I’m on the train going back to Bandung after a day in Jakarta. It’s a nice train – nicer than Amtrak – with a comfortable seating, attentive stewards, and an air conditioner that would rival the blast freezer at any high end restaurant. Families sit and sit together, watching the bad television at the front end of the train, letting their kids run amok. There are a bunch of little kids, and as they run up and down the train – not too loud, oddly – they all stop and stare at me because I’m the only bule around.
It’s odd that primarily when I travel do I feel my otherness. People – mainly kids – peer around corners and over seats to get a glimpse of the lone white guy, as though they haven’t seen one before (and perhaps they haven’t). Usually my neighborhood places in Bandung know me, so I don’t feel as though I stand out much there. It’s just when I travel that I really remember that I’m the only white guy, standing out from the crowd, garnering looks or a few surreptitious camera snaps from a Blackberry under someone’s arm.
The first time I experienced this was about a month after I moved to Indonesia, when I was on the island of Sulawesi (another post on this trip here). What I didn’t go into in the post I just mentioned was my first experience of the bule effect. I was with a friend bringing supplies to a village cut off by a landslide, and a helicopter was picking up boxes of noodles and water to aid the isolated area. I was one of two bule in the vicinity and I felt it. It was palpable. Literally every person in the surrounding area came to see the helicopter landing and taking off multiple times. It was an impressive sight. Apparently, so was I, because when the dust from the helicopter had cleared, the people had not left yet, and they were still snapping pictures with whatever device they had at hand – of me.
The military who came in to supervise the operation was starting to clear the people out when they noticed who they were taking pictures of, and they started to walk toward me. I was a little freaked out because I was not ready for armed soldiers striding in my direction, saying things in a language I did not yet understand.
Frozen, I just stood to see what what about to happen. They got to me and were also speaking quickly in Indonesian, and finally I picked out the words that I would come to associate with traveling in Indonesia: “Foto, Mister?”
With that, no less uncomfortable, but much less fearful, my newfound military friends proceeded to form a line at least thirty deep, each shaking my hand and putting an arm around my shoulder before having one of their compatriots snap a few quick pictures. I’m probably on the Facebook pages of half the military in Sulawesi now, all for the incredible achievement of being different.
It’s no longer an uncomfortable feeling because it is in no way malicious. The most it is is slightly intrusive when someone gawks for too long in an obvious way or asks to take a picture with me. I think that I haven’t done anything to deserve it – I’m certainly no Brad Pitt, and it seems to reinforce the tradition of idolizing foreigners. But at the same time, it’s flattering and kind, and often funny.
After two years, I can tell when they’re going to come over to ask for the picture. By now, I’m pretty good at sensing it. There’s a posse – usually girls – who slowly and not-so-nonchalantly makes its way toward me. They usually are whispering to one another, shooting furtive glances my way, each one coaxing the others to make the first step to asking for a picture. Or odder still, an “interview.”
The interview is an interesting phenomenon because it’s a completely legitimate tool that the universities use to have their students practice their English. They’ll send out groups to talk to unsuspecting bule sitting in coffee shops (usually grading or working on lesson plans, in my case), and they’ll descend on us – often with the same modus operandi as the picture seekers. These interviewers can be divided into two categories: real and fake. The legitimate ones have a set of questions printed on a piece of paper that they follow and on which they record my answers. The fakers all very clearly make it up as they go, writing nothing, but plowing ahead boldly anyway, and I don’t have the heart to completely shut them down. However, after a few minutes they run out of steam and fade out, while those with the questionnaires follow their script, and I’m usually happy to let them proceed – I am a teacher after all.
The questions, legitimate or otherwise, always follow the same script.
1. What is your name?
2. Where are you from? (About half the time, when I answer that I’m American, they’ll respond with a thumbs up and a hearty “Obama!”)
3. How long have you been in Indonesia?
4. What are you doing here? Student or teacher?
This is all standard fare, but then the inevitable final question:
5. What is the biggest difference between America and Indonesia?
My answer to that question: That question.
At no point in America – if you value your safety or dignity – would someone go up to another person and, based solely upon the premise of their otherness, begin interrogating that person. Certainly not, “Hey, you’re Black/Asian/Hispanic/Insert Ethnicity Here: Answer my questions!” Your answer might come in the form of a punch in the nose.
We’re perfectly accustomed to our heterogeneous lives. Differences are a part of our DNA in the United States – obviously there are those who feel differently, who harbor a deep seated racism. But, walk through any supermarket, not to mention a Whole Foods or something like Jungle Jim’s (a regional tourist destination in the Midwest), and you’ll see evidence that we like difference. Everything we have and everything we are came from another place.
The situation in which I often find myself simply speaks to the homogeneity paradox of Indonesia. At least, in terms of Asian to non-Asian. This is actually a hugely diverse nation. With countless tribal groups (of which I’ve only encountered a scant few), and a large, fairly dominant (in terms of economics) Chinese population, there is nothing but diversity in Indonesia. They have an aspect of their constitution that says, Bhinneka Tunggal Ika, similar to our E Pluribus Unum. However, here there is a minuscule minority of caucasians. Hence, the stares, pictures, and other efforts to single us out. Once I was walking by a school while students were eating lunch, and a group of ten high schoolers ran to the fence and clung to it, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, watching me walk by. I’m not narcissistic, either. I was the only person within sight walking down the road near my house. It’s just an odd fact of life.
I’m not annoyed by it, unless I am actually trying to get work done at the coffee shop, and even then I tell the interviewers that I only have a few minutes to spare and they readily oblige. I worry at times that these moments reinforce the decades – centuries even – old perception of westerners as better or more important than Indonesians, a thought process instilled by the Dutch during their occupation. This imperialistic holdover bothers me. Edward Said would have found some irony, however, as generally he talked about Otherness in context of those in Power marginalizing those without it by thinking of them as set apart and below themselves. The stereotype that stems from the colonial period is that of the European superiority, infused in the culture on many levels. And yet, I am a schoolteacher in Asia who is singled out by those around him, questioned and viewed as exotic. Oh, how the tables have turned, Mr. Said.
And then other times I think that it’s just because I represent a culture that (for better or worse) they’re focused on, through movies and music. They rarely see white people outside of that context, and so they take the opportunity as some would when they see someone famous, because it’s simply outside the realm of normality. So maybe it isn’t so different from Said’s premise, after all.
But most often it’s just the picture. We all smile awkwardly – which everyone knows it is – and take the picture(s). About half the time the whole group takes the picture together, and the rest of the time is a long series of one at a time pictures, just me and a long string of girls. It’s weirder when there’s the random couple of guys in the midst of the girls, because let’s face it: I’d rather have pictures with girls I don’t know than guys.
I hope that when they meet me they realize that there’s nothing special or picture worthy about me. I’m just different, and my kind of different is simply in the form of my skin. Regardless, I’ll still be there, sitting at the coffee shop, probably grading or writing lesson plans, and I’m happy to talk for awhile, though it will be less illuminating than they think.
Respectfully…
Tyler
