Thursday Pahing Tradition

Indonesia is a country that consists of many different cultures. Each region has its own culture, as well as the Special Region of Yogyakarta, my hometown. It’s called Special Region because it is the only region in Indonesia that is still governed by a pre-colonial monarchy, the Sultan of Yogyakarta, who serves as the hereditary governor of the region One of the unique cultures in Yogyakarta is that every Thursday Pahing the community, especially students and civil servants, are required to wear Traditional Javanese costume. The Javanese Traditional costume for women/girls called kebaya, and the traditional costume for men/boys called Surjan. Both usually combine with jarik, a straight-lined skirt made from traditional garments such as Batik. Over time, there have been many modifications regarding traditional Javanese costume, especially the kebaya. My kids wear the simplest style of kebaya and surjan on Thursday Pahing, because they spend 9 hours at their school so they can still feel comfortable in doing their activities. What is Pahing? Pahing is one of the days in the Javanese calendar, which only has 5 days in a week (the week is called Pasaran), namely: Legi, Pon, Pahing, Wage, and Kliwon. This Pasaran day is still used by the Javanese as a counting days system in certain events. So why Thursday Pahing? It is to commemorate 2 special events that happened on Thursday Pahing, they were the day of the founding of Kasultanan Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat (Yogyakarta Sultanate) in 1755 and commemorate the day of the ratification of the Privilege Law for Yogyakarta Region became Special Region of Yogyakarta in 1950. In addition, wearing Javanese traditional costume is also a way to introduce the traditional culture to the younger generation, as well as to continue to preserve Javanese culture.