This is the case with Togu Simorangkir, who decided to resign at the peak of his career at an international conservation NGO for orangutans in Central Kalimantan and return to his hometown to become a farmer and run a community literacy organization.

"Even though my salary was more than enough at that time, I decided to quit and wanted to go back to the village where I was born," he shared.

When he returned to Silulu village in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatra, however, Togu had to face the long-standing stigma that returning migrants had failed in the city and were coming home as their last resort.

“In Batak culture, which is generally nomadic, [leaving] their hometowns for school or work, there is a common perception that people who come back from across the seas are failures,” said Togu.

Togu is a great-grandson of national hero Sisingamangaraja XII and an alumnus of National University in Jakarta, who achieved his dream of studying abroad in 2003 to obtain a master in science degree in primate conservation from Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom.

“There are also those who say that it's useless to wander from their hometowns to go to university [or] even England when, after all is said and done, they return to their hometown [anyway].”

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