Sambal Hati Petai
The word hati means ‘liver’. Indonesians love eating liver, especially chicken liver which is often prepared with chili, fried potatoes, and petai, which in English is named ‘stink bean’. It indeed has a strong smell that is not everyone’s cup of tea (but I personally love them!). You can find hundreds of recipes of this very popular side dish by searching for sambal hati ayam petai.
In Indonesia, the liver (hati), and not the heart (jantung), is the organ that is associated with feelings.
However, most phrases with hati do have to do with emotions. This is only a small selection; there are dozens more phrases based on hati!
- senang hati
glad, happy
- dengan senang hati
with pleasure
- patah hati
heart-broken
- putus hati
despairing
- lapang hati
content
- tidak enak hati
unhappy
- tidak sampai hati
not have the heart to
- dalam hati kecil
in the back of my mind
- dengan setengah hati
half-hearted, reluctantly
- susah hati
morose, sullen
- puas hati
satisfied
- baik hati
good-natured
- bulat hati
determined
- busuk hati
vicious, mean
- buah hati
sweetheart
- suka hati
do as you please
- jatuh hati kepada
fall in love with
- panas hati
angry, worked up
- sakit hati
sorrow, heartsick, hurt deeply, embittered
Highly recommended for further reading:
Siahaan, Poppy. “Did he break your heart or your liver? A contrastive study on metaphorical concepts from the source domain ORGAN in English and in Indonesian” pp.45-74
Cliff Goddard.”Contrastive semantics and cultural psychology: English heart vs. Malay hati”.
Both articles were published in In Sharifian, Farzad, René Dirven, Ning Yu und Susanne Niemeier (eds.).2008. Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages. 2008. Berlin, New York. Mouton de Gruyter.
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