Before coming to Indonesia, I didn’t know this was a very conservative culture. I’m still surprised by how conservative it is, and I’ve been living here for a year. Furthermore, before moving to our respective villages, the Peace Corps volunteers were educated about the Indonesian education system and its culture for three months, yet many of us are still adjusting. My English teacher, who I consider a close friend, said foreigners should research and see what’s appropriate in Indonesia before coming here. I told him:
“I’ve been living here for a year and am still confused by what’s appropriate, and my job is to figure out how to integrate. How can you expect better from a tourist whose main goal is to enjoy life the way he or she knows how?”
That leads to my point: the foreigners in Bali are tourists. They are on vacation. Bali caters to the Western lifestyle, so Westerners will be attracted to vacationing there. They most likely don’t know when they are being disrespectful to the Indonesian culture.
The same applies to my time here. There are some Indonesian behaviors that I consider disrespectful to my culture. Eastern and Western cultures are incredibly different, and that’s okay. But it does prove challenging when I face situations that make me feel incredibly disrespected that I want to go home. Things I consider incredibly private and taboo are openly discussed here. It’s my job to try to understand and accept the differences. It’s not my job to judge or change.
I expressed to my English teacher that I try really hard to understand cultural behaviors foreign to me, and I expect him to try to understand that the foreigners in Bali don’t know they’re being disrespectful the same way Indonesians don’t know they’re being disrespectful to me unless I tell them.
We can’t hate people for being ignorant. We should, instead, use that opportunity to understand that difference isn’t bad. Difference is great, and understanding difference is respectful.
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