View Point: How ‘nongkrong’ is part of our culture

Tasa Nugraza Barley ,  Maryland   |  Tue, 01/20/2009 1:25 PM  |  Opinion

What is it with Indonesians (especially the young generation) that we love to nongkrong so much? Before you judge me, I’m not saying that nongkrong is bad - it’s probably one of the most important reasons why I chose to come back to Indonesia.

But it just makes me wonder why our people love to nongkrong so badly. What is nongkrong anyway? It’s pretty hard to explain, really. It’s so hard that I don’t think Oxford English Dictionary has that word in English.

“To hang around” might be the right expression in English for nongkrong, while a friend of mine thinks that “to chill out” is the right translation. For Indonesians, nongkrong simply means “to meet and talk, and smoke for some”.

But nongkrong is basically about talking, specifically talking with people we’re close to. But what do we talk about?

Based on my experience of being an Indonesian for more than 20 years, we Indonesians talk “nothing” when we nongkrong. And that’s why it’s so exciting.

“Nothing” here doesn’t mean that we don’t talk about anything at all, but it actually means that we talk about nothing important. Yes, we talk and talk for hours about things that aren’t really important.

Some might nongkrong to talk about something important, but trust me, it usually lasts only the first hour. The following hours will be about who’s got a new girlfriend or where the new cool place to hang out is.

When I was in America it was a different story. People meet up at a restaurant or a cafe to talk about something important. They talk business or they study together.

It seems to me that in America time is money.

Americans don’t really meet in a big group (while Indonesians love to meet in a big group) and when they do it’s usually for a meeting or a museum tour.

So, it seems to me that they don’t have a term for nongkrong in their lives. Meeting to talk about something unimportant? “What’s that all about?” Americans might think.

Nongkrong is obviously not in their vocabulary. They do, however, hang around or chill out with their friends but only on weekends, and it comes with all their strict rules.

That’s why you’ll find that Starbucks in America are different from the ones we have in Jakarta, and you can be proud of that. That doesn’t mean Americans don’t nongkrong at all, it’s just that we Indonesians do it so much more.

Coffee shops in America are mostly quiet. They’re quiet because most people come to study, read a book or talk business while others just grab their coffee and go.

Meanwhile, a coffee shop in Jakarta is typically noisy since coffee shops are the perfect spots to nongkrong. On weekends we spend hours and hours talking and laughing loudly at coffee shops or restaurants.

I remember when my friends took me to a new place in Kemang with cafes and restaurants. The place was packed with young, modern Indonesians and finding a parking spot was a tough struggle.

When I asked one of my friends what we will be doing there, besides eating and drinking, he answered, “What do you think, stupid? Of course we’re going to nongkrong!”

Suddenly I felt guilty of having the American mind-set in Indonesia. I replied to him with a big grin and said, “I’m sorry, you’re right. Of course my friend, it’s nongkrong time!”

Some people might allege that our habit of nongkrong is one of the reasons why our society is left behind; it’s this behavior that makes us a lazy nation. Is that true?

Well, I guess someone has to start conducting scientific research on this issue. The result will surely be interesting and our government officials might be able to use it to fix this nation.

But before some smart old guys conduct such research, we all should agree that nongkrong is indeed fun. It’s so much fun that we don’t realize how time can slip by so fast.

It’s the moment when we Indonesians share our happiness with our loved ones. We laugh and we share stories. The concern over whether our young people nongkrong too much is another matter.

I don’t think we should be ashamed of being what we are.

Indonesians love to socialize; what’s wrong with that? A friend of mine got bored living in America after leaving Indonesia for only six months.

The one thing that he complained about American culture is that Americans are like robots: They wake up, they work, they eat, they go home and they will do the same thing everyday.

Although I think that nongkrong is exciting and Indonesian, I also think that too much of it is not good for our country.

This country obviously needs more young people who are motivated to change and improve their country, not young people who waste all their productive time for something unimportant.


The writer is a postgraduate student in Washington D.C.

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