I thought I'd come up with a list of ten hings I’ve forgotten how to do since living in Indonesia, or at least that’s how I’ll rationalize it. If this is offensive, well, how has your day been?
< 1) How to live without a maid. Now, don’t judge. Maids are so commonplace in Indonesia it’s often odd when people do not have some type of domestic staff working for them. I call my maid Ibu (Mom) and she’s outstanding. I’ve never seen dirty dishes in my sink or dirty laundry on my floor for more than two days, it’s an outstanding situation for someone whose room often looks like homeless man’s street corner smelling like a violation of the BYU honor code.
2)ow to respect, and follow traffic violations. Hold on a MINUTE! I often speed and talk on the phone while driving back home, but mother of God, the traffic here reeks of a zombie apocalypse at a graveyard (are zombies still, like, kind of popular?) Lanes hardly exist. Drivers Ed? Na, eff that you could just buy it. Helmets on motorbikes? Next. Imagine being a bee surrounded by sheet metal trying to venture through the smell of piss, petrol, and burn hair. Let’s translate this into something a rational literate person can understand; I am scared.
3) What warm showers feel like? Self-explanatory?
4) How to go number two without using a bidet. For years I thought toilet paper was sufficient as a remedy for clearing out the residue inside your anus after having a poo. Now, I see it most certainly isn’t. A bidet, I looked it up and it’s French for pony, which will make no sense to you after finishing this. A bidet is basically a water gun attached to either the inside of a toilet in the form of a sprinkler, or to the side in the form of a miniature hose. The sprinkler type is not as common and it works like this; you turn a faucet on the side of a toilet and position your bum so the water shoots up there, to uh, yeah. The gun is, well, a little bit cooler. You take that sucker from the side and aim it and attack that like a vampire with sunlight. One is meant to use this to clean out your butt and it is great. Of course after the, splashing shall we call it? You should probably use some toilet paper to clear out any remaining fecal matter.
5) To not be offended by someone asking about my salary, religion, or political opinions. It’s fairly common, maybe just to foreigners, but I’ve been asked these things by acquaintances and people whom I’ve just met much more often than I would normally be comfortable with.
6) How to eat with silverware and still feel cool. Eating with your hands at a restaurant is fantastic (picture me making the “Here’s Johnny” face from ‘The Shining’ with food all over my face and in my hands) scary? Yes, but ay don’t worry about it.
7) How to be nice to waiters/service staff. Just kidding, I am always nice and respectful land have made many friends here in restaurants by doing just that, but many people here, as friendly as they are, are so rude to waiters/waitresses. Snapping, yelling, pointing, and ordering aren’t uncommon.
8) What cold weather feels like? After being in Peru from Winter 2012 to Summer, followed by a Seattle summer and a few months in Costa Rica and now Indonesia… well I guess what I’m trying to say is I am remarkably pale for the type of weather I have been in for the past year.
9) How to survive without rice. I don’t even know if I ate rice more than the handful of times I was at a Thai restaurant in the states. I probably have rice twice per day and at times more. That’s not to say there isn’t world class cuisine here, as well as your barrage of fast food restaurants from the states and the street food which is outstanding.
10) How normal the U.S. is. Seriously, go abroad for a year or so and follow the media as extensively as I do and you’ll see that we come across like complete idiots. I mostly blame the media. Let’s start with the biggest debates in the U.S. political field; Iranian missiles, defending Israel, blocking gay rights, abortion, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, defending our economic interests against Russia and China. I mean, do these things affect anybody’s lives on a day to day basis? For most people it’s hard to say yes and even the important topics shouldn’t even be debatable. The level of intellectual debate is horrendous. That said nobody gets more unfairly criticized overseas than Americans do. We are judged by the atrocities of the Republican and Democratic parties and their influence, as well as the attention they receive is global. Let’s not lie about it very rarely (likely never) will someone judge someone from Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, or New Zealand because of their leaders because most people have no idea who the hell their politicians are and/or have any idea what they do. In a number of places throughout the world people have asked me if I am a Republican or Democrat often times within the first 100 words. So quit hating on Americans, for being American.
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