Freak bule travels solo in Indonesia

Over the past weekend I took a trip by myself to Gili Trawangan, a tiny island off of Lombok: one of the main (albeit a tiny one) islands in Indonesia. I’d already been there once before (during Idul Fitri) with a large group of friends, and I was dying to go somewhere where Islamic culture wasn’t the focus of the entire population, and where I could get some sun, some reading done, and some perspective on my recent malaise. I couldn’t have chosen a better place.

Being on Gili Trawangan brought me back to all I love about Indonesia, as well as all that makes me anxious and uneasy. On the plus side of my Gili balance sheet, the people on the island have very little fear of social interaction (yelling things at random to me whenever I walk by) are extremely hospitable (the managers of the ‘motel’ I stayed at gave me free stuff on a daily basis, from wine to bananas), and just generally enjoy laughing, hanging out, befriending strangers, and cuddling babies.

They were also hysterically funny. When I sat down to lunch at the café of a dive center, a pretty boisterous group of Indonesians on holiday were ordering at a table nearby. I heard a number of them inquire about the ingredients about particular dishes on the menu, the same way a bule might ask about the composition of “special sauce” or “whole chicken” (here, it includes the head!). But what the family was politely inquiring about was the limited menu of Indonesian food; asking about the komposisi of the most basic Indonesian grub around: fried rice (nasi goreng), fried chicken (ayam goreng), mixed rice (nasi campur), and fried fish (ikan goreng). And of course, these were precisely the dishes they ordered. Just imagine a family in America walking into a nice restaurant and asking “could you please explain what the ‘chicken pot pie’ consists of?” or “what exactly is the ‘burger and fries’?” I don’t know if they were joking or serious, but I will remember that conversation for years to come (okay, maybe not). Epic.

But there was one element of Indonesian cultural consciousness that I found to be exaggerated here, and one that made me extremely uncomfortable. You know the phenomenon in which the post-colonial still idealizes its colonizer? It was definitely at work on Gili T. No matter whom I befriended, I always felt, suspected, that there was more at work than a simple meeting of the minds or something equally idealistic. I’ll try to illustrate: whenever I sat down at a café, bar, restaurant, or even at my own hotel, I struck up a conversation with an Indonesian person that always inevitably led to (1): them telling me how fluent I was in Indonesian (not true!), (2): them making some remark about what a good character I have, what a good person I am, and (3): how much I can teach them about “American” or “speaking English.” At one bar, I ended up talking to a 33 year-old mother of two and her 16 year old sister-in-law (ie: she was already married!), for an hour or so. While we sat together we talked about a number of things (in Bahasa Indonesia), some of them really personal and intimate, and yet the entire time the older woman addressed me as “Anda” (it’s the very formal version of the “you” pronoun, usually reserved for people older than you or your boss). Not only is this woman significantly older than me, but there was no external power relationship between us (she wasn’t my waiter, for instance); still she insisted on taking the subservient position. Finally I told her she had to start calling me “Kamu,” and she acted like I was granting her a great privilege. I didn’t like it. Not only does it make me question the validity of any casual friendship I strike up with other Indonesians, but it makes me wonder if I’m having delusions of grandeur or something (look at me, I only hang out with locals, I am so kind and friendly, etc). When I told an American friend about my feelings, he even wondered if I am so friendly and open to Indonesians precisely because I have tacitly acknowledged my inherently more powerful position in any relationship I establish here. It’s a scary thought. It makes my skin crawl.

So how do I deal with loving this island country and the people in it if I have to constantly challenge (inwardly, at least) my motivations for feeling thus? Sometimes I wonder if being here in any capacity is a kind of act of colonialism, an exercise of power: exploiting a people and an economy for personal gain, however idealistically we envision it.