Culture shock in small serves

The social gap between village and city
I helped my mother a lot with her new little house. At first I thought it would be difficult because business in Indonesia was complicated and unsafe. The language barrier did not make things easier. My Indonesian language and cultural skills improved very fast partly due to the work pressure. I had no choice but to push through our interests and at least I managed to get basic work done.

Our house was just on the border to the kampung or village area. Many well-to-do Indonesians were hesitant to live near the border of a kampung because the social gap between the village and city was wider than the Grand Canyon. I liked the fruit orchards in the kampung and all the kampung style houses. But there was definitely a strong agression and envy against the new houses and newcomers. I felt the presence of it every day as I walked through the area.

Newcomers and villagers in Melati Mas
Somehow I could even understand the resentment the villagers had towards the newcomers. Imagine you had lived your own lifestyle in peace and then the rich people started to intrude into your space and changed your life with force......Kampung people still burned their rubbish in their gardens which could lead to life-threatening conditions such as asthma or lung cancer. This was something I just couldn't imagine from my Western viewpoint. It had been prohibited in Jakarta city areas but this place was still considered the border to the villages.

Newcomers wanting to move into one of the new houses were waited for in front of their house. A huge group of kampungers(villagers) under leadership of their elders would devour you unless they could squeeze a hell lot of money out of the "richies". They would block the newcomers to enter their own house until they received the money to carry out the job. These village people were lazy, had no work and often could only afford 2 meals a day. For this reason it became more than incomprehensible for me why all of them possessed a mobile phone they could chat on for hours.

Getting in touch with traditional medical herbs
The jamu or medical herbal tea is a tradition which is as old as mankind in Indonesia. What ever you wish, just name it. Jamu for more sexual potence, for a nice skin, for less spots on your face, for more social charisma, even a total cure of cancer :-))) Every Indonesian would have at least one glass of jamu from a street vendor every day. I tried a few glasses but soon I had to regret it. Probably the water did not meet enough of the hygienic requirements. I contracted a fungus diarrhoea for a couple of days. Through these jamu sessions, I got to know a lot of different local people and their lifestyles.


The importance of age and ethnic identity
The way people adressed each other based on ethnic identity and age alienated me even more. My mother was quite upset as people called her Oma(grandmother) and I wasn't too happy as some youngsters called me Tante or auntie. People address to you based on your perceived ethnic identity. Something I found absolutely weird!!!!!

If they called you Tjie or encim they perceived you as Chinese. I thought what would happen when some Muslim Malay people with Chinese features were called Tjie, encik or encim. Well, they told me that this had happened on several occasions and non-Chinese people were upset about it. The official term was Ibu which meant Ms or sometimes mbak(Miss) when the person was young. If you say Ibu you can't go wrong because this is standard regardless of age and ethnic identity. People also seem to act strange if you are not married although in Jakarta city people start to change.....

I can never familiarise myself with this attitude and unable to understand why ethnicity and age is so important in Asian societies. But Couchsurfing will apparently teach you to be respectful and tolerant of people with values and beliefs other than yourself. It really provides close-corner learning of other lifestyles.