Excellent reporting in The Observer.

This blew me away today. From The Observer. Full story here, excerpt below.

When Tri Cayono and Yanti caught sight of each other, their reactions were hardly what one would expect from two people on their wedding day. In a receiving line with her parents, an aunt and four siblings, Yanti greeted her future husband with a handshake and the merest flicker of a smile as he arrived with relatives.

He gave a nod and quickly moved on to the next person in line. The affection level barely rose throughout the evening. Yanti and Tri did not kiss - not even after the Muslim cleric who officiated at the ceremony declared them husband and wife. They were disinclined to cuddle up, even when cajoled by the photographer.

The truth behind the frostiness is a sinister and sad indictment of the traditions that persist in many parts of Indonesia. Not only had Yanti, 22, a restaurant cook, and Tri, 24, a maize and sweet potato farmer, just met, they barely knew anything about each other. 'Er, what does he like to do in his spare time?' Yanti hurriedly asked a cousin when probed by The Observer the day before the nuptials.

Despite her protestations, it was clear that Yanti was uncomfortable with the process that had led to the ceremony in a specially erected bamboo and corrugated-iron-roofed 'marquee' outside her parents' mud-floor house.

A little over two months ago Tri announced that he wanted to marry a girl from central Java. 'I think they're cooler and more fun,' he told The Observer by way of explanation. The fact that he did not know any did not deter him. When a vague acquaintance, Fajar, said he had a cousin, Mursiyati, who might be appropriate, Tri accepted immediately.

Pressurised by her parents into accepting Tri's offer - the fact that he had a one-and-a-quarter-acre farm being too tempting a lure for Mursiyati's labourer father - Mursiyati agreed to the match. A month later Mursiyati met someone she liked, called off the wedding and married her new boyfriend instead.

Despite the setback Tri was still determined to marry a central Java woman and Fajar felt obligated to provide one. So early in June the family came up with Yanti, a cousin of Fajar. Again the fact that Tri had 10 times more land than Yanti's father proved the crucial factor.

'As soon as I heard her voice, saw her photo and learnt she was a cook, I knew that she was the woman for me,' Tri said, without much conviction. Yanti said she was 'happy and excited' at the prospect of marrying Tri, but her father, Saulusmin, was not. 'I mean they haven't even met - how can they get married?' he said. But like Yanti, Saulusmin did not dare to stand up to his wife, Gina. 'She would have got so angry with me if I'd objected it would not have been pleasant,' Saulusmin said. 'So I decided to let her have her way.'

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Im a big fan of these types of people who makes pretty amazing job.