The ID8s out west went to Bandung last week for our first In-Service Training conference. It was refreshing in many ways. It was nice to see the other westies, talk about bule problems and feel somewhat insulated when we went out. It goes without saying that if you’re living in a town where you’re the only Westerner for miles around you’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. I’ve visited countries where I’d rather lie and claim another nationality because news that I’m American is ill-received. However, that is not the case in Indonesia. Everyone is ecstatic to hear that I come from America and most everyone I’ve met so far makes me feel very welcomed once we get to this point in the conversation. Have I met Obama? Am I aware that my president likes bakso? Do I like bakso? It’s like watching a child on Idul Fitri morning.
But, sometimes people are a little....too nice. Or, by my standards, rude, as the case may be. I've harped on the obsession with taking selfies and lack of personal bubble thing on here before. I think it’s cool to complain a little about this with other bules. It helps keep you sane. At my site, most of the people I come across on a day to day basis are no longer shocked by my presence (people used to point to me and sometimes exclaim fearfully that I was a ghost. This was one of the most extreme reactions I've received). I think everyone in my immediate surroundings accepted rather quickly that I’m an unmarried 24 year old girl whose finished her undergrad and is looking for a little something different at this point in her life. I know it’s different at everybody’s site and every time you meet someone new you sort of go through the whole floored reaction process again and have to look in the mirror later to make sure you haven’t turned into the Elephant Man or something.
So towards the end of last week I was feeling a little OD-ed on the bule solidarity. I love all these people individually or in small groups but as one big group I start to feel like I’m burning a little in the spotlight. Especially one night when several groups converged and we set out to find a venue to dance and listen to music in. One club had a policy (written in English on the wall) that people with flip-flops and shorts would not be allowed inside. This made perfect sense to me and the person in our small group who was wearing flip-flops and shorts so we decided to look for another place. At this point some other groups of volunteers arrived until we were a buzzing swarm of about 30+ bules standing outside this club. Everyone was waiting for a consensus on what to do. We were there, we were attracting attention and the more fluent among us were trying to convince the security personal to let our improperly-shoed friends in.
This is the part where I felt the mood change and it turned into an us vs. them thing. The better course to take would have been for the few of us who just wanted to leave should have just left, but for some reason we didn’t. I don’t know, it was like watching a train wreck. The wreck part being that we weren’t being discriminated against, it was just a safety policy and yet, someone felt they should let us in anyway and that thought spread and spawned bitter feelings towards the manager, towards the people who were being let in with flimsy footwear and so on. So, by way of providing a conclusion to this thought, just by standing there I felt like I participated in groupthink and it was an unpleasant feeling. It was definitely not my opinion that we were being discriminated against. This experience hit it home for me on how the few really do represent the many. I saw the video below recently and it is what inspired me to write about this experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeukZ6RcUd8
So whether you're being discriminated against or you're misreading the situation, letting yourself get caught in the heat of the moment is never a pleasant feeling in my experience. Associating the fault of one person with a group of people is the product of anger or fear and only results in more anger and/or fear. Common sense, yes? My point isn't to point fingers and say "we done bad." It's to reflect on this experience by saying that yes, we will always stand out but a certain amount of the attention we draw to ourselves is self-wrought.
I personally have not received a lot of discrimination in Indonesia so far (besides the odd over-charging taxi cabby or not being let into a mosque or random people asking me for money and/or gifts) and those situations where I haven't been let in somewhere or have been asked quite a lot of questions by officials, well....I've understood each of them so far. They're just curious and/or cautious but no one I've met so far who I've interacted with directly has come across as having bad intentions specifically because I'm an American. In fact, I'm surprised by that.
On a somewhat lighter and only slightly-related note, here is something I wrote earlier this month in my digital journal when I was feeling a little exasperated by some of the questions I was receiving about America.
Fear of the unknown: is there cheese in America? Are there cockroaches in Indonesia?
It goes both ways really – this whole great unknown thing. You can spend an astounding amount of time in a place and, by not asking the right questions, never come to know that place. I get the strangest questions sometimes from people on both ends of the cultural exchange spectrum (and as often as this I-can’t-believe-it-until-I-see-it phenomenon is observed amongst travelers, I think it still bears expatiating upon). Of course, the people I’ve spoken with here so far in Indonesia want to know if there are Muslims in America and if people eat rice there. I feel like saying “duh” to these questions, but I can sort of see where they’re coming from. My favorite question so far has been: “is there water in America?” This stunned me into silence. I waited for my host mom and sisters to laugh but they never did.
I realize as I write this that I’m the pot calling the kettle black. On the eve of my departure for Indonesia, amid friends and well-wishers, one solitary question floated to the forefront of all the other important questions I had about this unknown place I was to move to: are there cockroaches in Indonesia?
This recollection made me realize something. The unknown will always remain a black hole for common sense. It’s like my phobia of cockroaches; there’s no sense to it, it’s just a gripping terror that controls all other parts of my brain when I’m in its presence. I think there is something to be said about an age of globalization where all the information in the world at our fingertips is not enough convince us of the truth. Maybe that's the way it should be. I'm a stout believer in experiential education. Shakespeare may be great but you are the living breathing person occupying this world today and to respect the value of your own experience is to be your own teacher.
But, sometimes people are a little....too nice. Or, by my standards, rude, as the case may be. I've harped on the obsession with taking selfies and lack of personal bubble thing on here before. I think it’s cool to complain a little about this with other bules. It helps keep you sane. At my site, most of the people I come across on a day to day basis are no longer shocked by my presence (people used to point to me and sometimes exclaim fearfully that I was a ghost. This was one of the most extreme reactions I've received). I think everyone in my immediate surroundings accepted rather quickly that I’m an unmarried 24 year old girl whose finished her undergrad and is looking for a little something different at this point in her life. I know it’s different at everybody’s site and every time you meet someone new you sort of go through the whole floored reaction process again and have to look in the mirror later to make sure you haven’t turned into the Elephant Man or something.
So towards the end of last week I was feeling a little OD-ed on the bule solidarity. I love all these people individually or in small groups but as one big group I start to feel like I’m burning a little in the spotlight. Especially one night when several groups converged and we set out to find a venue to dance and listen to music in. One club had a policy (written in English on the wall) that people with flip-flops and shorts would not be allowed inside. This made perfect sense to me and the person in our small group who was wearing flip-flops and shorts so we decided to look for another place. At this point some other groups of volunteers arrived until we were a buzzing swarm of about 30+ bules standing outside this club. Everyone was waiting for a consensus on what to do. We were there, we were attracting attention and the more fluent among us were trying to convince the security personal to let our improperly-shoed friends in.
This is the part where I felt the mood change and it turned into an us vs. them thing. The better course to take would have been for the few of us who just wanted to leave should have just left, but for some reason we didn’t. I don’t know, it was like watching a train wreck. The wreck part being that we weren’t being discriminated against, it was just a safety policy and yet, someone felt they should let us in anyway and that thought spread and spawned bitter feelings towards the manager, towards the people who were being let in with flimsy footwear and so on. So, by way of providing a conclusion to this thought, just by standing there I felt like I participated in groupthink and it was an unpleasant feeling. It was definitely not my opinion that we were being discriminated against. This experience hit it home for me on how the few really do represent the many. I saw the video below recently and it is what inspired me to write about this experience.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeukZ6RcUd8
So whether you're being discriminated against or you're misreading the situation, letting yourself get caught in the heat of the moment is never a pleasant feeling in my experience. Associating the fault of one person with a group of people is the product of anger or fear and only results in more anger and/or fear. Common sense, yes? My point isn't to point fingers and say "we done bad." It's to reflect on this experience by saying that yes, we will always stand out but a certain amount of the attention we draw to ourselves is self-wrought.
I personally have not received a lot of discrimination in Indonesia so far (besides the odd over-charging taxi cabby or not being let into a mosque or random people asking me for money and/or gifts) and those situations where I haven't been let in somewhere or have been asked quite a lot of questions by officials, well....I've understood each of them so far. They're just curious and/or cautious but no one I've met so far who I've interacted with directly has come across as having bad intentions specifically because I'm an American. In fact, I'm surprised by that.
On a somewhat lighter and only slightly-related note, here is something I wrote earlier this month in my digital journal when I was feeling a little exasperated by some of the questions I was receiving about America.
Fear of the unknown: is there cheese in America? Are there cockroaches in Indonesia?
It goes both ways really – this whole great unknown thing. You can spend an astounding amount of time in a place and, by not asking the right questions, never come to know that place. I get the strangest questions sometimes from people on both ends of the cultural exchange spectrum (and as often as this I-can’t-believe-it-until-I-see-it phenomenon is observed amongst travelers, I think it still bears expatiating upon). Of course, the people I’ve spoken with here so far in Indonesia want to know if there are Muslims in America and if people eat rice there. I feel like saying “duh” to these questions, but I can sort of see where they’re coming from. My favorite question so far has been: “is there water in America?” This stunned me into silence. I waited for my host mom and sisters to laugh but they never did.
I realize as I write this that I’m the pot calling the kettle black. On the eve of my departure for Indonesia, amid friends and well-wishers, one solitary question floated to the forefront of all the other important questions I had about this unknown place I was to move to: are there cockroaches in Indonesia?
This recollection made me realize something. The unknown will always remain a black hole for common sense. It’s like my phobia of cockroaches; there’s no sense to it, it’s just a gripping terror that controls all other parts of my brain when I’m in its presence. I think there is something to be said about an age of globalization where all the information in the world at our fingertips is not enough convince us of the truth. Maybe that's the way it should be. I'm a stout believer in experiential education. Shakespeare may be great but you are the living breathing person occupying this world today and to respect the value of your own experience is to be your own teacher.
Sorry this post was all over the place. That's sort of how I've been feeling lately.
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