Nyoman Koen Krisnawan has one of those names that immediately reveals where he’s from. “Nyoman” is a common Balinese name, and like many Indonesians, he doesn’t use a surname in the way we Filipinos or Westerners do. It’s not quite like Brazilian one-name icons (Pelé, Ronaldinho, Nenê) either, but there are hints of heritage if you know where to look—just as you can guess that Megawati Sukarnoputri is the daughter of Indonesia’s founding leader, Sukarno.
Nyoman comes from the beautiful island of Bali, famous for its beaches and postcard-perfect sunsets, but also marked by its own scars. The 2002 bombing in Kuta killed 202 people, many of them tourists from countries aligned with the United States’ war on terror, in a tragedy often framed as a clash tied to Islam. Yet Indonesia, while the world’s most populous Muslim country, is far from religiously uniform. There are thousands of Christians and people of other faiths scattered across its vast archipelago.
I was blessed to see a little of that diversity myself when I visited Yogyakarta for the Singles for Christ Regional Conference in 2002. Amid mosques, temples, and crowded streets, I saw how faiths overlapped in daily life. Nyoman, for his part, is neither Muslim nor Christian, even though his mother is a believer in Christ—hence “Kris” as one of his names.
Table of Contents
First impressions at PCCW
I met Nyoman at work, at PCCW, my first employer in Hong Kong.
At first glance, I thought he was a long-time resident nerd, the kind of technical guy who had been there forever. I even assumed he was Filipino. Jay Meneses, my Filipino colleague, seemed so comfortable with him; even Onin Debonbon talked about him as if they’d been friends for ages. At that time, I hadn’t met many foreigners, and I couldn’t easily tell a Chinese from a Korean or a Japanese just by mere eye test. Indonesians and Filipinos share many physical and cultural traits, so it was no surprise I misread his nationality.
It’s said that Tagalog and Bahasa Indonesia share hundreds—maybe thousands—of similar words. We belong to the same broad Austronesian family. Yet for all those supposed overlaps, I still couldn’t understand Indonesian. To my outsider ears, the local Cantonese language was fast and musical, full of sharp pitch changes, while Indonesian felt calmer and more even, with clear, steady syllables I could almost follow even without understanding the words. It’s unlike the gentler flow of Thai or Vietnamese, or the clipped precision of Japanese.
We didn’t stay colleagues for very long. I was part of the group let go by PCCW in late 2001. Shortly before I left, I had been reassigned to Nyoman’s team, along with an Indian colleague named Rahul Vohra and our team leader, Johnson Ip. We were a small multinational crew whose fate was quietly sealed long before we realized it.
I still remember Rahul’s ominous line over his welcome lunch: “I hope this is not a send-off lunch with you guys.” It was. That turned out to be our last day together as a team; both Rahul and I were fired.
Friendship after the layoff
But the story with Nyoman didn’t end at PCCW’s door.
After I eventually found another job, Nyoman and I kept in touch. We played squash, where he cheerfully—and consistently—shredded me to pieces. During winter, we took refuge from the cold in an Indonesian restaurant in Sheung Wan, chasing the chill away with warm food and warmer conversation.
With colleagues Steven Yip and Patrick Kong in the mix, the four of us became a small band of misfits, trading jokes and stories from distant shores: Philippines, Indonesia, Hong Kong, and wherever else life had scattered us.
Time, however, doesn’t always collaborate with friendships.
Soon, Nyoman’s contract was approaching its end, and news came that it wouldn’t be renewed. He would be leaving Hong Kong in the summer of 2003. My ever “historically rich” brain flashed back to the days when he got excited hearing me describe Yogyakarta, raucous motorcycles swarming in all directions in the city center, the oddly named hotel where we stayed, and of course, his pride: Universitas Gadjah Mada.
Crossing paths in Malaysia
Somewhere along the way, I joined an “Amazing Race”-style trip that crammed Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand into five hectic days. In Malaysia, we almost had a mini-reunion.
We managed to meet up with Onin, who by then was already working in Kuala Lumpur. He drove all the way from KL to Genting Highlands using a borrowed car, getting lost a few times along the way, but still determined to show up. It felt like a snapshot of our earlier years—same inside jokes, same topics, just older faces and slightly more tired eyes.
Nyoman’s next chapter
Nyoman came back to Hong Kong one April to “collect” the last of his savings. He had decided to return to Jakarta—pronounced with that sharp, strong “r”—to either start a business or find a wife. He said it with a straight face, but sometimes his expressions hinted that even he wasn’t entirely sure what would come next.
That’s part of his charm. He’s a funny guy who can get under your skin with subtle teasing, yet somehow you still want him around.
Over the years, I’ve met other Indonesians—Juliana and Irmawaty from the Yogyakarta conference; Devi Afianto in Kuala Lumpur. They’ve all struck me as warm, humble, grounded people. Maybe we Filipinos influenced Nyoman a bit too. He occasionally drops Tagalog expressions like “sige sige” or an emphatic “ayun!” with a confidence that would probably confuse most Indonesians back home.
To a friend between islands
To Nyoman—whatever your plans are, wherever you decide to plant your roots, good luck, my friend.
You arrived in my life as just another colleague in a foreign city, but you left as something rarer: proof that friendship doesn’t always begin with grand moments. Sometimes, it starts in a noisy office, survives a round of layoffs, survives time zones and career shifts, and quietly follows you from Hong Kong to Jakarta, to Genting, and beyond.