One of my long-time Australian readers sent me a link to a nice article from an Australian expat living in Indonesia. It made for some good, and thought-provoking reading.
Even though there are a huge list of differences between living in Indonesia and living in the Philippines, there are definitely some important lessons we expats often could learn from this article:
One night this week, as I strolled home from dinner with my wife, I did something I do all too rarely.
I walked slowly.
Mimicking the pace of the footsteps of those Indonesians around me, my speed more than halved. As my heart rate slowed, the lingering anxiety about the day’s travails and the next day’s deadline quite miraculously seemed to ebb away.
The mind was unburdened. Senses enlivened. Self-obsession gave way to a quiet meditation on the surroundings. Crossing Jalan Asia Afrika, the reflection of the lights off the street, wet after an afternoon storm, dance. Past the shopping mall and down into the kampung, I notice the smells from the vendors’ carts as they fry up tofu, nasi goreng and other delicacies.
Shopkeepers who would usually watch silently as I thundered past come up and say hello and ask after the family. I pay attention to the evening call to prayer and the fine quality of the singing. Later on, a frog jumps among the tangle of vines of a large banyan tree.
Simple pleasures, but rather wonderful nevertheless
One of the things I noticed when I moved to Jakarta was how – even in this bustling city of more than 8 million people – the locals walk at such a languid pace.
Early in my posting, rushing to an appointment, my taxi and a dozen other vehicles suddenly stopped on one of Jakarta’s main thoroughfares as a group of people, their hands held out and palms raised as if activating some kind of force field, idly sauntered across the road.
I was agitated, but the taxi driver was not bothered. Not a single horn tooted.
A few days later, at the city’s famous Hotel Indonesia traffic circle, I observed a Western office worker barreling through a crowd of locals to the bemusement of those around him.
Time and again, I would see it.
Foreigners taking some time out at the park, or promenading in the popular expatriate enclave of Kemang, invariably streaking past everyone else, jumping from the pavement to the road and then back again to avoid the potholes, carts and cigarette stalls.
As one Jakartan put it: ”These bules, they walk like they are being chased by a ghost!”
Like many city-bred Australians, stressed out and always in a hurry, travelling by foot has typically involved going, quite subconsciously, at full tilt, whether to get to the office on time, an appointment or to the shops to get that missing ingredient for dinner.
It’s a habit so ingrained that, even after 18 months in Indonesia, it still takes a deliberate, self-conscious act to slow down.
I am not sure exactly why Indonesians jalan-jalan [walk] so pelan-pelan [slowly]. I’ve met more than one expatriate who has found it infuriating.
No doubt the soporific combination of heat and humidity on the equator plays its role. Perhaps it’s an act of self-preservation given Jakarta’s pavements, if they exist at all, are perilously riddled with holes.
There’s a great Indonesian expression, a hangover from the colonial era that’s still common today, which is also illuminating. Belanda masih jauh [Holland is still far away] is often the rejoinder to anyone who is rushing unnecessarily, or becoming agitated if things are not quite going to plan.
And things in Indonesia don’t always go to plan. Punctuality is not held at a premium. Bureaucrats are maddeningly ponderous. Sending a letter by post brings new meaning to the expression snail mail.
Often, though, the remedy for frustrated expats is to go with the flow, and go slow. (my emphasis) Thanks Tom Allard and the Sydney Morning Herald
I couldn’t agree more with this article, which is why I published it in it;’s entirety .. and remember, if you didn’t read the intro, my opinion is that although this is written about Indonesia, it is completely applicable to living here in the Philippines.
So often I hear from fellow expats how things are always going wrong for them, how they have grown to hate it here, how they can’t stand Filipinos and even how they are planning to give up and go home .. and the root cause of their dissatisfaction is, 99 times out of 100, the fact that they are just frustrated that things won’t move at the pace they are used to, and government rules and procedures that just seem downright, well, “foreign”. Perhaps because they are.
A long time back I remember losing an online friend over an exchange he and I had in a forum group. My former friend made the comment that “if only the Philippine would do, this, and this and this and that, they would become just like Hawaii.”
My response to him was, “Why on earth would we want the Philippines to be like Hawaii. heaven forefend.”
My friend got angry and said that my response was flippant, that I was too much of a wise ass, and that I wasn’t smart enough to see why the Philippines should remake itself in the image of a US state.
Well, flippant and a wise ass I may remain until this day, but I am still exceptionally grateful that the Philippines is not Hawaii or any other US state. The differences, when you get right down to it, are the reasons I like it here …in spite of, or because of, a slower, more laid back way of life.
Many Americns say they share that view with me, but often their attitudes and actions prove they are thinking otherwise. “Why doe sit take so many steps to get something done at Immigration, or the LTO, or wherever?”
“Why don’t ‘they’ computerize this or that function and make things more efficient?”
And so on and so forth.
Why isn’t it living in the Philippines like living in the US? Simple. Because it isn’t. here’s what you get when you type “efficiency” into an online English/Tagalog dictionary:
Search result for efficiency: No match found!
To my mind this is one of the most critical parts of the move or don’t move decision each and every expat needs to make. Instead of continually obsessing on day to day costs, one really needs to carefully consider for themselves if they can slow their pace and also adapt. In my experience a great many Americans and other foreigners can not and they thus condemn themselves to “eternal frustration” during their stay here, unable to accept thing they way they really are.
Please take this advice in the spirit it is written and think the idea of living in the Philippines through very carefully. If you can’t adapt to a very different lifestyle, one that to standard American norms is horribly inefficient and frustrating at times, better think again.&#
160; Not everyone is suited to living the the Philippines. Paul Simon said it years ago:
Slow down, you move too fast You got to make the morning last Just kicking down the cobble stones Looking for fun and feelin' groovy …….
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