To give you a more rounded picture of life in this country,
below are some things that I needed to get used to when first living here.
They are small things…but they just drive me crazzzyyyy !
1. Throwing litter from your car window
The floods in Jakarta are often associated with people not throwing away litter properly. These people are usually ill-educated because they lack the money to go to proper schools.
But it just furiates me when I see someone throwing litter from the window of his Rp. 300 million car. I often see this in particular at the toll booth or parking booth in the mall. They would just throw away the ticket to the ground.
Hellooo…there’s a trashcan right under the toll booth window. Or even, you can buy a small trashcan for your car.
Yeah…you don’t mind spending hundreds for foreign branded clothing, but buying a trashcan is impossible for you to do!
2. Queuing in public toilets
It always makes me uneasy about the way Indonesians queue at public toilets.
If there are many stalls, they would queue up for each toilet stall, which leaves you at the mercy of the person inside the stall you’re waiting on.
This is different compared to when I was living in Europe. There you queue before the stalls (just 1 line), so that when one of them opens, the first person that was queuing will automatically be the first to go.
It annoys me when I have been waiting long, but then someone after me goes earlier because the stall she is waiting on finished quicker.
But then again, it is nice if I am the one that can go earlier because I luckily picked a faster queue :P
3. Hold the door please
OK, western foreigners are often not associated with friendliness, but I think that they have a certain politeness that Indonesians lack.
When I was abroad, it was custom to hold the door until the person behinds you can take it. Here…they just slam it in your face!
I sometimes hold the door (out of habit), but what do I get? The person behind me would just walk through….& leave me there still holding the damn door.
I’m not a bellboy! I’m still holding the door open so that you can take the handle from me without having it slam in your face!!
14 comments:
that's why it's so hard for Indo to move forward.. well, actually, small stuffs like those should be started at their house..
yoi...susah rubahnya, kantor kita aja gak nyediain tempat sampah buat cubicle :P
Two more......side walk..it supposed to be for pedestrians not motorcycles and..... zebra cross.....in germany, vehicles will stop and let you cross the street (even in country side where only one car passing by and one person crossing)
that's true la! i'll write that one for my next blog... :P
How about stopping at the bottom or top of an escalator? :)
seeing that the annoying things list is piling up...i'm working on a "reason i love indonesia" list also..
yeah..
its the same in india too!!
now tht i m in korea for a while..i found it really surprising for ppl holding doors for me!! and as usual i just passed by!!
it took sometime for me to realise wat was happening!!
lol.....maybe slamming the door is a habit for countries with large population! :)
For me, I just hate indonesians completely. They are lazy , corrupted , sneaky, ignorant, ill educated and a bunch of little cowards that adores to stay in third world ugly
Add to that "a bunch of pigs" I've never seen people just casually chuck a styrofoam noodle soup cup off their moped before. I surf and today we sat in water that was completely choked by trash. It's not about "poverty". They ALL have mopeds and chain smoke. They are just too damn lazy to and I don't know what. They just don't care about piles of trash everywhere. In the ocean and on the beach. And it isn't about time. They'll chant & pray & chant the same stupid songs over & over again every day for hours on end.
Losers.
Thanks for criticizing, no, blatantly insulting and generalizing the whole country. At least have the balls to write your name instead of being an anonymous troll of the internet.
Loser.
I'm from Indonesia..I should say that's what you get when you're living in Jakarta..well, you've been tasting a cultural shock, but you're pick the wrong city to experience the Indonesian culture ..try another city in Indonesia..
as for annonymous person, you seem's know much about Indonesia, I dare you to come here to Indonesia, and meet me face to face..I'll show you how Indonesian really are
im from indonesia and i totaly agree with u on many points, (well basicly all of it exept the toilet i nvr had that problem) especially about the trash, lazy, sneaky, and mostly corrupt. complain about things like flood but still throwing shit where ever we like. and i agree with crey it's small things like that which prevent us from going foward and if we dont see and accept that fact we nvr will. which is why im doing my part to change myself from those habits how ever small it may be. and yes i love this "third wold country", ive lived in australia for 3 years its pretty much better country in many ways (envoriment, facility, education etc) but i nvr trully feel like at home i nvr feel like i belong there, ive met many nice ppls there in scholl but i cant trully connect with them i supose. so i guess no matter how are things here it is still home and i can only do my part in hoping and trying to make it better. and Ario i guess he's one of those ignorant little coward indonesian u mentioned, when got offended trying to pick fights but wont fight it alone always with mobs, its why he dared u to come here, as if it would solve any problem -_- he should have said "face to faces" lol, ive met ppl like that, well i guess im coward too just less ignorant (maybe) lol. so yeah i hope that when we see your post it would be a "slap in the face" and would change so that we can step foward and be a better nation and no longer would be underestimated by others
Mell, Ario & Ferlind...thanks for reading this post! I wrote it a few years ago and since then I have seen less and less situations related to no. 2. This means we are always evolving (for the better) :). Indonesia Jaya Terus!
Post a Comment