I originally wrote this blog post for my friends from TidakPedas, and since I am back to Europe for a little while now and intensively thinking back of my time as a Darmasiswa student in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I re-post it, because every word I wrote is true!!! 🙂 hehe… from my experience of course!

… unless you’ve traveled to Indonesia recently, and know what to expect, this country for sure is going to take you out of your comfort zone! And that is a good thing! Pay attention to the details and observe yourself: does it surprise you? Does it shock you? Does it annoy you? How do you usually do those things? How would you do them differently?… These are good questions to ask yourself in the beginning and you’ll be surprised to notice that while comparing Indonesia to your own culture, you face your own concealed judgments and prejudices about the “other” (other culture, other gender, other sexual orientation etc.). And again, that is perfect because I come to realize that traveling is just for this: learning more about ourselves and expanding our understanding, love and compassion over the entire world!

Here are my top pieces of advice for you:

1. Immerse yourself completely into the Indonesian culture!

Cultural shocks are usual, especially at the beginning, and because you won’t be the only international in your place of study, you might be tempted to find your comfort into your little foreigners bubble! I advise you to avoid that and to hit the streets: in Indonesia every local man you meet is your father, bapak, or brother, mas, and every local woman is your mother, ibu, or sister, mbak. Therefore, the people on your street are your family!  Embrace that and get connected!

 

2. Know your priorities and stick to them

You know better than anybody what you came here for. You could change your priorities once you get here, but one thing is for sure, if you are here to learn batik or other arts or the language or music or just about anything else, you are on your own. No teacher would push you to do anything at all! You have to find your motivation from within. For any other type of objectives you might have, such as traveling or who knows, settling here and finding a husband/wife : ), you are your own master. There is no apparent pressure to achieve anything here. You manage your own game… within your own budget! You can for sure stay within the 2 million rupiah per month, and even save money, but what do you want: to experiment loads of different foods, to travel a lot and stay at hotels, to keep your comfortable conditions from back home etc.. For any of these, bringing savings from home is a must!

3. You are just as good as anybody else, act humble and restraint from any kind of symbolic or concrete violent acts

Living in a collective society is in my opinion, a way to became conscious about your humanity. Western societies today rely so much on competition and on the personal improvement of the abilities and the skills of the individual with the aim of increasing her or his personal well being in every aspect. In other words, in the west, more is better. Surprisingly, you will observe this kind of behavior being copied by the youth of Indonesia of today. But fundamentally, Indonesia is a collective society where values like family, community, connectivity and mutual help are more important. Therefore, humbleness is a behavior that you’ll recognize among the people. You’d be surprised when meeting famous and influential Indonesian people, of how humble, respectful and laid back they are! A bit of a side note here: values are changing in Indonesia, especially because of global influences, but still not too fast.

Furthermore, violence of any type is highly disregarded here: from symbolic violent communication such as swearing, to showing impatience to your interlocutor, to patronizing or to physical fights. In this regard, you might be surprised of the traffic here: an apparent huge chaos which actually is guided by care and respect for the other participants in the traffic.

4. When in Indonesia, do what Indonesian do!

By this I mean to try to experiment and participate in the daily life of the community you live in and to act, eat, dress up etc..  like them. That does not mean to forget yourself and to give up your own culture! It just means that while being here for a whole year long, by trying to walk in their shoes you can learn so much more about them as a culture. For example, for me, batik was just too much: too many colors, too many motifs in just one fabric. But once I got to study it and actually do it I came to understand it so much better, so that right now I am totally in love with it!

 

5. Last, but not least … don’t take anybody’s word for it!

What I mean is that each of us has his own perception over reality, which comes from our background and experiences. The advice is to look out to learning through your own direct experience, regardless what others advice you or tell you. You know best for yourself! One thing is for sure, we are all human beings connected in a subtle way. If you don’t like something about the Indonesian culture, for sure it’s something that affects you no matter where else you’d go. Be brave and learn from this!

Thank you for your attention! For reading exclusively about my learning process with batik, click here.