KartiniToday  at Grand Mirage and Indonesian’s celebrate Kartini Day. Kartini or Raden Ajeng Ayu Kartini, was born on 1st April 1879 is one of Indonesia’s national heroine, a woman who has been regarded as the pioneer of woman’s emancipation movement in Indonesia. She is considered an icon for the movement of women’s right in Indonesia.

To many Indonesian’s, Kartini Day means showing up at schools or office in traditional attire, especially kebaya dress for the ladies. Kebaya is a traditional Javanese dress where Kartini is always depicted wearing them.

Kartini was born to a royal family in Jepara, Central Java, went to a Dutch school, but was forced to end formal education at 12 and “secluded at home”, a practice among Javanese nobility at that time to prepare young girls for marriage. In spite of this fact, Kartini kept studying at home and corresponding with some intellectual people in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia at that time), and in the Netherlands, in which she wrote about her wishes and expectations for Indonesian women in the future.