About Indonesia Expat Expertise I am a foreigner from a Western country but have been living in Indonesia for the past 9 years. As a person living and working here, I am able to provide information on transport options and average prices within the country, as well as getting in and out of the country, general hassles people will come up against, visas, recommended homestays, honest and ethical people for legal consultation and private investigation, scams that foreigners should be aware of, safety considerations in certain areas, requirements of living and working here, information regarding leasing houses, apartments, some information on mixed marriages, where to find good medical treatment, jobs, housing, imported foods, cars, restaurants, etc.
Experience I have been living and working here since the beginning of 1999 and have traveled and lived in Lombok, Bali, Yogyakarta, Jakarta, Central Java and West Java.
durt wrote at 2007-12-16 01:34:47
In Indonesia it is common for people to have a first name with no last name. If you look at Indonesian political figures most go by one name. Such as Suharto or Megawati.
When they immigrate to the US the first name is used as the surname and FNU is used for the first name.
bennylin wrote at 2007-12-28 05:18:34
FNU is definitely not Indonesian :) A lot of my friends who didn't have lastname/surname/familyname was "assigned" FNU instead. But that's not the only option, some of them (maybe the new method) uses their first name instead. So, if an Indonesian called Mery (just one word), her full name will be Mery Mery. If his name is Chandra, then his full name will be Chandra Chandra (at least during their visit to US or Europe). Indonesian doesn't have problem (as far as I know) with single word names.
ant wrote at 2009-08-05 21:57:04
There are a lot of Indonesian people have only one name, it's a given name - back in old days parents didn't know or have a little knowledge about firstname and surname so they never put 'surname' for their children. They ended up only have one name shown on their passport. Most of databases around the world can't take only 1 name, so sometimes they just repeat the given name, e.g. Suriadi, then in the database would appear as Suriadi Suriadi, since firstname and surname are compulsory fields. FNU stands for First Name Unknown, they need to put the given name as the lastname/surname, just because in lastname/surname usually a key identifier. It's weird too if they only put in the firstname, you will ended upt with SNU (Surname Unknown) -- meaning you never born in this world, since you don't have surname :).
