dear mr. danielle

With the advent of our new business cards being printed, it makes me realize how much I still have to learn.

At the time Kadek and I were married, we decided on a Balinese wedding. It ended up being a 3-day affair with me along for the ride as I had no idea what was going on most of the time. The ceremony was performed in Sanskrit by the Brahmana, not even Balinese – not that I would have understood much if it were in Balinese either, mind you. Balinese is not to be confused with Indonesian, which is a completely different language. At that time, even in Indonesian I would have been hard pressed to figure things out.

I’d never been one to fancy a big north American wedding in the first place, with the hundreds of guests in a big hall and a huge cake and fancy wedding gown. I always thought of a hundred more sensible ways to spend that kind of money. But I had also never imagined my wedding to be a completely foreign affair with none of my own culture being any part of it. 

There was no real discernable point during the ceremony that indicated – okay you’re married. There was no exchanging of rings, no ‘do you take this man...’, no ‘you may kiss the bride’. At one point I turned to Kadek and asked him: “so are we married yet?” He looked at me and said: “Yes. I think so… but I’m not sure”. 

I had decided that the one thing that I would do that is pretty standard in North America, was that I would take the last name of my husband. Danielle Sastrawan – has a nice ring to it! Of course they had other plans for me and I was renamed during my conversion to Hinduism. My new name, as far as the Balinese were concerned, was Made Dian Sudani Lestari; a name in which I had no part of the choosing. Okay fine, but for all other purposes I would go by Danielle Sastrawan. 

Little did I know at the time, Kadek and his brother, born of the same parents, don’t even share a last name. The last name for the Balinese is a bit random and has nothing to do with the Father’s family name. That’s fine, I don’t mind. I just wanted to retain a little something of the traditions from where I came from, so it didn’t really matter. 

Something else that came as a surprise to me only much later was that, as I am female, I would never be named Sastrawan (which means man of literature), it would be Sastrawati. To make matters more confusing, Indonesian are familiar with the male name Daniel, but most people I’ve encountered here have never heard Danielle used as a female name. Often after introductions, people giggle and say: “but that’s a boy’s name.” 

Now that I’m trying to do business here on the island and going by Danielle Sastrawan, a name that I had thought was aptly chosen at the time, every email I receive in reply starts off: “Dear Mr. Danielle”. 

To avoid people giving me the once over, wondering if I handed them the wrong card, I’ve had our new business cards printed with the name Danielle Louise (my middle name).