Jinontrong

I don't know where she got this word from, but my mom called a ferris wheel as Jinontrong. I wondered if it's a Javanese word.

I remembered when I was a little girl, my parents took me to a Pasar Malam Sekaten at Alun-alun (Palace square) Jogja. It happened every year until I was too big to be taken there (or was it my parents that was too old to go?). I remembered it was a very special day in a year, that my parents would buy us (me and my sister) something, whether they were clothes (cheap ones, hik hik), or a toy (an othok-othok boat) or a bag of Chiki. While my mom was very happy with her bag of Sasa or Sarimi and my father was satisfied taking a glance at the erotic dangdut dancer.

And we always rode the jinontrong. Cause it was only one-in-a year chance.

Years later I was not interested in that festival anymore. We didn't go there although we lived just a stroll away from the Jogja Palace. Beside, my dear boy-who-was-born-with-a-silverspoon-in-his-mouth aka Nino had never been and would never to a pasar malam that he called it "hiburan kaum proletar". Aha! I thought it was only a jealousy that his mom never brought him there. So he couldn't feel the romantism as I did, felt instantly happy just with licking a flosscandy or eating a red egg.

Here in Sydney, I found a similar event as pasar malam sekaten. It was a Royal Easter Show. It was held in Sydney Olympic Park, a very big venue that you need a whole day to walk around.
We saw the agriculture exhibition. Aussie were very proud of their cows and they boast to have the best beef in the world. At the Nestle tent, Nindi learnt how to make a milkybar from the milk and also learnt how to milk the cow from the handsome cowboy.

Then we shopped for showbags. We bought Nindi Dora's showbag. That made my memory flight to my Chiki bag. While Nino, he didn't seem to be interested in anything.

And of course, we rode the jinontrong. The biggest one in the world, ehm, maybe in the southern hemisphere.

A.K.


Ps: Nindi spelled jinontrong as ji-ngon-tron' with a very aussie accent.