When I married into an East Javanese family, I was surprised by how many communal gatherings took place throughout the year. Days before each event, the house would already be busy: shopping, preparing gift packages, cooking, arranging meals.
One tradition I kept witnessing is rewang: neighbors voluntarily coming together to help prepare everything. It’s a form of “gotong royong”, mutual cooperation that has existed in Indonesia for generations. The help is never one-sided. Today they come to your house; another day, you return the favor at theirs.
To be honest, I struggled to understand it.
As someone who grew up in the city and now works from home, having the house constantly filled with people felt overwhelming. I couldn’t help much because I was working, which only made me feel awkward. I also noticed that most of the labor happened behind the scenes, and almost all of it was done by women. Preparing the food, washing dishes, cleaning up long after everyone had eaten and gone home.
I wondered if people secretly resented having to spend entire days helping others. Maybe they felt obligated. Maybe they were repaying past kindness or investing in future help. My husband and I even joked that if we ever hosted an event ourselves, we’d probably just order catering.
Looking back, I think my perspective was incomplete.
One day my mother-in-law said something simple that these gatherings are also a way of sharing our blessings.
Living comfortably in the city, it’s easy to forget that for many families, a meal to take home or a small package of groceries genuinely matters. What I initially saw as an exhausting obligation is, for many, also an informal social safety net built through relationships rather than institutions.
I’m still not sure this is a tradition I would personally continue in exactly the same way.
But I’ve learned that before judging a culture, it’s worth asking what purpose it serves for the people who live it every day.
Sometimes, what looks like labor is also community.
