Mr Idiot : “Hey, there was a long line at Carrefour today. I cut off the line and paid in less than 5 minutes. How cool was I?”

Friends of Mr Idiot : “Wowww!”

The next day, everybody starts doing the same thing. At the end of the day, nobody queues. Since queuing is so boring, and it won’t “wow” anybody.

Can I then say that it’s also an Indonesian ‘quality’ of generalizing and to stereotype ?

Whoops… that means I just did !
- I’m an Indonesian
- I just generalized that generalizing is so Indonenesian~ like: totally !

Don’t worry, I generalise ALL the time LOL.

Many Indonesians would put “tolerance” at the top of their lists of “national” characteristics.

Indeed it’s the most bizarre portion of our vanity parade. This “characteristic” is pretty much taken for granted.

Indonesians, tolerant? What’s next, North Koreans are democratic? Americans are on a healthy diet? Saudi Arabians are matriarchal? Does it get any more surreal?

As the author has explained above, Indonesians are tolerant when it comes to hardship, harsh weather condition, poverty and government fuckwittage. They’re also pretty tolerant when there are government officials and corrupt politicians visiting them, and even that hopeless president Bimbang Susilo YouDon’t Know, even though it’s clear this country has become ten times worse ever since Indonesia fell under his reign.

It is reciprocal intolerance, and has nothing to do with being rude or nice.

One may mistakenly identify an act as being rude simply because the act is unfamiliar, and therefore one does (did) not have the opportunity to impose such act on others–alas, short end of the stick. Understandably, foreigners feel they are often at the receiving end of rudeness.

It is all very rational.

Hi Lena, thanks for visiting my blog

A few months after I came back from my studies overseas, I was being polite to everyone. Until I learnt that people were STILL rude and because I was being nice, people stepped all over me. That was how I learnt to be rude back. I didn’t want to, but it was the only way for me to survive. I know it wasn’t the right thing to do, but I was young then and naive also.

I’d learnt my lessons clearly, and now instead of being rude I just be firm and loud. Like when I see people stopping in front of an escalator when it’s clear there are others behind them who are trying to get on, I’ll say stuff like, “WELL, ARE YOU GOING TO GET ON IT OR WHAT?”

And when I’m in a bitchy mood (which is often) I’ll just go, “ARISAN KOK DIDEPAN ESKALATOR!”

Ok, maybe I haven’t changed at all.

At least now you know what’s not to buy the next time you’re going clothes-shopping, right?