I

s it true Indonesians are courteous and respect etiquette when in public?

A friend of mine shared her story of riding in a public minivan to her office one morning.

As usual, the driver thought he was in a Formula One race, careening through heavy traffic.

At one stop, a man climbed on and promptly squeezed himself into the already-packed minivan.

A minute later, he lit up a cigarette.

Eyes half closed, he then blew straight into everyone else’s face.

Most of the passengers that morning were young women going to work, including my friend.

These young ladies had, of course, spritzed on their finest perfume before leaving home, only to have it drowned in the stench of tobacco.

None of the passengers complained, but their frowning faces said it all.

The man kept puffing away.

Finally my friend ran out of patience.

“Pak, could you put out your cigarette, please?”

The man looked a bit surprise, smirked, then replied, “Why?”

“Because this is a public minivan, Pak,” my friend answered.

“Oh ya? You’re right, mbak, this is public, so if you don’t want to smoke, get your own car,” he replied, still blowing out smoke.

My friend clammed up then, as did everyone else. What could she do?

The man’s behavior was mind-boggling.

Perhaps he was uneducated; after all, he was wearing thread-bare clothes and rubber slippers, riding a public minivan and smoking to boot.

But smoking in an inappropriate area is not a matter of education or social status.

I once had a meeting at a luxurious office in Jakarta. Entering the restroom, I was suddenly hit by an olfactory assault from cigarette smoke.

In one of the toilet bowls was a cigarette butt. Were the people working in that building uneducated?

In another office, I saw a man dressed very dapper, complete with necktie, sitting in an air-conditioned room with a cigarette clamped between his fingers.

Yet another show of our compatriots’ poor manners was evident when I dined with my family at a food court in Jakarta.

The place was so crowded we barely managed to get a table.

We finally got a table but still lack of one chair.

I had to go around asking people for their unoccupied chairs.

But hardly any of them would acquiesce, despite the chairs being empty.

Comparing our people to residents of other countries in term of etiquette is useless.

Take Singapore, where I once vacationed with my family.

At first, we didn’t understand why every time we entered the MRT (mass rapid transportation), someone sitting by the door would get up to give their seat to my wife, who was carrying on our child.

We thought it was sympathy. But after several trips on the MRT, we read the notice posted up near the door: “Please give up your seat for those who need it.”

Below the text were pictures of a person with a crutch, a pregnant woman, and a mother with a child on her lap.

“Perhaps Lee Kuan Yew had it easy managing the country and instilling a culture of respect for etiquette, because Singapore is tiny compared to Indonesia,” my wife suggested.

Personally, I don’t agree.

I think it’s about the morals that we believe in.

That’s probably something most Indonesians don’t have.


— Titus Jonathan