Pak Bei: A cultural and linguistic exploration of Indonesia

Pak Bei was developed by Prof. U. Kozok from the University of Hawaii in cooperation with the late Masdi Sunardi, a renowned cartoonist from Semarang, Indonesia*. In over a decade, Masdi Sunardi published more than 700 cartoons in the Sunday editions of the national daily Suara Merdeka. The cartoons have almost all the same format: six pictures on one page.

Out of the hundreds of cartoons we selected 30 which we found culturally relevant, linguistically appropriate, comprehensible, engaging, and fun.

The cartoons address issues such as religion, tradition, celebrations and holidays, nationalism, social norms and etiquette, gender-specific behavior, inter-personal relationships, superstition, magical practices, work ethics, etc. They are, in a sense, a microcosm of the contemporary Indonesian society.

The 30 cartoons are ranked according to their difficulty. The first few can even be used in year one classes, but most are linguistically highly challenging as most of them are written in colloquial Indonesian, often with a distinct Javanese note.

Culturally, as well as linguistically Masdi Sunardi’s cartoons are an excellent resource for any teacher of  the Indonesian language.

The materials will be available for download by August 2011.

*Helen Riana Agnesia and Maren Behrend also contributed significantly to the materials.