six years of secondary education. The latter is further divided into three years of junior high school (''Sekolah Menengah Dasar'', SMP) and three years of senior high school (''Sekolah Menengah Atas'', SMA). There is also a non-compulsory preschool (''Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini'', PAUD), which includes two years of nursery school (''Playgroup'', using the British term) and two years of kindergarten (''Taman Kanak-Kanak'', TK). In lieu of senior high, students may elect to attend vocational schools (''Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan'', SMK), which also span three years but offer work-related subjects gearing up pupils to enter the workforce as soon as they graduate.\\\

Buddhism, alongside Hinduism, is one of Indonesia's first foreign religions. Buddhism was the religion of the Malay archipelago's first superpower, Srivijaya, and many Buddhist terms survive in local languages long after the religion itself declined (e.g., ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra sengsara]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duḥkha duka]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āgama_(Buddhism) agama]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya upaya]]''). Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism went extinct when Indonesia became Muslim, and would not be reintroduced to the country until the colonial period, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants. The consequence of this is that, despite the role it played in Indonesia's past, it is seen as a "foreign" religion, in the same vein as Confucianism. As with Hindus, Indonesian Buddhists experienced the same problem while trying to fit their theology to Indonesia's constitution, only this time, rather than believing in too many gods, Buddhists believe in too few; Buddhists are, religiously speaking, atheists, as they do not believe in a supreme God, or indeed any god, responsible for the creation of the universe, and the faith instead emphasizes on the achievement of human self-awakening and enlightenment. Buddhists made a similar compromise to get themselves recognized as citizens by including belief in "Sanghyang Adi Buddha", the seed of Buddhahood that exists in every living being.\\\

Compulsory education in Indonesia spans twelve years, generally between the age of 6 and 18, divided into six years of primary school (''sekolah dasar'') and six years of secondary education (''sekolah menengah''). The latter is further divided into three years of junior high school (''Sekolah Menengah Dasar'', SMP) and three years of senior high school (''Sekolah Menengah Atas'', SMA). There is also a non-compulsory preschool (''Pendidikan Anak Usia Dini'', PAUD), which includes two years of nursery school (''Playgroup'', using the British term) and two years of kindergarten (''Taman Kanak-Kanak'', TK). In lieu of senior high, students may elect to attend vocational schools (''Sekolah Menengah Kejuruan''), which also span three years but offer work-related subjects gearing up pupils to enter the workforce as soon as they graduate.\\\

To cater to the Muslim-majority population, the Ministry of Religious Affairs sponsors Islamic schools called madrasah. There are ''Madrasah Ibtidaiyah'' (MI, the equivalent of SD), ''Madrasah Tsanawiyah'' ([=MTs=], the equivalent of SMP), and ''Madrasah Aliah''/''Madrasah Aliah Kejuruan'' (MA/MAK, the equivalent of SMA/SMK). Madrasah should not be confused with Islamic boarding schools (''pondok pesantren''), where pupils dedicate 80% of their time studying Islam. By contrast, madrasah is almost exactly like public schools, the biggest difference being the addition of no more than five subjects focusing on Islam. Enrollment to madrasah is rather low compared to public schools, and pious parents will just send their children to ''pondok pesantren'' if they want them to follow in their footsteps anyway. As for tertiary education, the Ministry of Religious Affairs also sponsors 58 public Islamic universities, variously called the National Islamic University (''Universitas Islam Negeri'', UIN), National Islamic Institute (''Institut Agama Islam Negeri'', IAIN), or National Islamic Higher School (''Sekolah Tinggi Agama Islam Negeri'', STAIN), in decreasing order of scope (UIN offers the most amount of programs, while STAIN offers the fewest).\\\

Sumatra is home to a dozen ethnic groups, but the most numerous are the Malays, who make up the third largest Indonesian ethnic group. They are dominant in Riau, South Sumatra, Jambi, and the Bangka Belitung Islands, and constitute significant minorities in North Sumatra and Borneo's West Kalimantan. Sumatra was the heart of the Srivijaya Empire, a humongous medieval Malay state that was something of a precedent to the later (Javanese) Singhasari and Majapahit. The standard register of Malay as used in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore is based on the dialect of Riau. There are many other Malay dialects, though, and the language was used as part of the extensive trading network during the early modern period, spawning myriad of language creoles, including Manado Malay, Ambonese Malay, and famously, Betawi (the language of Jakarta; it's often said that Jakarta has no native inhabitants because it's a city of immigrants, and appropriately, it's "native" language is a creole). If you include people who speak these creole languages as part of ethnic Malays, then the number of Malay Indonesians swell from 8.7 million to around 16 million. Still, these numbers are dwarfed by other ethnic groups like the Javanese and Sundanese, which is why Indonesians don't like it when their country is lumped as part of the "Malay nation"; while the Malay identity forms the nucleus of Malaysia and Brunei, in Indonesia, it is merely one of the many identities that exist within the country. Despite the Indonesian language being a standardized register of Malay, many Indonesians draw a sharp distinction between their national language and Malay, which is regarded as just a regional ethnic language in the same vein as Javanese and Sundanese.\\\

Indonesia also has a large community of ethnic Chinese (known officially as ''Tionghoa Indonesia'', and colloquially as ''Cina Indonesia''[[note]]''Cina'' is the older name, but its association with the New Order's policy of assimilation towards ethnic Chinese, coupled with its frequent usage as part of racial slurs, have led the current government to discourage its use. This extends to other words that incorporate ''Cina''; the official Indonesian name for the People's Republic of China is ''Republik Rakyat Tiongkok'', not ''Republik Rakyat Cina''.[[/note]]), with estimates of their population ranging from 2.8 to up to 8 million people. They are stereotyped as being talented in business and good with money, which is, to an extent, TruthInTelevision; according to a 2022 survey, [[https://www.cnbcindonesia.com/market/20221217074006-17-397702/daftar-terbaru-10-orang-terkaya-di-indonesia-siapa-saja seven of the ten richest Indonesians came from the Chinese community]], including the first one (Robert Budi Hartono, co-owner of Indonesian cigarette conglomerate Djarum). Their ancestors mostly came from Fujian and Guangdong; according to a census conducted during the 1980s, Southern Min (i.e., Hokkien and Teochew) was the most widely spoken Chinese language in Indonesia, followed by Hakka and Cantonese. However, the majority of Chinese Indonesians, particularly those in Java, no longer speak Chinese. During the New Order period, Suharto instituted a state-sponsored policy of discrimination against Chinese Indonesians, because he was deeply suspicious of their economic connections to Communist Mainland China. Chinese Indonesians were forbidden from speaking in their native tongues, and also had to adopt one of the five official religions at the time, not including Confucianism (which wouldn't be recognized until 2000). Most ethnic Chinese in Java had been Confucian (or rather, folk religions that include Confucianism) at the time, and hundreds of thousands ended up converting to Christianity en masse. Although Chinese Indonesians in Java are predominantly Christian today, the majority outside Java have been Buddhists. Due to Suharto's policy being targeted more towards people near the capital, non-Javanese Chinese Indonesians also tend to retain their mother languages, and to some respects they are culturally similar to Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese, who are largely Buddhist and Chinese-speaking. In addition, Chinese Indonesians outside Java are much more likely to use their Chinese names openly, whereas those inside Java have largely Indonesianized their names.\\\

Islam, as the dominant religion, is practiced all along the archipelago. It is the majority religion in all provinces except for Bali, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and the six Papuan provinces. Explaining Islam in Indonesia can take up pages upon pages showing how different it is to the "orthodox" Islam practiced elsewhere. General consensus is that it is very, very ''lax'' compared to those practiced in the Middle East and South Asia, because the religion was spread in Indonesia through Indian merchants, who mostly practiced Sufism, a mystical branch that mostly mixed folk legends and various other "unorthodox" condiment into the religion base. This made the religion open to acculturation with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; it's often said that had the Arab merchants were the ones who preached Islam in Indonesia, it wouldn't be accepted that easily. That said, Muslim Indonesians are generally follow basic Islamic teachings like praying and not eating pork, drinking alcohol, and having sex outside marriage. Hijab is observed by an increasing number of women, when it was rather rare during the New Order period (mostly because Suharto restricted hijab-wearing women from working in government, so it came to be seen as a symbol of defiance against his authority). In the mid 2000s, there's a surge of cultural movement called 'Hijrah', where people choose to become more religious in Islam and has sudden drastic changes in the lifestyle, such as dressing more modestly, and studying and preaching Islam harder. There's always a TokenReligiousTeammate in a group of people. The phenomenon has also led to many media to highlight this, such as ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'' and ''Ketika Cinta Bertasbih''. Music is an even hotter asset, where every year in Ramadan, artists release a "religious song", even when the artists have controversial reputations, with the modest fashion and all. Commerce is no exception, the rise of halal demand made many products want the halal label slapped to them, even for non-edible foods such as clothes and even halal fridge (no, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjpwwm/indonesia-just-got-its-first-halal-fridge-heres-a-list-of-everything-else-that-needs-a-stamp really]]), theres also [[https://evermos.com/ Halal e-commerce]] specifically to cater them.\\\

Buddhism, alongside Hinduism, is one of Indonesia's first foreign religions. Buddhism was the religion of the Malay archipelago's first superpower, Srivijaya, and many Buddhist terms survive in local languages long after the religion itself declined (e.g., ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saṃsāra sengsara]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duḥkha duka]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Āgama_(Buddhism) agama]]'', ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya upaya]]''). Unlike Hinduism, Buddhism went extinct when Indonesia became Muslim, and would not be reintroduced to the country until the colonial period, with the arrival of Chinese immigrants. The consequence of this is that, despite the role it played in Indonesia's past, it is seen as a "foreign" religion, in the same vein as Confucianism.\\\

Instant noodles have a special place in the public consciousness, being cheap, tasty, while still easy enough to cook with minimal skill and equipment. The most popular instant noodle brand in Indonesia is Indomie, which also happens to be the only one to gain significant international exposure, as it has been exported to over 90 countries, including the United States, though it is especially popular in African countries. In Indonesia, there are entire cafes whose menu specializes on Indomie instant noodles, known as "Warmindo" (short for ''Warung Makan Indomie''). There is also a meme deifying Indomie for its crucial contribution to producing the country's educated elites, namely, the claim that Indonesian college students survive on nothing but Indomie instant noodles, particularly on their last semesters, as they labored on their theses.\\\

Western fast food joints like KFC, UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, and A&W are quite popular. Interestingly, Western fast food joints in Indonesia are guaranteed to sell a fried chicken-and-rice combo, no matter how nonsensical the idea sounds in their original country. [=McDonald's=] is actually more well-known among Indonesians for selling fried chickens, and it's almost a ComingOfAgeStory for Indonesians who travel overseas only to learn, to their shock, that the Golden Arches' real specialty is hamburgers. Jokes have it that KFC, whose specialty actually ''is'' fried chicken, is a candidate for the country's seventh religion, and there are countless [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct knockoffs]] that sell similar-tasted, and in some cases even [[BlandNameProduct similar-named]], fried chickens with much more affordable prices. The most popular of these "KFC alternatives" is [[https://www.cfcindonesia.com/home California Fried Chicken]] (CFC), which, oddly enough, began its life as a franchisee of a Western fast food joint, specifically, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Chicken Pioneer Chicken]] (its founders were Indonesians who fell in love with the joint while studying abroad in California, and wanted to bring it back home). CFC cut its ties with Pioneer Chicken in 1989, however, and evolved into something of an Indonesian [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Jollibee]], successfully opening hundreds of stores on their own. It is noted that burgers are generally more expensive than chickens, thus limiting their appeal to the lower-middle class that Indonesians mostly belong to, while many western restaurants add rice to their menu because it's a surefire way to have customers, since the majority of Indonesians have rice as a staple of their diet.\\\

* In ''Series/TheLastOfUs2023'', it's revealed that the first outbreak of Cordyceps pandemic was discovered in Indonesian capital city of Jakarta. The second episode of the series opens with a flashback in the city itself, featuring Indonesian mycologist Professor Ratna from the real life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Indonesia University of Indonesia]] and the military studying one of the first known infected. It ends with the mycologist declaring that there's no hope for cure and advising the military to just level the entire city and everyone in it, including herself.

* In ''Series/TheLastOfUs2023'', it's revealed that the first outbreak of Cordyceps pandemic was discovered in Indonesian capital city of Jakarta. The second episode of the series opens with a flashback in the city itself, featuring Indonesian mycologist from real life [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Indonesia University of Indonesia]] and the military studying one of the first known infected. It ends with the mycologist declaring that there's no hope for cure and advising the military to just level the entire city and everyone in it, including herself.

* In ''Series/TheLastOfUs2023'', it's revealed that the first outbreak of Cordyceps pandemic was discovered in Indonesian capital city of Jakarta. The second episode of the series opens with a flashback in the city itself, featuring Indonesian mycologists and military studying one of the first known infected and ending with one of the mycologist advising the military to bomb the city and everyone in it, including herself.

Perhaps the most popular branch of Indonesian cuisine is West Sumatran cuisine, otherwise known as Padang food. They are usually sold in the so-called "Rumah Makan Padang", named after the capital city of West Sumatra.[[note]]There is no such thing as a "Padang food" in Padang, of course, and the equivalent of "Rumah Makan Padang" there is called "kapau".[[/note]] distinguishable by food plates stacked on each other on the front window. Most such restaurants will put out all they have to offer on the table with the exception of certain menus, and let you pick whatever you want to eat. Payment will be counted according to what's eaten and what's not after you're done eating (counting is done per plate, so polish them off!). The reason it become popular? While most Indonesian cuisine is spicy, the spices is different, thus it is different kind of spicy. Padang food taste general enough that it palatable to most Indonesians, hence the popularity. According to [[https://medan.tribunnews.com/2018/09/16/menurut-penelitian-roy-morgan-ini-10-restoran-yang-paling-diminati-masyarakat-indonesia?page=2 a 2018 survey]], Padang restaurant chain Sederhana routinely beats KFC in terms of the number of customers served each year in Indonesia, even though the latter operates triple the number of outlets.\\\

Two unique Indonesian foods made from soy are tempe and tahu (tofu). Tempe is made by boiling soy several times over, seeding it with a particular kind of yeast (which is SeriousBusiness on its own since if you used the wrong fungi, you can end up ''fatally poisoning people'', though thankfully, fatal cases are more or less a thing of the past), and fermenting it. It's often used as a substitute for meat in poorer areas, but as of late it has also attracted foreign following given it's supposedly rich protein content. Tempe is also well known for being soft by nature, which led to a particular Indonesian derogatory phrase known as 'Mental Tempe', AKA having the mentality as soft as a tempe's, in other words, referring someone as being [[DirtyCoward a gutless coward.]] While thicker slices of tempe are usually served with rice, thinly-sliced tempe are fried and served as snacks, and come in two two distinct varieties: typical 'dried' tempe, and mendoan, which is softer-textured and not cooked as long as the 'dried' version. Meanwhile, tahu is usually firmer than Chinese or Japanese tofu, and served by frying. Like tempe, it comes in two distinct varieties: filled and/or coated with dough, or plain, often called Sumedang-style fried tofu.\\\

What Indonesians eat differs from one place to the other; from how people prefer it sweet and spicy in one place, while the other likes it plain [[FireBreathingDiner SPICY]] to where in one place people have dogs for dinner while in another people eat caterpillars. Rice is considered staple food item for most areas especially on the western side; to the east, expect sago and yam. One thing most (native) Indonesians agree not to eat is pork, since a large number of them are Muslim. If a restaurant serves pork as a dish, the government requires that they use separate utensils for cooking the food, and they also need to pass a qualification to show that they serve halal food. Outside of non-Muslim enclaves, it's not uncommon for restaurants to forego pork servings from their menu altogether, including for Chinese dumpling and Japanese ramen shops whose dishes are otherwise famous for their intensive use of pork. Places where non-Muslims are the majority tend to forgo these laws, including Bali, where pork is the most widely consumed meat, on account of the Hindus' taboo regarding eating cattle meat. It's also quite prevalent in the eastern parts of Indonesia, where it ranges from soup-based to roasted crispy, as well as in Medan with its high population of Chinese and Bataks. And Java does have pork, too, though since it's rather taboo there (the mere Indonesian word for "pork" is the equivalent of the S-word in some places in Java), the best way to find it is to go a Chinese/Batak/Balinese restaurant and ask about B2.\\\

Much like several East and Southeast Asian countries; in the city Jakarta on Mangga Besar district, you can find a rare store where they sell cooked reptilians, including venomous snakes and their organs (don't worry, just stay away from the snakes (especially the head, it can still kill you if it's still moving up to 1 hour after being beheaded, see [[TakingYouWithMe/RealLife here for a similar incident in China]]) and leave it to the pro to cook them). Kind of exotic and actually gives good benefits to the body, but the organs definitely tasted ''bitter''.\\\

Hinduism and Buddhism reached the archipelago in the 4th century, and soon after kingdoms were built. Kutai of eastern Borneo and Tarumanagara of western Java, both espousing Hinduism, were among the first ones. The 7th century saw the rise of Srivijaya, a Buddhist Malay empire who managed to wrest control of all of Sumatra, Java, and the Asian mainland up to the Kra Isthmus in present-day UsefulNotes/{{Thailand}}, becoming the first Indonesian polity to rule more than one major island. The empire was a center of Buddhist learning, and many monks from China and India sent students to study in the capital, Palembang. The 8th century saw the Hindu Javanese Mataram rising to challenge the Srivijaya's hegemony. Most of the Hindu and Buddhist temples of Java, including Borobudur and Prambanan, were built during the Mataram period. The temples suggest that an acculturation of the two foreign religions was adhered. Mataram and its successors, Kahuripan and Kediri, continued to wage wars against Srivijaya, but they remained stuck in Java until the last Kediri king, Kertajaya was forced to abdicate to the Singhasari Kingdom in 1222, beginning the golden age of the archipelago.\\\

After the Dutch relaxed their educational policy (sometimes credited with the rise of the book ''Literature/MaxHavelaar'', written by Dutch satirist Multatuli, gaining late popularity, [[HeelRealization which made the Dutch realize that they might have ran the exploitation to the natives too excessively]]), several native intellectuals popped up and wrote books to teach the younger generation what their nation got from the Dutch, sometimes even including veiled [[TakeThat Take Thats]] against colonial rule. One of the most famous figures that arose during this period was Soewardi Soerjaningrat, later rechristened Ki Hadjar Dewantara, a Javanese nobleman who established the first educational institution for indigenous commoners, and whose famous Javanese proverb regarding his outlook on teachers eventually became the motto of the Indonesian Ministry of Education.[[note]]''Tut wuri handayani'' ("Those behind should give encouragement"). It's the last part of a longer sentence that reads as such, ''Ing ngarso sung tulodo, ing madyo mangun karso, tut wuri handayani'', which roughly translates to "Those in front should set an example, those in the middle should raise the spirit, and those behind should give encouragement."[[/note]] Soewardi was part of the so-called ''Tiga Serangkai'' (Triad), alongside Tjipto Mangoenkoesoemo, another Javanese nobleman with a decidedly more nationalistic and fiery approach regarding Indonesian self-awakening, and Ernest Douwer Dekker, an Indo (mixed Dutch-Indonesian) activist of self-rule for the Dutch East Indies, who also happened to be a great nephew of Multatuli (real name Eduard Douwes Dekker). Sukarno studied under Dr. Tjipto, and his ideas wound up influencing his later venture into politics. Another noted figure was Kartini, who, after befriending several Dutch women through letters, lamented the rigid, backward life of native women that she had to experience as a Javanese noblewoman.[[note]]Javanese women were traditionally secluded (''pingit'') in her parents' home when she came of age, and would continue to be secluded until she married. Although the tradition is considered obsolete today, the word ''pingit'' is still used to refer to a custom in Javanese weddings where the bride is forbidden from seeing the groom the night before the wedding day, during which time she is advised by her mother, aunts, and other relatives on how to become a proper wife.[[/note]] She wrote numerous letters championing women's rights, and held classes in her husband's house dedicated to teaching women. Although she died young, giving birth to her son at age 25, she is honored as a National Hero nevertheless, and "Kartini Day" (April 21) serves as the ''de facto'' Women's Day in Indonesia.

All seemed well for Indonesia until the 1990s, when everything came crashing down. In 1997, Asia was hit with a great financial crisis, and all of the sudden, after years of economic stability, Suharto's leadership plunged Indonesia to an unprecedented crisis. With poverty rising, people lost their confidence on the president. Demonstrations flared up, and people began to criticize openly against Suharto's autocratic and oligarchic government. People dubbed Suharto's government as a champion of the so-called "KKN": ''Korupsi'' (Corruption), ''Kolusi'' (Collusion), and ''Nepotisme'' (Nepotism). Protesters, including college students, initially demanded Suharto to step down peacefully. Suharto, as most dictators did, responded with force, culminating in the deaths of three college students from the Trisakti University by snipers. The resulting frenzy led to the protests becoming uncontrolled, eventually targeting not just Suharto's government but everyone who were regarded as complicit with him, including, tragically, Chinese Indonesians (general consensus claims to stem from jealousy over how they managed to survive the crisis relatively unscathed, in contrast to most other ethnic groups[[note]]Unlike what some people think, Suharto did not favor the Chinese at all. Several Chinese-Indonesians have claimed that Suharto kind of not acknowledging the Chinese and their arts, despite some Chinese-Indonesian residence, he still sanctioned several laws that would debilitate them and did not provide direct support for them. For example, the Chinese New Year wasn't an official holiday season when Suharto was in charge, it was only later during the reign of Gus Dur that it was officialized as a holiday. The Chinese-Indonesians survived the economic crisis because they were simply more experienced in terms of trading and economy despite the lack of support from Suharto.[[/note]]), forcing many of them to flee the country. After realizing how much he lost power and the ensuing chaos that erupted, [[KnowWhenToFoldThem Suharto decided that he truly had to resign, his reign was over.]] Suharto was succeeded by his vice-president, Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie. He lived the rest of his life in retirement, with the media hounding him, but he was never convicted until his natural death by multiple organ failure in 2008.\\\

Suharto's fall marked the beginning of Indonesia's reformation, which has a heavy emphasis on democracy and free speech. The presidency is no longer an office which is held for very long, and is limited to two five-year-terms. Barring the impeachment of President Abdurrahman Wahid in 2001, Indonesian politics have been going relatively smooth, with no major parties dominating the next two decades afterwards. Indonesian began holding free and fair legislative elections in 1999, and presidential elections in 2004. The current president is Joko "Jokowi" Widodo of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P, ''Partai Demokrasi Indonesia Perjuangan''), the political party headed by Megawati Sukarnoputri, Sukarno's eldest daughter. Suharto's political party, the Party of Functional Groups, (''Golongan Karya'', often abbreviated to Golkar), has never popularly elected a president since his fall, although they did elect a vice-president in the form of Jusuf Kalla from 2004 to 2009, and then from 2014 to 2019.

During the colonial era, Indonesia was known as a producer of spices such as nutmeg, which is endemic to the Maluku islands. Today, Indonesia is a developing country and an important emerging market. It is the world's 16th largest economy (ranking above its ex-colonizer, the Netherlands) and a member of the G20. Its exports include coal, petroleum oil and gases, and palm oil, while it imports machinery and chemicals. Indonesia was a longtime member of the OPEC, but decreasing oil wealth led to it exiting the bloc in 2008, having failed to meet production quota. Indonesia is well-known for its palm oil production, being the industry's top producer. Unfortunately, clearances for palm plantations have resulted in the rapid depletion of the country's rainforests since the late 20th century. For most of its history, Indonesia's main trade partner is Japan, though by the TurnOfTheMillennium China has been quickly ascending to become a key trade partner. A large chunk of Indonesia's economy is still dominated by state, who owns several important enterprises, including its oil industry.\\\

Living together with the Javanese in the Javan region are the Sundanese and the Madurese. The former are Indonesia's second largest ethnic group, and mostly live in West Java and Banten, though like the Javanese, many have migrated out of the island as part of ''Transmigrasi''. The Sundanese are ancient neighbors and [[ArchEnemy historical rivals]] of the Javanese; an old saying is that a marriage involving a Javanese and a Sundanese will always end in tragedy, which rooted from the Bubat Incident during the Majapahit era (see the above folder). However, near the end of the 2010's, both sides have agreed to bury the hatchet. The Sundanese are the original inhabitants of the land that became Jakarta today, and many toponyms in Jakarta are clearly rooted in the Sundanese language. Meanwhile, the Madurese live in Madura, located off the coast of Surabaya in East Java. Historically, they were noted for their warlike culture, but are best known today for producing a ''lot'' of barbers who proudly advertise their business as ''Potong Rambut Madura'' (Madurese barbershop), and, less glowingly, for being the centerpiece of an ethnic conflict in Borneo during the early 2000s.\\\

Islam, as the dominant religion, is practiced all along the archipelago. It is the majority religion in all provinces except for Bali, North Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, and the six Papuan provinces. Explaining Islam in Indonesia can take up pages upon pages showing how different it is to the "orthodox" Islam practiced elsewhere. General consensus is that it is very, very ''lax'' compared to those practiced in the Middle East and South Asia, because the religion was spread in Indonesia through Indian merchants, who mostly practiced Sufism, a mystical branch that mostly mixed folk legends and various other "unorthodox" condiment into the religion base. This made the religion open to acculturation with other religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism; it's often said that had the Arab merchants were the ones who preached Islam in Indonesia, it wouldn't be accepted that easily. That said, Muslim Indonesians are generally devout when it comes to basic Islamic teachings like praying, not eating pork, drinking alcohol, and having sex outside marriage. Hijab is observed by an increasing number of women, when it was rather rare during the New Order period (mostly because Suharto restricted hijab-wearing women from working in government, so it came to be seen as a symbol of defiance against his authority). In the mid 2000s, there's a surge of cultural movement called 'Hijrah', where people choose to become more religious in Islam and has sudden drastic changes in the lifestyle, such as dressing more modestly, and studying and preaching Islam harder. There's always a TokenReligiousTeammate in a group of people. The phenomenon has also led to many media to highlight this, such as ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'' and ''Ketika Cinta Bertasbih''. Music is an even hotter asset, where every year in Ramadan, artists release a "religious song", even when the artists have controversial reputations, with the modest fashion and all. Commerce is no exception, the rise of halal demand made many products want the halal label slapped to them, even for non-edible foods such as clothes and even halal fridge (no, [[https://www.vice.com/en/article/bjpwwm/indonesia-just-got-its-first-halal-fridge-heres-a-list-of-everything-else-that-needs-a-stamp really]]), theres also [[https://evermos.com/ Halal e-commerce]] specifically to cater them.\\\

Following Islamic dietary laws, pork gets an extremely bad rap in most parts of Indonesia. If a restaurant serves pork as a dish, the government requires that they use separate utensils for cooking the food, and they also need to pass a qualification to show that they serve halal food. Outside of non-Muslim enclaves, it's not uncommon for restaurants to forego pork servings from their menu altogether, including for Chinese dumpling and Japanese ramen shops whose dishes are otherwise famous for their intensive use of pork. Places where non-Muslims are the majority tend to forgo these laws, including Bali, where pork is the most widely consumed meat, on account of the Hindus' taboo regarding eating cattle meat. In opposition to pork, however, alcohol is widely available and imbibed by the populace, Muslim and non-Muslim alike. Local beers include Bintang, Anker, and Bali Hai; Heineken and Paulaner maintain breweries in-country; and there's active experimentation with wine. Due to the Islamic influence, though, it does come at a price (18% tax on local brews and upwards of 150% on imports), and is totally illegal in Aceh province.\\\

Having internet is kind of hard Indonesia. So don't be surprised if you have to handle with the censorship rule called "Internet Positif" which blocks any websites Indonesian Government deemed 'too against their culture', which may include pornography, piracy, some image/video-hosting sites (even Reddit and Imgur, as those sites is allegedly the ones with the most porn and pirated stuff). Unsurprisingly, the country has one of the highest percentage of VPN users. At the very least, some netizens has taken advantage of this and created its AnthropomorphicPersonification in form of [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ipo-chan Ipo-chan]], which is surprisingly popular.\\\

Most Indonesian films are romance comedies or horror movies. Around TheEighties and TheNineties, Indonesia was known as one of the countries that released ''a lot'' of terrifying horror movies, their styles were based on mystical creatures and ghosts. It also helps that around that era, Indonesia also got their own "Queen of Horrors", Suzzanna, that many horror films starring her as the titular horror provider would go down as local legendary films. Since the end of the New Order, the quality of horrors have gone up and down, reaching their AudienceAlienatingEra in the late 2000s/early 2010s when the market was dominated by [[SexSells sex-selling]], hilariously-titled, B-grade horrors. However, Indonesian horror has experienced a renaissance by 2017, with the release of ''Danur: I Can See Ghosts'', to the point that the current highest-grossing Indonesian film of all time is [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KKN_di_Desa_Penari a horror film]] released in 2022. "Religious romance" is a new genre that surfaced since the late 2000s, with the high-budget ones shot in the Middle East. The genre popularizer for this is ''Ayat-Ayat Cinta'', which tells the life of a man who enters a polygamous marriage and the implication that entails.\\\

In the 2000s, there are at least two {{Dramedy}} soap operas titled ''[[ProtagonistTitle Yoyo]]'' and ''Wah, Cantiknya!''[[note]]Roughly equivalent of HeadTurningBeauty[[/note]], both of which tell the story about young male protagonists with developmental disorder that essentially turn them into ManChild. As mental illness is not something that is taken seriously by traditional Indonesian society, their disabilities are often played for comedy, though also played for drama in few occassions. The titular protagonist in ''Yoyo'' is a MommasBoy who's regularly beaten by his [[AbusiveParents abusive father]] [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain who absolutely hate having a mentally disabled son]]. He's also occassionally beaten by bullies in his neighbourhood (one of whom is a shameless sexist man who regularly harasses Yoyo's [[ChildhoodFriendRomance female childhood friend]] [[HateSink no less]]) and insulted by a RichBitch whose daughter either took pity on Yoyo or fell in love with him. The male protagonist in ''Wah, Cantiknya!'' is a fatherless MommasBoy who speaks with [[HeliumSpeech unnaturally high-pitched voice]] and often behaves like an airhead. He's conned by the female VillainProtagonist ([[FreudianExcuse who hate men after her then-fiance]] [[StoodUp stood her up]] [[RunawayFiance and dumped her when he's supposed to propose her]]) into marrying her because [[GoldDigger she isn't allowed to get her late father's wealth if she remains unmarried]]. He eventually figured out her deception and ran away (in the most childish way possible) and randomly got hit by a car. He's eventually recovered with his hospital bills being paid by his wife and her two RichBitch GoldDigger {{Maiden Aunt}}s, only to find out that his wife had abandoned him and ran away to Europe and filed for divorce. ''Ouch''. At the very least, eventually for ''Yoyo'', the protagonist was somehow 'cured' from the mental disorder and because of that, things got really better for him, even his abusive father stopped being cruel (despite some of his abrasiveness towards others still remained). Although it might create an UnfortunateImplication that Indonesians look down on people with mental disorder since things only got better when you somehow got cured of it, however the method is.\\\

On related note, Indonesia has several singing contest on TV that took several months to complete, ALA ''Series/AmericanIdol''. However, note that there's enough complaints from several watchers about this kind of shows about the voting system, just like the former. The quality of the singers though is pretty questionable to say the least. Watch it a bit and if you know about the stuff, your going to hope someone like, say, Simon Cowell existed in that show.

Indonesian cuisine mostly involves spices[[note]]even though they are optional[[/note]]. Causing stereotype that most Indonesians enjoy the taste. Java is a partial inversion, as while you still have super-hot ''sambal'' varieties in Java, but the taste of most Javanese foods itself is actually quite mild; the taste of some foods (as in, main courses) even lean towards ''sweet''. At least, in the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spicy#Piquant_vs._.22hot.22_and.2For_.22spicy.22 "hot" sense]], anyway. The "sweet" cuisines are pretty much also loaded with spices, though not nearly as piquant/[[FireBreathingDiner tongue-raping]]. ''Sambal'' (essentially chili mixed with other ingredients then ground) is one of the quintessential sauce in Indonesian cuisine, Western and Central Indonesia in particular. There exists specific ''sambal'' variations accompanying just about every kind of cuisine in Indonesia. Not only that, there is at least one unique ''sambal'' variety in a given region which is found nowhere else in or outside the country. One can probably spend a good chunk of their life just studying ''sambal'' mixes throughout Indonesia.\\\

A kind of unique Indonesian food made of soy is "tempe", made by boiling soy several times over, seeding it with a particular kind of yeast[[note]] which is SeriousBusiness on its own since if you used the wrong fungi, you can end up ''fatally poisoning people''. Thankfully, fatal cases are more or less a thing of the past.[[/note]], and fermenting it. It's often used as a substitute for meat in poorer areas, but as of late it has also attracted foreign following given it's supposedly rich protein content. Indonesian tofu ("tahu", though it also holds the same meaning as the verb 'know', just for clarification sake) is usually firmer than Chinese or Japanese ones and served by frying. [[note]]Tempe is also well known for being soft by nature, which led to a particular Indonesian derogatory phrase known as 'Mental Tempe', AKA having the mentality as soft as a tempe's, in other words, referring someone as being [[DirtyCoward a gutless coward.]][[/note]]\\\

Tea is usually served plain or with sugar. Tea with milk is rarely served outside of some restaurants. Iced tea is sold in bottles, mostly by the tea company Sosro, leading to the famous slogan "Apapun makanannya, minumnya Teh Botol Sosro!" (Whatever you're eating, drink Sosro bottled tea!)[[note]][[http://ketawa.com/humor-lucu-det-2254-sumanto_jadi_bintang_iklan.html A common way of spoofing it is by putting the slogan on a picture of Sumanto, a convicted cannibal.]][[/note]]. Bottled iced tea is incredibly popular thanks to the hot tropical climate, and is recommended by Croatian pianist Maxim.\\\

Perhaps the most popular branch of Indonesian cuisine is West Sumatran cuisine (otherwise known as Padang food [[note]] although there is no such thing named 'Padang' food in the town named Padang, which is incidentally the capital of West Sumatra.[[/note]]) cuisine, usually sold in the so-called "rumah makan Padang"[[note]] There are also no "rumah makan Padang" in Padang, believe it or not! The proper term is ''Kapau'' IINM.[[/note]], distinguishable by food plates stacked on each other on the front window. Most such restaurants will put out all they have to offer on the table with the exception of certain menus, and let you pick whatever you want to eat. Payment will be counted according to what's eaten and what's not after you're done eating (counting is done per plate, so polish them off!). The reason it become popular? While most Indonesian cuisine is spicy, the spices is different, thus it is different kind of spicy. Padang food taste general enough that it palatable to most Indonesians, hence the popularity.\\\

There's a great variety of coffee beans in Indonesia, their aromas and taste varying by region. Most foreigners are familiar with Java beans, but there are many more, from Toraja, Aceh, Mandailing, Bali, and more, each with their own palate. You can get coffee that tastes ''really'' sour from Bali, ''really'' bitter from Mandailing, and some variations that are even ''spicy'', as in, ''hot''. Preparation also differs from region to region, with some adding ''butter'' to it.\\\

What Indonesians eat differs from one place to the other; from how people prefer it sweet and spicy in one place, while the other likes it plain [[FireBreathingDiner SPICY]] to where in one place people have dogs for dinner while in another people eat caterpillars. Rice is considered staple food item for most areas especially on the western side; to the east, expect sago and yam. One thing most (native) Indonesians agree not to eat is pork, since a large number of them are Muslim. There are still considerable people that eat pork , mostly from two ethnic groups, Chinese and Bataknese (Balinese also much more creative with their pork, but they mostly keep it in their small island). It's also quite prevalent in the eastern parts of Indonesia. The pork ranged from soup based to roasted crispy. The best one are usually in Sumatra. How to find restaurant that serve pork in Indonesia? It's easy in some cities in Sumatra. Especially Medan, with its high population of Chinese and Batak. Some restaurant in Javanese cities also serve Pork, though you have to take an extra step. Be careful, though, as some places don't serve pork at all, and the word for pork (babi) held the same level as the word ''sh*t'' in Bahasa Indonesia. The safest way is to go to Chinese, Bataknese, or Balinese restaurant and ask about B2.\\\

Western fast food joints like KFC, UsefulNotes/McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's, and A&W are quite popular. Interestingly, Western fast food joints in Indonesia are guaranteed to sell a fried chicken-and-rice combo, no matter how nonsensical the idea sounds in their original country. [=McDonald's=] is actually more well-known among Indonesians for selling fried chickens, and it's almost a ComingOfAgeStory for Indonesians who travel overseas only to learn, to their shock, that the Golden Arches' real specialty is hamburgers. Jokes have it that KFC, whose specialty actually ''is'' fried chicken, is a candidate for the country's seventh religion, and there are countless [[ShoddyKnockoffProduct knockoffs]] that sell similar-tasted, and in some cases even [[BlandNameProduct similar-named]], fried chickens with much more affordable prices. It is noted that burgers are generally more expensive than chickens, thus limiting their appeal to the lower-middle class that Indonesians mostly belong to, while many western restaurants add rice to their menu because it's a surefire way to have customers, since the majority of Indonesians have rice as a staple of their diet.\\\

Traditional snacks popular in Indonesia include fried tofu (comes in two distinct varieties: filled and/or coated with dough, or plain[[note]]often called Sumedang-style fried tofu[[/note]], fried banana (Indonesians don't really differentiate between bananas and plantains, so anything goes, fried thinly-sliced tempe (thicker slices are typically eaten with rice instead. This comes in two distinct varieties: typical 'dried' tempe and Mendoan [[note]]softer-textured, which is not cooked as long as the 'dried' version[[/note]], ''Bakwan'' (which is basically a fried lump of dough mixed with sliced cabbage, spring onions, and carrot. Might include shrimp.), ''Keripik'' (basically chips of all sorts, sometimes even fruits (apples, bananas, and jackfruits are popular choice), ''Martabak'' (which comes in two totally-different varieties. The sweet variant is made from essentially two layers of fried dough with the (sweet) topping of your choice in-between. The savory variant, which is a more direct derivative of the Arabian ''mutabbaq'', is basically an omelette inside folded thin dough. Many scholar hypothesize that sweet martabak were inspired by ''pancake'', and since one mainstay ingredients is chocolate hagelslag (known here as ''meises'' after mispronouncing of ''meisje'', since Dutch girls LOVE this sprinkly things) it's possible that it was [[SweetTooth Dutch]] influence.), and ''Pempek'' (fried fish cakes in a dough, served with a mix of salty soy sauce and vinegars that can also give a hot taste, plus cucumbers and a small portion of noodles. Originating from South Sumatra (especially Palembang, their capital), but funnily its most popular origin was from China, as in, there's a Chinese cook who stayed at Palembang, serving fish cakes. The locals came to like the food, the old cook is called "Pek-Apek", slang for 'old man' for Indo-Chinese, which then evolved into "Empek-empek" and THEN shortened to "Pempek" for the food, not the old man.).\\\

Instant noodles have a special place in the public consciousness, being cheap, tasty, while still easy enough to cook with minimal skill and equipment. While mostly sold by street food vendors, there are cafes that specialize on instant noodles. There's also a nationalist pride since instant noodle brand Indomie managed to gain popularity in foreign countries, from Japan to India to even the UK and USA, all of them praising the brand, enough to become a meme amongst Indonesians. However, the government, while not forbidding the trend, has cautioned people not to overconsume instant noodles since they can be harmful for your body, in the same manner of health experts cautioning against overeating fast and other unhealthy foods.

Regarding their equipments, the standard service rifle is the [=SS1=] (Senapan Serbu = assault rifle), a licensed copy of the Belgian FN FNC carbine made by the government corporation (BUMN) PT Pindad. HK G3, M16 and 5.45 mm AK variants are also used, the latter oddly enough are more often seen in the hand of cops guarding [=ATMs=] while they're being filled. The spec ops units often use M4, HK G36 and Steyr-Mannlicher AUG. Recently, PT Pindad starts manufacturing an assault rifle called the [=SS2=], which looks like an M16 with AK gas block, reversed front sight and slightly different detachable carrying handle. It's considered a ''lot'' more reliable than the previous model. As for sniper rifles, they mostly use the Remington 700, HK [=G3SG1=] and the [[ScrappyWeapon much-hated]] [[UsefulNotes/IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Galil-Galatz]][[note]] The special forces also use the PGM Hecate II, a .50 caliber French bolt-action rifle. Pindad has also been producing anti-material rifles whose designs are juxtaposed from other successful sniper and anti-material rifles[[/note]]. They own several French AMX light tanks, as main battle tanks aren't suitable for the Indonesian streets. It's more likely due to the abundance of rainforests, which slows most MBTs down. They also operate BTR-80 APCs and V-150 Commando [=IFVs=]. Early UsefulNotes/ColdWar-era British armored cats also appear occassionally. Land Rover Defenders and Singapore's Flyer are used by both the police and the army, sometimes mounted with anti-aircraft guns or Singapore's CIS automatic grenade launchers. The [[UsefulNotes/SouthAfricansWithSurfaceToAirMissiles South African]] [[Film/{{District 9}} Casspir]] is used by the police. The military has recently decided to buy a relatively large quantity of Leopard mk2 tanks from the Dutch government at bargain bin prizes, which faced opposition from the House of Representatives who claimed such heavy tanks are not suitable for Indonesian soil. Some consider that kind of reasoning as a load of crap, however, and claims that the House are against it because the purchase is done government to government, eliminating the role of brokers who usually 'fund' some House members. As for the local ones, Pindad also has started producing the Pindad Panser (meaning [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment armored cat]]), a rather plain looking APC, but that wouldn't be necessarily bad if Indonesia's equipments don't have the nasty tendency to fall apart at the worst possible moment. They have also made several anti-riot vehicles. They have F-16 and Su-27 fighters. They also have A-4 Skyhawk and OV-10 Bronco ground attack crafts, but don't like to admit it, the former because they were bought from Israel, and the latter because they were bought for COIN operations in East Timor. The TNI AU is the second military forces outside of the US to operate the C-130 Hercules cargo planes. They have several black Mi-24 Hind gunships. The Mi-8 Hip helicopter is used by both the army and the police. The navy owns several types of naval helicopters, mostly British. The Broncos have been pulled from service and the Air Force has been thinking of getting their hands on a Super Tucano for a while. There's also been talks of cooperating with UsefulNotes/SouthKorea in a joint venture to produce a new 4.5th generation fighter, or get some new T-50s which were recently unveiled.\\\

LGBT rights are also something that have become a hotly-contested issue. Although Indonesia does not ban gay sex, it does not recognize same-sex unions, and there is no law that protects gays and lesbians from being attacked or discriminated against. Furthermore, the 2006 Law Against Pornography and Pornoaction explicitly includes a statement that forbids the dissemination of materials suggesting same-sex relationships, which is the reason why Indonesia routinely bans or edits out gay scenes from foreign films and televisions. Although supporters exist, acceptance towards same-sex relationships remains middling to negative for most of the population. It speaks volumes that when dangdut singer Saipul Jamil was arrested and imprisoned for sex offences in 2016, the media seems obsessed in pointing out that [[SkewedPriorities the victim was male instead of the fact that he was a minor]] (Saipul was officially convicted for pedophilia, though). By contrast, trans people have had a relatively easier time being accepted by the population and government. Unlike its attitudes towards homosexuality, the government actually ''does'' have laws that protect transgenders and transsexuals from harassment, and trans people are more likely to out themselves compared to gays and lesbians. There have been a couple of trans figures in entertainment, most notably the late Dorce Gamalama, a talk show host who also happened to be a devout Muslim (her hajj trip was widely documented, and she started wearing hijab in the 2000s). The only place where there are clear laws regarding LGBT rights is Aceh, where [[HeteronormativeCrusader anything and everything related to it is forbidden]]; people accused of LGBT acts are routinely arrested and canned by the religious police.\\\

Indonesia has a peculiar history when it comes to Video Game Consoles and the gamer generation. The earliest known video game consoles within Indonesia was naturally the UsefulNotes/NintendoEntertainmentSystem from the 80's. Come the late 80's to 90's, UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis and later on UsefulNotes/SuperNintendo took over the console gaming scene and the effects of the first UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars era spread into Indonesia as well. It should be noted that just like other countries, the earlier era of video games was quite harsh for Indonesian gamers, with parents citing that it's a game just for kids and nerds, if you grow up and still play video games at the time, you could get considered very childish. At the very least though, there was no movements to demonize video games just like in other countries. The turning point of video game history was at 1998, when the Trisakti Incident happened. The resulting riot targetted many video game stores (a lot of them ran by Chinese-Indonesians) and resulted one of the most central video game store-containing malls in Jakarta, Glodok Bridge, to be burnt down. This, combined with the decline of Indonesian economy power, forced gamers to think of other ways to get their games, since both Sega and Nintendo game prices ended up very expensive with their cartridges and their main hub (Glodok Bridge) was destroyed. Additionally, both consoles were at their final years, quality games from those would be scarce at that point. Around this time, the medium [=CD=] saw a rise, and with it, [[UsefulNotes/{{Playstation}} Sony Playstation]] and UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn, where developers flocked to make their new games after departing from SNES and Genesis. Piracy ran amok thanks to how easy the [=CD=] was pirated, and Playstation and Saturn was no exception, but Indonesia was in the middle of restructurization thus the government didn't put much attention to piracy laws... and the [=CD=] format eventually made these games very cheap and affordable as opposed to the super expensive 16 bit cartridges; and they have a 'general price' system: No games would be more expensive than other games, and there was no region-locking, therefore Japanese language games can also be played just as fine as English language games. Thanks to this, Indonesian gamers decided to embrace piracy and the 32-bit gaming era, with Playstation taking the lead (Saturn lost the race, staying as a CultClassic, while UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 didn't sell that well here due to using cartridges). While Sony did not mind much on this, they were incidentally building a legacy in the heart of video gamers in Indonesia. When DVD rose in the next generation, naturally Indonesian gamers switched onto Playstation 2, there was no other question, since DVD was also easy to pirate. When Playstation 3 was released, Sony has noted about the rampant piracy within their game console and decided to do something about it: Blu-Ray disc format, firmware updates and internet connection. They also noticed the legacy they accidentally built in Indonesia and capitalized on it by opening their own office branch in Indonesia, and Indonesia has stabilized itself a bit so they finally could push on more original-quality disc. With this, piracy was curbed down, and the generation of gamers in Indonesia realized that they have to get back to the age of expensive original quality games. Luckily for them, at that point, they're at the age where they could make money on their own and no longer needed permission from their parents to get video games. And around the same time, it turned out that those who ran their store at Glodok Bridge successfully made their exodus and reopened their stores in the nearby Mangga Dua district and specializing in original games[[note]]Glodok Bridge was rebuilt, but it was no longer the video game hub it was before.[[/note]]. Thanks to the legacy Sony built from their consoles, the majority of Indonesian gamers stuck with Playstation 3 despite its troubling launch history and it paid off: When Sony finally sorted out the issues in Playstation 3 (around the release of the Slim model), Indonesian gamers have already flocked onto Playstation 3 and matured from depending on piracy into being able to support Sony by buying their products. While there were competitors that still allowed measures of piracy (such as Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii), they still lost to the sheer legacy that Playstation had over Indonesia. Only in the next generation that things began to shake up: While Playstation 4 still had a strong following, Nintendo provided its more capable console: Nintendo Switch, which means that they pose strong competition with Sony within Indonesia. Xbox One gamers existed, but they seem less outspoken compared to Sony and Nintendo gamers within Indonesia. Regardless of Nintendo's rise, it's already clear that as far as Indonesian gamers think of, their choice for legendary console would be the Playstation family.\\\

* [[Creator/WarkopDKI Dono, Kasino, Indro]], the most known members of the comedy group ''Warkop DKI'', Indonesia's answer to ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' and considered legends in Indonesian old comedy shows. Kasino and Dono passed away in 1997 and 2001, respectively, leaving Indro the sole survivor of the group.

* Creator/JoeTaslim, a martial arts-focused actor who rose in popularity following his starring role in ''Film/TheRaid'' and [[Film/TheRaid2Berandal its sequel]], earning him international attention. A prime example of MeanCharacterNiceActor, since he often landed roles as the bad guys, but are known to be friendly off-stage.

* Music/MichelleBranch, American Grammy-winner singer, was of partial Javanese descent through her Indo mother.

* ''Mothra's Song'' from ''{{Film/Mothra}}'' is actually originated in Bahasa Indonesia, but sung in Japanese approximation.

* ''Series/TheOC'': Zach mistakenly tells Summer that being smart doesn't have to know that [[UsefulNotes/{{Malaysia}} Kuala Lumpur]] is the capital of Indonesia, and he's later corrected by Summer, as ''Jakarta'' is the capital of Indonesia.

Speaking of MMO, VideoGame/RagnarokOnline is pretty popular in Indonesia. How popular? Enough to have [[GottaCatchEmAll collectible cards sets]] included in snacks, numerous ads in local television channels for a while, having Anime/RagnarokTheAnimation aired immediately after it ended in Japan, and several official doujin contests (with most of the winners ended up being professional artists/illustrators/designers, to boot). Several [[MemeticMutation memes]] it created are being used as Indonesians' internet slangs, the most infamous one being "hode"[[note]]Named after a [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything suspiciously strange-looking]] sandworm monster Hode. The term itself has the same meaning as GuyInRealLife[[/note]]. Naturally, most of MMO that brought after RO's success FollowTheLeader. And if you ask the older generations what PC games they know, there's a good chance they will answer either RO or Nexia. Yeah, it's ''that'' popular. When the [[VideoGame/RagnarokIILegendOfTheSecond sequel]] is finally brought to Indonesia, it got promoted as much as when the first game reached its peak in popularity. And as the era of mobile-gaming enters, once again Indonesians quickly fell in love with [[VideoGame/RagnarokMEternalLove Ragnarok's mobile version.]] Most of its success could be traced from how Gravity Co. pushed a lot of its ads to the country and also allowed Indonesian players to play ''for free'' (though there are some items that required payment with real money, predating the Pay To Win model decades before it became a notorious term). Considering Indonesia's economic state, it was a match made in heaven. And it also helped that it got popular before ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' took the world by storm, so even if many Indonesian turned towards ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' (at one point, even there was a private Indonesian server for ''The Burning Crusade'', until they're forced to deal with the international prices) later, ''Ragnarok Online'' has left its legacy in the nation.\\