Life's Little Delights: Kartini's Day

Indonesians celebrate Kartini’s Day every April 21st. Kartini is an Indonesian national hero who fights for women’s equality. She was born in a noble family and thus enjoy the privileges of basic education (back then it was reading and writing) and maintain good relationship with the Dutch. The first school for women were opened and run by her. Unfortunately she died young while giving birth to her first child.

I remembered my kindergarten years where we celebrate Kartini’s Day by dressing up in Indonesian traditional outfits. We have about 30 different provinces and each has its own traditional outfits, so you can imagine the variety of outfits worn on the day! My mom actually skipped work so she can took me to school and see hundreds of kids dressed in colorful and sometimes oversized traditional outfits. Nowadays, when we refer to traditional outfits, mainly only kebaya and batik come to mind. And kebaya has been reinvented so many times that what used to be a plain and traditional outfit has become quite glamorous.

sources: google image

Hmmmm... kebaya really help to shape your silhouette. I just love how womanly someone looks, as soon as she puts on a kebaya!

Nowadays, we don’t really celebrate Kartini's Day anymore. But this year, my office sent out a notice granting us 1 day to wear Indonesian traditional outfits (mainly kebaya and batik). I didn’t feel like wearing kebaya or batik today, as it takes significant effort to wear kebaya for a full day at work! I guess you can see that it’s simply an uncomfortable outfit to wear, but you can look few kilos lighter if you wear them right ;)

I guess my celebration will be limited to posting some pictures of me in kebaya

I just realised that the only pictures of me in kebaya are wedding pictures! Or something related to my wedding. The picture above was my engagement (yes, it was held at the church! Don't ask me why. Traditional rituals and stuff...).