Working Woman



Author: Ita Sembiring
Publisher: Shuhuf Media Insani
Publication date: November 2012
Pages: 276

What would you do if you happen to visit Holland? Most people will think about visiting interesting places or just relaxing while enjoying a nice atmosphere. But not for Ita Sembiring, although she graduated from FISIF UI and has various kinds of working experiences such as a designer in a bag company, a public relation and even she had her own event organizer, but since she was a foreigner and couldn't speak any Dutch at all, therefore she finally ended up working as a labor  in a factory. Since she found many 'unbelievable' moments there in the factory, Ita and her friend decided to write a diary based on their everyday experiences. According to Ita, working there it's like watching a performance of 1001 different characters of people.

Ita transformed her diary into a novel, in this book we will meet two main characters, Cinder Sisada from Indonesia and Eleanor Luccini from Italy who work in a stationery factory. They become best friends and decide to have a diary and names it Buku Cabul (Catatan Harian Buruh Lepas). Cinder and Eleanor will tell us in details about almost all workers who work in the factory including the boss. If Indonesian labors are associated with poverty, intimidation, low income, etc  not in Holland, the labors here enjoying a high income, comfortable atmosphere and some of them also not work for money, but just want to kill time or ashamed of being jobless and do nothing. No wonder if the labors there come to the factory in luxurious cars, wearing expensive clothes or bags, etc.

The labors come from all over the world, such as Vietnam, America, Italy and also from local people.  Sometimes there are some arguments or fights among the labors, the unique thing is even after having a serious fight, the local people usually forget the fight after five minutes. They will act normally like nothing happens, this is totally different with other countries labors who keep the hatred for a long time. There are still many funny yet interesting things told in the book. Worth to read.

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