Are Indonesians friendly People? (2)

My previous posting with the same title amassed many responses, either through the comment box or to my email. All are similar: that Indonesians have a open and friendly attitude by nature. Even indcoup, a Londoner, agreed with that with a positive criticism: that Indonesians mostly undisciplined; hence the corruption spread like a bird flu pendemic. But all the responses are not answering my real questions: if it the case, then why Indonesians are so easily erupted in anger and are so easily offended for just a trivial thing?…

There’re, however, one email regarding this issue sent by a mysterious person who doesnt want his name to be mentioned (pseudonym emailer? :p ). And his respons deserves to be posted here.

He said that our friendliness and easy-to-be-offended kind of attitude are paradox yet co-related. he said that…

(1) Friendly individual in some cases represent a weak personality; easy to be offended and in extreme cases easily turn his anger into physical violence.
(2) Friendly people needs the same kind of reciprocal response. Once he/she doesnt get it, he’ll be angry or offended. Compare to those cold and unfriendly guys who dont bother whether his/her surrounding are friendly or not.
(3) We are a young nation; with very young civilization. our mentality are not so tough compared to other older civilization like, say, China, India, Persia, the West, etc. Our experience in dealing with any hardships are not yet tested.
Well, if you confused with his explanation, dont worry, you are not alone. Me too. he’s a psychologist, so he has his own opinions on human behavior which sometimes hard for me to comprehend.

This entry was posted on September 1, 2007 at September 1, 2007 and is filed under Blogger Indonesia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

fauzansigma
December 28, 2007 at 10:59 am

aslmkm mas fatih..
kalau sy menangkap tentang attitude bangsa kita..
masyrakt yg cenderung saling menghargai dan menghormati, ramah thdp org lain, dan lain2 yang di bilang bnyak orang kalau org indonesia itu ramah2 (friendly, red)…
trus ditanggapi oleh salah seorang yg pseudonym emailer tadi sy jg setuju..
mnrt sy ke “familieran” tersebut adalah bentukan sosial, norma yg dijunjung tinggi tsb adalah kebenaran kolektif dr sebuah masyarakat…tdk ada standar yg pasti dlm menentukan benar dan salah pd masy itu..walopun memang sih banyak yg masih pure dgn norma yg baik..
tapi….klo sekarang…ada yg pernah sy denger “wooo , disana itu kampung preman tuh…gak ada yg berani urusan sm orang sana…”
kebenaran kolektifnya…?
best regards

fauzansigma.blogspot.com (one of fatihsyuhud fan)

fauzansigma
December 28, 2007 at 11:02 am

mas link ya..

mulia
January 29, 2008 at 5:13 pm

in this case, i think the problem of indonesian is that we have been taught to be friendly too much. we bear in mind that friendliness is an ideal character of a person. as if it is a bad thing to dislike someone. totally stupid. i cant even remember if PMP lesson in school taught me how to dislike people in propper manner. how to hold emotions when offended or what to do when people mock.

well..i agree with the French phrase..
|A friend of every body is not your friend!|
because no one is logically loving and be loved by every body in the world. thus they are just trying to look as a nice friendly person, means they are hypocrit. Make sense, no…?

As an Indonesian, i my self just learn how to dislike people propperly here in Europe from the European.