Jan
em>Jan. 27, p. 1
I’ve lived in Indonesia so long that I sometimes forget I am still a foreigner in a foreign land.
A rude reminder of my presence came on a recent rainy Sunday morning. We play tennis every weekend at a club and asked if we could play indoors due to the weather.
A court was free, a ball boy said, because a group had overstayed their allotted time.
But one of the players was none too pleased at this white man cometh. “We were colonized for 350 years, and whitey is still pushing us around,” he muttered. (By Bruce Emond)
Your comments:
Dear Bruce, your unpleasant experience with the ill-mannered, infantile and self-centered man on the tennis court should bring blushes of shame to the cheeks of all Indonesians, especially those people who are rich enough or have enough power (and who feel insecure enough!) to threaten to call the police once they feel their precious little egos are offended.
Decent Indonesians who have been taught to mind their manners since early childhood will show the results of good parental upbringing and will speak and act courteously.
By the way, I sincerely hope that your long wished-for desire, namely to become an Indonesian citizen, has been granted.
Tami Koestomo
Thanks for sharing, Bruce. The tennis court story is outrageous. Once when the nurse called me in hospital, the gentleman next to me leaped and yelled at her “Why the Chinese first?
Is it because my skin’s brown?!” He wouldn’t know that my light skin tone is inherited from my Javanese mother.
I’m always thankful every time someone discloses racist attitudes among Indonesians.
Usually they are Westerners.
And I still cannot believe that 15 years after Reformasi, now we are back to the ethnic (and religion) blame game. We know better than that.
Mario Rustan
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