Mudik

Mudik (sometimes also known as pulang kampung) is an Indonesian term for the activity where migrants or migrant workers return to their hometown or village during or before major holidays, especially Lebaran (Eid al-Fitr). Although the mudik homecoming travel before Lebaran takes place in most Indonesian urban centers, the highlight is on the nation's largest urban agglomeration; Greater Jakarta, as millions of Jakartans exit the city by various means of transportation, overwhelming train stations and airports and also clogging highways, especially the Trans-Java toll road and Java's Northern Coast Road.

The primary motivation of this homecoming tradition is to visit one's family, especially parents. However, people might seek to come to their hometown during this period to attend a rare opportunity: a gathering of members of the extended family, the seldom seen relatives that are normally scattered in other cities, other provinces or even overseas. The term mudik is also used by Indonesians living abroad to refer to their activity returning to Indonesia during the holiday season in whichever country of residence.

Mudik for Eid al-Fitr, or its similar traditions, exists in countries with Muslim majorities, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan. Other similar annual homecoming traditions are also observable in various parts of the world, including Chinese New Year in China and among the Chinese diaspora, Thai Songkran, Christmas in Europe and Latin America, Easter in Russia, Divali in India and Thanksgiving in America, where family members are expected to come home during these specific holidays.

The term Mudik in Indonesian means "to sail or to travel to udik (upstream, inland) by the river". The term mudik or udik is also found in local Indonesian languages, such as Minang, Betawi, Sundanese, and Javanese.

Pulang kampung, meanwhile, simply means "returning home" (a connotation of kampung, which literally means village).

The tradition of visiting one's hometown, home village, or family ancestral home is not a new tradition in Indonesian history. Manuscripts dated from the Majapahit period describe that nobles and royals often returned from the capital city in Trowulan to their ancestral home to honor and appease ancestral spirits. In Balinese tradition, Hindu Balinese people came home to their hometowns or their home villages during Galungan and Kuningan sacred days, as they believed it marks the time when the ancestral spirits visit their descendants in the mortal world.

In most parts of Indonesia where Islam is the majority, the homecoming or mudik tradition is most often conducted in the month of Ramadhan, between a week to several days before Lebaran (Eid al-Fitr). Nevertheless, other ethnicities such as the Madurese are known to conduct their mudik tradition before Eid al-Adha instead. Indonesian Christians, on the other hand, especially Batak people, might travel to their hometown prior to Christmas.

The term mudik to coin the specific homecoming activity has started to enter common Indonesians' vocabulary since the 1970s. It is suggested that in 1970s, during the start of Suharto's centralized New Order regime, the prominence of Jakarta as the center of the nation's politics, administrative and economic activities prompted massive urbanization, where the population of rural Javanese villages flocked and migrated to Jakarta and surrounding areas (Greater Jakarta) seeking jobs and economic opportunities. The majority of the migrants came from rural Javanese areas; nevertheless, Jakarta also attracted migrants from all over Indonesia. These newcomer migrants, who still nurture their links to their hometowns in rural Java or other corners in Indonesia, were actively involved in the annual mudik travel.