Indonesians are People Too

Ask people from the places we visit often. Indonesians are well known for their avid shopping habits and in some countries, sales staff make the effort to learn a bit of Indonesian even if only enough to get by in a store. However, if you go somewhere "unusual", a lot of people have never heard of Indonesia at all. If I tell them it's in "South East Asia" they don't necessarily know where that is either (maybe they don't know their compass points?), so I have to tell them it's "near Australia" or maybe even "between Singapore and Australia".

If I am annoyed by someone who knows nothing about us I might get detailed: "We have 17,000 islands and 250 million people. Your country is nothing. How come you've never heard of my country, stupid!" (Of course I kept that final word to myself I) When you stay at a hostel you have to sign in and state your nationality, because a lot of them have a membership system. When I stay in a small town or in an "unusual" country, I often hear something like, "Hmmm there's no Indonesia on our list. You are the first Indonesian to ever stay here."

Should I be proud of this? Well, not really. It's pretty rare an Indonesian wants to stay at the kind of cheapskate hostels I find myself in sometimes. It's ironic that Indonesians are known as "bourgeois" in the big cities of the countries they often visit. When I stayed in a hostel in Paris they asked me, "Why are you staying here? Indonesians are rich. They love shopping and go on tours in luxury buses!"

I guess I could say I was "proud" to be Indonesian when I was in Holland or Australia. They smelt my kretek53, and they knew where I came from straight away. It was funny when you heard them say something like, "Hmmm I smell kretek. I really miss Indonesia!" Then they talked about how beautiful it was here and how friendly the people were. If it wasn't for my cigarettes I think I would be taken for a Vietnamese or a Filipina, two countries with a large foreign diaspora.

Occasionally the people around me have recognised me as Indonesian without needing to ask me or know what I was smoking. When I was boarding a plane in Brisbane, the TV in the waiting lounge was showing the riots in Indonesia. It felt like the whole room was staring at me and the sneering person next to me asked, "That's the country you're from, right?"

I grinned and, rather unpatriotically, answered, "Well, that's why I'm here! Holiday!"
However, being Indonesian can have unexpected advantages. In Atlanta I was taking a taxi driven by an Arab immigrant who found out where I was from. "I love Indonesia! They make good sarongs for sholat," and he wouldn't let me pay the fare! I got another free ride in Christchurch, New Zealand. "You are from Indonesia? Wow! I'm from India!" That was quite strange, that one.

From my own personal experience, it is Americans who are the least likely to have heard of Indonesia, especially outside of California. Does being a superpower mean they don't feel the need to study about other countries? The most common response to hearing that I come from Indonesia was "Where is that?" or "Is it near Bali?" The worst was, "Indonesia? It's close to Guam, right?"

Annoying! I really didn't enjoy being asked about Indonesia by an old man sitting next to me on the plane who just wouldn't stop talking. Where is Indonesia? How far? What's the capital? And even "What do Indonesians eat for breakfast?"
"Bread, cheese, bacon and eggs." My reply was so mean I And he was so serious. "Really? Same here, we eat that for breakfast too."

Indonesians are People Too 2014-03-04T04:32:00+07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: Vera