Obama on State Visit to Jakarta, His Childhood Town

Obama's state visit ends as he shakes hands with Indonesian officials, before boarding Air Force One at a military airport in Jakarta on Nov. 10. (Roslan Rahman/AFP/Getty Images)

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JAKARTA, Indonesia—Barack Obama’s two-day state visit to Indonesia began on Tuesday, Nov. 9. The president of the United States was nostalgic about returning to Jakarta, where he spent four years as a child.

Obama and his wife Michelle arrived at the Istana Merdeka castle for dinner, and were greeted by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the Indonesian First Lady Ani Yudhoyono.

In the late 1960s, when Obama and his family lived in Jakarta’s Menteng Dalam district, he had no idea he would one day have a state banquet at the grand castle.

“As a young boy in Menteng Dalam 40 years ago, I could never imagine that I would one day be hosted here,” Obama said, according to the Indonesia Times. “Never mind as president of the United States. I didn’t think I would be stepping into this building, ever.”

Obama enjoyed a feast of Indonesian food, including grilled duck with asparagus, Mie Bakso (meatballs with noodles), beef satay, and pickles. Grilled bananas and kopyor ice were served for dessert.

“Everything is delicious,” Obama said in Bahasa, the official language of Indonesia.

In his speech, after dinner and also at the press conference following the bilateral meeting, Obama mentioned his childhood memories from the four years he lived in Jakarta.

He remembered the city in its sleepy days, with only one highrise building—the Sarinah department store on the Jalan Thamrin—and people passing by on bicycles, rickshaws or crowded little taxis called bemos.

However, Obama noted that while visiting Indonesia as the U.S. president, he is looking forward, not back.

Expansion of trade and democratic progress were the major issues discussed at Tuesday night’s bilateral meeting. Obama is encouraging the United States to move from Indonesia’s number three trading partner to number one in terms of trade volume and investment.

Obama said he was impressed by the religious tolerance he saw in Indonesia.

When visiting the Istiqlal mosque, the imam told the president and his wife that the mosque and nearby cathedral are located in parallel as a symbol of harmony and cooperation among religious believers in Indonesia.

In the mosque courtyard, the imam explained that for every festival, Muslim or Christian, the mosque and the cathedral share each other’s parking lots.

Obama ended his visit by delivering public lectures on democracy at the campus of Universitas Indonesia. On Wednesday afternoon, he traveled on to South Korea to attend the G-20 summit in Seoul.