Everyone we have met in our host city of Kudus has been extremely friendly and welcoming. The three phrases we have heard most often here have been "What do you think of Kudus?" "When will you come back?" and "When will you stay in my home?" The city should be famous for its warm smiles and hospitality. But it's famous for something else as well. Last weekend, our host brought us sightseeing, and we stopped at the Kretek Museum. We walked in and quickly learned that kretek in Indonesian means tobacco. We were in a tobacco museum. That was definitely an experience I never imagined having. We were lead around by a very gracious docent who taught us the history of tobacco in the city, from a statue of the man, Haji Jamhari, who invented cigarettes in Kudus in the late 1800s (to cure his asthma!) through the making of cigarettes.
After the tour of the museum, we spoke with our host teacher who explained that the city is in a tough spot because many people know that cigarettes are very bad for your health (despite what they may say in the museum about asthma), but the cigarette factories are a huge part of Kudus' economy, and they create countless jobs. Tobacco has become a huge part of the culture here. The traditional dance of Kudus has dancers displaying the motions of picking tobacco and making cigarettes, the local batik pattern features the tobacco leaf, and the large welcome statue at the start of the city represents the tobacco leaf.
Welcome to Kretek City from the giant tobacco leaf!
Tobacco sauce to give cigarettes extra tobacco flavor.
There was a whole china set with cigarettes on it
It's a very interesting city to have been placed in! The universe likes to be funny sometimes.