The first thing that hits you when you enter a batik workshop isn't the sight of intricate patterns or the sound of careful work – it's the smell. Hot wax and natural dye, earthy and ancient, mixing with the sharp tang of modern chemical colors. It's a scent that hasn't changed in centuries, even if everything else has.
I pause at the workshop entrance, letting the familiar aroma wash over me. Six months at my fancy international school in Bogor, and still, this smell means home more than anything else. The quiet tap-tap-tap of canting tools against fabric provides a steady backbeat to the soft Javanese conversations floating through the air. For a moment, I could be six years old again, watching in wonder as patterns emerge like magic under skilled hands.
"Selamat pagi, Mbak Ayu!"
Pak Hadi's greeting snaps me out of my nostalgia. The master artisan's smile is as warm as ever, even if there are more wrinkles around his eyes than I remember. His fingers are stained with indigo, the same blue that's marked his hands for the forty years he's worked with my family.
"Pak Hadi! Masih sibuk seperti biasa?" I answer, slipping easily back into the formal Javanese that feels right here, even if my international school friends would laugh at how different I sound.
He nods, but something flickers across his face – worry? Before I can ask, my mother's voice rings out from the office.
"아유야! 어서 와!" The Korean cuts through the workshop's Javanese atmosphere like a bright thread through traditional patterns. My mother appears in the office doorway, elegant as always in her silk blouse and batik skirt, the perfect fusion of her adopted home and her Seoul heritage.
But it's what's behind her that makes me freeze. Through the office window, I can see a new banner hanging on the wall, its sleek corporate design jarringly modern against the traditional space. The Korean text I can read easily, the English beneath it even easier:
Jung-Ho Textile Corporation: Tradition Meets Innovation
My stomach drops. I know that company. Every Korean business student does. And if they're here, in my family's workshop...
"Ayu," my mother switches to Indonesian, her tone carefully neutral. "There's something your father and I need to discuss with you."
The canting tools keep tapping, the wax keeps heating, the dye vats bubble with their ancient chemistry. But suddenly, the familiar workshop smell takes on a different note – less like home, more like something that needs protecting.
I clutch my design portfolio closer, years of sketches and plans suddenly feeling either completely useless or more important than ever. I'm not sure which yet.
"Ne, Eomma," I answer, using Korean like a small act of rebellion. "I think there's a lot we need to discuss."
The industrial fan hums overhead, stirring the heavy air, mixing centuries of tradition with whatever's about to change everything. I take one more breath of that batik workshop smell, hoping it's not one of the last times I'll get to do so.
Time to find out if all those business classes were worth something beyond my GPA.
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Notes:
- Canting: Traditional tool used in batik-making
- Mbak: Javanese honorific for young woman
- 아유야! 어서 와! (Ayu-ya! Eoseo wa!): Ayu! Come here!
- Eomma: Mother (Korean)
[End of Chapter 1]
A/N: Thank you for reading the first chapter of The Heritage Weaver!
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YOU ARE READING
The Heritage Weaver
Teen Fiction"Tradition is not about keeping the ashes, but passing on the fire." - Gustav Mahler When eighteen-year-old Ayufia Dyahjanita returns to her family's batik workshop in Probolinggo for summer break, she expects two peaceful months of design sketching...
