Indonesia: What they think of Americans

This was one of the weirdest parts of the vacation, and therefore, what I will address first. When I went to Singapore, we met up with my friend's friends. One of them is this very aggressive, outgoing girl who pretty much led us everywhere. The first thing she did is bring me to all these designer clothing shops: Chanel, Gucci, Salvatore Ferragamo. She would literally walk me inside the shop and hand things to me that she thought were nice like I could just buy it, no big deal. Then she would WAIT for me to finish shopping. (I awkwardly bought nothing.) Then when we went to eat, she wanted to take me to these super high end restaurants, when I just wanted to go to china town to have those $1 dollar meals because... a $1 meal is my idea of a great time, k. I'm just a graduate student trying to be financial responsible by saving enough money to pay off my student tuition. At one point, the other friend leaned over and asked if the watch I was wearing was Valentino. Girl, this watch was $30.

One thing I've learned traveling to these countries is that being a US citizen gives you some unfair advantages. I threw away my customs receipt, which I needed to leave Singapore. My friend and her aunt were freaking out because when they didn't have it, customs officials took them into a little room and interrogated them. The customs official shrugged it off after seeing my passport. In another instance, my friend told me to go yell at the person behind the airport counter because our flight from one indonesian island to another had been delayed and the person behind the counter didn't give her an explanation or an updated boarding time. I started yelling at this little guy who had probably no idea what I was saying. I kid you not, he left and about 3 minutes after he returned, the boarding gate opened. It seems that in general, there is a lot of corruption there, but that topic will be discussed later.

Once I arrived in Indonesia, my friend told me that my aunt wanted me to go to her school to give a presentation as a special speaker. I assumed the teacher wanted her students to have a fun little chat with someone from another country. We arrive there around 2 hours late because of the late plane, and all the students have left. The principle and teachers are all there waiting for me. They shook my hand, took pictures of me, and took videos of me talking to the principle. They asked me about my life, the American school system, how teachers motivated students, what classes were like, what they taught us... I asked my friend why they were taking pictures and getting video of me. She said it was for evidence that I came. I was like "... why..."

I'm not exactly sure what they were thinking. In most circumstances, teachers would give a sigh of relief and go home early to eat dinner with their families. Be that as it may, it was confusing to me. My culture here taught me that people are just people and any assumptions you make based on race, ethnicity, place of origin etc is what you would call prejudice. I guess we all do some degree of labeling whether we intend to or not, but I felt the level of that was much stronger there partially because it doesn't seem as looked down upon. I should have ridden in on a unicorn, decked in designer clothing, throwing out cash while barfing rainbows. What I'm saying is that I feel like I kind of let them down. At least I had pale skin so they thought I was pretty (to be covered later...).

Additional topics to be covered:

Bathrooms

Food and Culture

Relationships

Communication

Weddings

Government

Conclusion