Inna Herlina interviewed me for her podcast "Indokultur" and during our beautiful conversation I got to know her a bit. Her story immediately stroke my interest and I wanted to get to know her better. So I thought why not share it with you?! :) In this blog post, Inna Herlina talks about her experiences immigrating from Indonesia to Germany and finding her way in this new country. She now works in intercultural communication between those two countries and has interesting projects going on. Enjoy reading!

Yes, my parents originate from West Java. Most of my greater families still live in Bandung, which is the capital of West Java. But since we as a family often had to move around, because my father used to work in the public sector and he had to follow standing instructions and procedures, we had to move from one city to another and moved to the island of Sumatra, to Central Aceh to be precise and many other islands and places in Indonesia, too.

Since 1976 our family has lived in Jakarta. My mother and some of my siblings do still live there and I myself grew up in Jakarta most of the time and one day I moved to Germany because of love - I got married to my husband, who is German.

First time I came to Germany for a visit in 1990 and my first impression was very positive, because Germany seemed to me very clean, organized and the country seemed much more advanced - the whole scenery and conditions looked very different from Indonesia. But this difference also triggered my interest and excitement to live here.

I came to Germany 30 years ago, so this was one year after my first visit, starting to live in Germany in a small village next to the town of Viersen, which is close to the Dutch border with the city of Roermond.

The first few years of course I had a bit of difficulties in Germany - I had to learn a lot in order to adopt to life in Germany, such as language, culture, mentality and different ways solving problems. The first year we, my husband and I, communicated in English, but with extra curriculum courses and due to everyday practice, my German skills have improved.

In addition, the weather and climate are very much different from Indonesia, especially the harsh winter and Spring seasons don’t find an equivalent in tropical Indonesia. I remember wearing double layers of clothing, even in bed for the first years until I could to a certain extend adopt to lower temperatures. But still today it’s kind of annoying to me having to wear heavy boots in wintertime and multiple layers of clothing to protect myself from cold weather. And in spring I have to fight with pollen allergy leading to asthma discomfort ever since coming to Germany.

Apart from the weather, there was a massive lack of social contacts for the start, as we originally lived in a small village, miles away from bright lights of a big city like Jakarta I used to live in, before moving to Germany. Being pregnant I always had to drive the car for an hour to get to a midsized town either for shopping at the grocery or to pick up my extra skills at the language school. So, I felt quite isolated and sometimes even lonely for the first 7 years, but still I could see the advantage for my newborn son, who grew up in a safe environment, not having to face heavy traffic and all the other disadvantages when living in a big city. Childcare and Kindergarten was quite easy to arrange, too and so I could follow up on my business skills as a secretary and improve my business German skills.

My relationship to Indonesia is still my mentality and my soul, I’m Indonesian wherever I live in the world. Indonesia is my first homeland, it’s the place where I was born and raised. Indonesia is the place where my "roots" are and where my greater families live.

Usually, I go to Indonesia every year to visit my families and take a vacation. Sometimes I even must travel more often to Indonesia, especially during times of Indonesian-German bilateral project work. Berlin happened to be Jakarta’s sister city and in the past, I already had the chance to work for relevant bilateral projects.

At least once a year travel is also logged-in since I need to "refill" my batteries. When recharge is complete, I will get excited again going back to Germany. It’s really a need for me to constantly travel back and forth to Indonesia and Germany. Both countries mean a lot to me, as I have spent so much time in either of them. And still there are all these other countries to visit, too.

So, ideally, I should split the year, making it possible to live half a year in Indonesia, and the other half in Germany. But since the general situation (don’t forget about climate change and the effect of air travel) wouldn’t allow to live like that, I try to postpone those plans to a time when air travel will be more suitable for people considering sustainability and the environment.

Indonesians who want to live in Germany, should be of a strong personality and as a first step learn the language to be able to understand the culture here. This helps to integrate and participate in everyday life matters and in business.

In addition, they should also have a strong mentality and work attitude, as they will have to do a lot of things by themselves. Besides Germany is known as "Leistungsgesellschaft", meaning: if you work hard, you’ll make it.

I’m currently focusing on my business as a self-employed, i.e. consulting and offering Indonesian language courses, translation and intercultural training services.

All services available can be checked at here, instead of blogging, I prefer to produce podcasts on cross culture topics with a focus on Europe and especially Germany and Indonesia.

My idea is to share personal stories about life, love and entrepreneurship in both cultural environments in order to inspire the listener. Besides that, I also teach at several institutions and VHS Berlin.

A year ago some friends and I founded IndoHub e.V., a non-profit organization pushing women’s personal ability for more self-confidence in business life.

Do you want to listen to the podcast episode between Inna Herlina and me, Lara Dewi?

Bridging the cultures of Indonesia and Germany for me as a person and for others with my projects. In general I believe, that understanding people from other cultural environments is essential for a peaceful, harmonic living together on this one planet – this requires a fair exchange and a proper respectful communication.