The current Hive Cross Culture Biweekly question is “What culture is most interesting to you and why?”. I realize now I should have changed the wording a little bit because it’s impossible for me to change a “most interesting” culture. So many cultures are interesting to me and it’s impossible to choose one. I could easily talk about Japanese or Chinese because I know something about them, and even more exciting to me are smaller sub-cultures and regional cultures that I’ve connected with and participated in and others which I have yet to meet. But I’m currently studying Indonesian so I want to share why.
I have to warn you, the initial answer may be a little strange.
Why Indonesian is interesting to me...
There are many things interesting about Indonesian culture that I will talk about in a minute, but first I need to be honest about something. The fact is, I have no particular reason to learn Indonesian. There are a lot of other cultures which interested me equally and I’ve been wanting to delve into a western or African culture for a very long time so I was actually leaning more towards Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portugese or even Xhosa or isiZulu. But I was pulled to Indonesian at this point in time....
"The Pull"
It happens sometimes...something pulls me. It's as if life is giving me a little nudge and saying "this way". It's what brought me to Japan too. I don't like to say that "Everything in life happens for a reason" because it's cliche and can be understood very different ways. But I would say that Life speaks to us. That is what I call "The pull"
It isn't totally just a feeling....It usually comes as a result of some combination of small coincidences or synchronicity. It's when you feel the wind blowing in a certain direction for you so you decide to go with it. So little things kept piling up and causing more and more of a pull in the direction of Indonesian.
New friends kept appearing
I didn't know any Indonesians in my home country except a girl that I met at a concert once when I was in high school. We got along but lived very far apart so we only met twice. When I joined steem I made one good friend from Indonesia.
Recently, I moved to my favorite neighborhood where there are two Indonesian restaruants. One owner became a pretty good friend and the other is also fun to talk to, and the former holds a lot of events where other Indonesians come. From those events I keep meeting more and more Indonesian people. The biggest factor in making me want to learn a language is to understand the people I'm meeting better. So this is probably the main factor
Building a network
I have a kind of tribe in one city in Asia (not where I live now) that is connected to different tribes in other cities in Asia (including where I live now) and that has started connected to Europe in a similar way around art, social issues and our vision for the future. It's not based around business very much at all, although I hope we can use crypto to build abundance. Indonesia seems to be one of the secondary hubs of our community network with Jakarta maybe being our strongest connection in South East Asia. I would love to connect to more of these hubs and strengthen our network of support and solidarity. This is a major motivating factor.
Food!
There are two things that are always a deal breaker for me. The first is food. When I find that a country has food that I like, I immediately feel more interested. Sometimes I feel you can see into a cultures soul through the food. If that's the case, Indonesia is worth knowing. I love all the Indonesian food I've had and can't wait to go there and eat!
Music!
The other deal breaker is music. When a country has music I love, the pull immediately gets stronger. I didn't even realize I had already been exposed to Indonesian traditional music before. I had heard songs I loved and only recently recognized it to be traditional Indonesian music. I also learned that one of my favorite Japanese bands OOIOO is heavily influenced by the music of Indonesia. I am still new to this and it's something I really need to explore more!!
Nature
The longer I live in Tokyo, the more I want to spend a few weeks in nature. When I see pictures of Indonesia, it makes me feel nostalgic for a place I've never been, the way people live in nature is something I've always been drawn to, especially in warm climates, though humidity is difficult!
I hear a lot of "digital nomads" raving about Bali....it looks gorgeous, but I also feel a little sad because when I went to Bangkok, I saw how those "ex-pats" can disregard the local culture and people and simply enjoy the fact that their national currency allows them to live like kings and queens.
I don't know the exact situation in Indonesia, but part of me wants to go to a place like Bali and try to build a stronger relationship between foreign people and local people that is more equal and respectful of the locals and not very influenced by the colonial tendencies western business culture and even NGO's. I long for a human-based connection. I really hate it when English speaking foreigners dominate all the interesting modern culture, which is probably why I feel comfortable in Tokyo, it's run by Japanese people but foreigners can also participate easily, especially in underground art culture. My favorite situation is where locals and a few foreigners can build a culture together that isn't all in the English language.
Diversity and Influence
As a stupid American, I had no idea that Indonesia was the 4th largest population until a few years ago. I had no idea how many tribes and local cultures there were until a few months ago. In fact, I always mixed it up with Malaysia.
Meeting friends from there and friends who had lived there has really made me more curious, and I think we all owe it to the people of countries like Indonesia, Nigeria, and Bagladesh, to learn more about their culture and lifestyle. These are countries which have huge populations and rich cultures but which don't get enough attention in international pop culture and media.
Religion
As someone who is religiously fluid (you can call me agnostic if you insist on labeling me, I am somewhere between Taoist, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, and others), Japanese and Chinese culture were hardly challenging for me. I learned so much but I never felt challenged by religion in Eastern Asia. I'm essentially with my own people here when it comes to spiritual beliefs because most people treat spirituality as a private matter and are very very open minded about it, despite how conservative they may be about things like family and heirarchy.
Still, I think I am lacking a deep understanding and connection with people from more religious backgrounds. This is a big challenge for me, but I think the best thing we can do is try to understand each other and work together despite our different beliefs and I'm usually pretty good at this, so I do feel I need to stop avoiding the Muslim and Christian world entirely. Bridging those gaps and relating to people from more religious backgrounds is something I want to get better at.
Vibe
The vibe I get from most of the Indonesians I meet is really warm and energetic and a little bit casual about making friends and chatting. I know this is just a generalization and I don't know if it's accurate but it's a pretty great first impression.
HIVE has potential in Indonesia!
I saw the Indonesian community working hard to build a presence on Hive and really want to help them a little bit. As a community with many English speakers, I also think it's important to build more connections between the Hive Indonesia Community and the rest of Hive.
It seems to me that the community was split over the move from Steem to Hive, and I am not sure that the people over at steem had accurate information about what was going on with Justin and the forks. It seems that a language barrier caused some people to think that we were the bad guys. I wonder if this made it difficult to build an Indonesian community at Hive. Anyways, we have Indonesians here at Hive and they are doing their best to grow the community.
I also envision Hive as a way to level the playing field and give opportunities to people in countries where the currency exchange rate will really work in local peoples favor. I hope Hive can help grow a vibrant arts and modern culture that is more community based. I hope for this everywhere, but I see the most potential in countries where a little crypto will go further when exchanged into the local currency. I would love to be a part of making this happen and helping it benefit more people.
I don't believe we should be urging other countries to follow the same model as economically more powerful countries. I think crypto is another tool that allows us to build new models and new cultures which are based upon our desire to connect with each other. That is why I started Hive Cross Culture, and I see Indonesian Hivesters as pretty important when it comes to Hive reaching it's full potential.
The decision to study Indonesian actually revived my desire to start a cross cultural community on Hive so I am very thankful for that inspiration that came as a result.