Shame & privilege: A guest comment

I asked an Indonesian social scientist to read my recent post on the lack of expressions of guilt or shame in many Indonesian disputes. She generously wrote a short treatise, which I have translated:

This is a difficult topic within the Indonesian context. It has been discussed for a long time. The culture is focused more on shame than on guilt, so ‘face’ is protected quite a bit, to avoid shame. Thus, I think, if people don’t get caught doing wrong, then they feel that there’s no problem. In that case, they tend to keep quiet, because they feel that their ‘face’ is secure. If, conversely, they’re caught, then they’ll make a big effort to maintain ‘face’ by all means available – which certainly can end up appearing odd. Indeed, their actions might seem absurd to others and even make it clearer that they’ve done something wrong.

Toilet trauma

Aside from eating fish eyes, using squat toilets might be the scariest aspect of living in Indonesia. But, for at least one Indonesian, the toilet is on the other foot: detikNews reports, and the Jakarta Globe repackages in English, one man’s ordeal of getting his foot stuck in a public, sit-down toilet for nine hours.

How can this happen? In case, like me until recently, you have no experience with the squat toilet, here’s a brief explanation of the relevant details. In the picture above, the toilet user – male or female, peeing or defecating – squats on the ridges beside the basin, facing the camera, and does what needs doing. S/he then washes off the relevant parts with a spray nozzle, with water splashed or poured from a dipper, and/or with a hand.

KFC, Jakarta-style

Hand-washing station at KFC

Looking out from the balcony of my apartment this morning, I espied, tantalizingly close, the neighborhood KFC. Perhaps, now that I had been here a week, it was time to sample its culinary delights. So I did, and it was interesting.

First, its menu had some  differences from those in the US. For example, I almost ordered the bento, but instead chose another Japanese-named dish (which I can’t remember). It came with a salad, white rice, and a soda.

Some of the customers received their meals on ceramic plates; others, like me, got them on plastic trays. No spork! In either case, busboys cleared them away. Seating included sofas. The bathrooms didn’t have sinks; instead, a hand-washing station lined one of the walls of the dining room. (That’s the photo.)

The oddest touch was that the KFC housed a separate restaurant, more in the local tradition, within its confines. It had its own menu, employees, and so forth, but it existed within the KFC’s dining room.

In sum, dinner and a show for less than $3.

Photos with fabulous foreigners

Monumen Nasional, Jakarta

On our first weekend in Jakarta, the wife and I decided to visit the Monas, or National Monument. It’s a giant spire surrounded by a lot of cement, which is surrounded by a large park, which is bounded on some sides by large parking lots. Tourists come from other countries and, mostly, from within Indonesia to see the tower and, for a fee, to ride to the top and look out.

As we approached the Monas, walking among Indonesians, a man called, “Miss … miss…” in English. We saw that he was indicating that he had a camera and that he was accompanied by his wife, who was holding a baby. We thought that he wanted one of us to take their picture. But he corrected us: he wanted to get a picture of us, with his wife and child and the Monas. After a quick snapshot and an exchange of thanks, we went our way and they went theirs.

We wondered why they would want us in their photo.