Rojong

Hello and welcome to Word of the Week! I’m your host, Liz. This podcast is dedicated to words and phrases that are untranslatable into English. Let’s discover the nuance of the world’s languages, shall we? 

This week’s word is rojong. An Indonesian word that means mutual cooperation. What a lovely idea! But in looking at the word more closely, it is similar to another Indonesian word ‘gotong’, which means “to carry a heavy burden together”. Suddenly, ‘rojong’ and ‘gotong’ start to make sense in relation to each other.

Rojong is about a group of people coming together to accomplish something of mutual benefit. Hopefully, the more rojong that happens, the less that gotong has to occur, right? I can imagine that back in the days when America was a land of the small family farmer, the spirit of barn raising would bring about the spirit of rojong. That’s how I would use it: “the villagers worked in rojong to build their new community center”.

The word rojong might be applicable to people working in a variety of industries and situations though. When’s the last time you participated in a block party? There’s plenty of folks who have allotment or community gardens, that offers up a location for city people to get their hands dirty tilling the soil - but also means that one neighbor who planted the tomatoes might benefit from the neighbor who planted basil, or asparagus, or spinach, or carrots, which are all companion plants for tomatoes. 

Anyone involved in activities where individuals can relate to each other within a cooperative and community-driven framework - has experienced rojong. We could all use a little more community, why not start with cooperation? Here’s to this week… May you all endeavor to adopt this Word of the Week and see the world a little bit differently. I’ll be back next week with a new word. Thank you for listening!