On the .... some observation ....

just back from an indonesian night … not really a normal indonesian night as it was organized by a student association from the chemical engineering department …. the reason they organized this event is to know better or have a slightly clues of information about Indonesia … it was a nice evening with a presentations about Indonesia … the first was from a professor from leiden (very interesting, as he explained a lot about the symbolism of the landscape of some important buildings, the statues and many things) ….. sorry to say that the second presentation was not that interesting … I think the presentation didn’t have a real theme … and as the presenter gave a sloppy answer to the audience question, it seems that her presentation did not give the audience any useful information (which are for example, the most ambiguous part is about a statement that Indonesian can be a direct people .. it is totally not true …. she mixed it up with politeness and the nature of culture in java and sumatra …. in general, Indonesian cannot speak directly … our politeness sometimes backfiring as we cannot say “direct no” to other people’s request) … the third presentation was more interesting …. the presenter is a dutch student who had been in Indonesia for about 6 months ….. I like her sarcastic jokes …. the directness … the cynics … but also very objective …. really love to see people explain Indonesia from that point of view ….

Indonesia has a rich culture with its complexity, which sometimes brings some ambiguity for the outsider…… in general we are a very polite people (except some area in sumatra where my my ancestor is originated from … hehehehe), but however we are not too honest … which bring a complexity between honesty and politeness …. we are a nation that is very welcome to the foreigner, but in other way, we charge the foreigner unfairly (yes, it is unfair to charge them three or four times more than the normal price) …. we have the most indirect way to communicate and very difficult to say no ….. and yes, those ambiguity character are very complex … and even I cannot understand that (and for sure, if you put a religion and ethnic into the equation, which still glued in many people’s personality … everything will be more “interesting”)

the gathering was closed by a poco2 dance … a typical Indonesian dance … anyway …. in the gathering I also notice some typical Indonesian behavior … such that Indonesian (to be honest) is not really a people who can adapt easily to the new environment, some people do it slowly and some people even kind of making a new environment instead of trying to taste a new “western” culture (also the same thing that I see from the Chinese) … for example .. I only see two persons who really trying to get along with non-indonesian people … (even one of them is really empty headed ..) … however …. I am not one of the two (well …. it is my nature in any case … ) …. but it really describes a bit about Indonesian …..

I don’t say that I am a very sociable person … even in fact, lately I was dragged more and more to the Indonesian community and less and less international …. I don’t really understand why either … I was once belong to the crazy international community …. and to the international church community ….. and anything else …. I am not saying that where am I right now and how my social life now is bad, …. at least I still hang out with some of my non Indonesian friend … but still … it is kind of surprising (only for me) …. but well … life goes on …. I know I lost my old community and life … but hey, maybe I can get it back someday ….


anyway …. a goodies but oldies that I found from fb …. it is veryyy old … was released 17 years ago …