When I learned intercultural sensitivity, i realized that we could not compare our habit and bad culture with American, European even Malaysian). We have own culture that impossible to abolish.
I have been written about our culture for my last assignment and I realized that sometimes we are so foolish. My lecture in Indonesia ever said that Indonesian was neglected! at that time I believed him..but now not anymore..
this is my note research..if there something wrong or unvalid…just forget it..have a nice read..
Analyzing Indonesia culture with Three Theories
Indonesia is the country with a lot of attractive things in the world and nice people. In the beginning, I would like to describing Indonesian basic assumption; because I come from Indonesia. According Hall’s theories, Indonesian has high context culture. They (not except me) did not spell or talk their feelings directly, sometimes we use nonverbal language to explain our feeling. It looks that we do not want to hurt somebody’s feeling. We do not tell our feelings straight away, but just give some explanation in the beginning, perhaps with said “sorry or pardon me” in the beginning of the conversation or even we talk about our background why we would like to said that. Then, Hall’s also explain about monochronic and polychronic culture. Indonesian is polychronic, we can do different things at the same time. It means that we are not concerned with planning, but we more concerned with people. I can tell something that old people said when I was a child. They always said that if you would like to smart in mathematics, you should put “abbreviation poster” in your toilet. Even when we were in the toilet we can learn mathematics. Nothing wrong with this, we just can do different things at the same time. When I was learning for my study, my mom always interrupting me with asking me to go to the shop for buy something, but I never felt interrupted because I thought that I can continue it later or even tomorrow. Once again, our first concern is not planning but people. Hall’s also tell about private space, Indonesian personal space is smaller. If you go to office in Indonesia, you might see the employee has a close table and we would like to stand closer in the shelter or in the street. If we already know somebody we would like to shake hand and talk closer. And this is related with the other basic assumption, fast information slow. It means that we are live in huge network. For instance, if something happened in one of department in office, people from other department might be know about it. The information flows really fast because we stand and live closer with each other.
What about Florence Kluckhohn’s theories? Based on his/her theories, Indonesian is harmony with nature cultures. We often accept the problems and adapting with them or accept the situation. For example, when I still lived in my old house, the hinge of my room window broke and made an irritating voice when I opened it, but I never try to fixed it, because as long as the glass not broken it still can be useful. Another theory said that Indonesian is past and present culture. Because we do not concerned about people, we always evaluate plans or problems with historical and tradition side. For example when me and my friends got trouble how to make gathering events for our juniors, we were looked from last generation did with their gathering and we try copying it or made something new. If we want to find something new for the events, we might be looking with the longest generation did. We did not always focused on the past, but we make something new from the past to our present. As long as I saw and find out Indonesian planning, it is really rare or less people have a planning for their future, I mean for long-term. We just make it flow and see what happen next. One thing important from Indonesian culture is we are “work to live”. We motivated by enjoy with our friends, colleagues and partners. For us are not important getting bonuses or vacation from our boss or manager. The important things are we can enjoy our works with colleagues or friends. I think it is related with Kluckhohn’s basic assumption, collectivism. We have higher sense of belonging than individualism person. Since child, our parent always told for us to be responsible with our group (family, friends and environment) and I enjoy that. I think it is really good if I get a welfare life and then I make whole of my family being welfare too. That’s why I am here, on my motivation letter before I got this scholar; I wrote that this scholar and knowledge would be dedicated to whole of my family and being welfare for them. I also think it is really good for me because I learn to care and protecting whole of family not only for welfare and material but also for their feelings. Then last are human nature assumption, X and Y theory. But for Indonesian it is depend on the situation. I ever learned from my father (he was a supervision in his office) when I was in junior high school, he said that we always be positive thinking with all of employee’s work. But when they did something out of procedures then we keep watched on them, if they catch his/her with the same thing out of procedures again then he /she might be fired.
Then we cross to Hofstede’s theory. According to his theory, Indonesian is high power distance culture. What is it mean? I can explain with some example, in Indonesia it is so rude when we argue with out teacher. One of my teacher in my high school ever said that “rule number one is teacher always right, rule number two is student always wrong and rule number three is if teacher was wrong, back to rule number one. I do not know he was joking or not, but he seems serious at that time. But the examples mean that we as the students should accept the teacher superiors. When we would like to ask question, we must raise our right hand and waiting permit from our teacher then we can say, “excuse me sir, may I ask something about…” There are not something wrong with this, it just high power distance. We should show our respect with people whom have power (boss, teacher or even your parents). My parent even said that “put your parent upon your head and heaven is on your mother foot”, it means that I must really respect with my parent. And next basic assumption is collective societies; it is same with Kluckhohn’s theory. We really close with our groups, the simple means that “it is not talk about me, but also for us (family)”. Again my parent always said, “Do not forget with your whole family and your friends because we can not survive if we are alone.” We also can not interrupted or criticize straight away, we must blurring our message to make it soft. The other basic assumption is masculinity or femininity? I think for Indonesian, it is depend on the situation. There some part of our life that we think we should be masculine. For instance if we want to be a first rank in the class we should try hard to achieve it. But there are some people in Indonesia think that he /she just want to live normally and usual. And next is uncertainty avoidance, when I was child, my parent and teacher really teach me what is right and what is wrong and of course the lesson was really structured. Safety and security was a motivator when we are in office. The last basic assumption is long-term oriented, I as Indonesian had been looked that this basic assumption was relative with the person and his/her environment. Some people just only want to know his/ her present day, but there are also people who looking best for his/her future. Even I have a different perception with my young brother, he has assumption that we as human being just only need to follow the fate, but for me it is not like that. The fates of human being are based from them. We can change the fate with our hand. And in my holly Qur’an, it is wrote that God do not want to change the fate of human, if they do not want to change it
