A day with an expat English teacher

Ross Gulliver, 38, is a senior teacher at The British Council on Jl. Sudirman, South Jakarta. Originally from Bexhill in the English county of Sussex, he moved to Jakarta almost 10 years ago. He lives in Cipete, South Jakarta, with his wife Rr. Dewi and daughters Jasmine, 2, and Jade, 1. In conversation with The Jakarta Post's William Furney

JAKARTA (JP): "Dewi and I share our bed with the two girls. If I'm lucky I'll wake up before they do. Otherwise, they'll roll over and wake me up. At about 5:30 a.m., I'll have a cup of coffee, some cereal and read The Jakarta Post. I became Muslim just before we got married, but I'm not practicing. I do say a morning prayer; it's in English and more like a daily reflection or meditation just to get me balanced before the day starts. I was atheist before I came to Indonesia.

My working day varies; sometimes I start at 8:00 a.m., other days it's later. A 10- or 12-hour day is pretty normal for me.

I've been with The British Council just over a year and it's probably the most challenging kind of teaching there is in this field here. Our status is that of a charity and we're not allowed, due to a special agreement with the Indonesian government, to open classes to the general public.

Very few people make the decision to go into English language teaching; they usually fall into it. I used to be in real estate and was based in the U.K. before moving to Spain. But the market crashed along with the recession in the early 1990s and I was jobless. After about a year of job hunting, I decided to retrain. A friend of mine lent me some money and I did a teacher training course. There were about four different jobs going and Indonesia looked the most attractive. Someone showed me pictures of palm trees and sandy beaches and it looked great. I had no preconceptions of what the country looked like when I arrived in 1991, but my eyes almost popped out of my head.

With teaching, you have to make an impact and get a reaction. To a certain extent I wasn't as nervous as other new teachers as I'd had to do that when I was selling.

I met Dewi at a party and she totally ignored me, which I found very attractive. Two weeks later, I bumped into her and, of course, she'd forgotten my name. I begged her for a date and she said no. Some time later, she finally agreed to a date and that's how it started. She's related to the Kraton in Yogyakarta. I call her my Indonesian princess -- she likes that. We got married in Semarang and I had to wear the traditional clothes and go through the rituals. I stood on the symbolic egg with more force than I should of and the yolk went flying across the room, much to the amusement of everyone else.

Before I got married, I was what you might call a wild child, frequenting bars and the like. But Dewi was not keen on me following that kind of lifestyle. When she told me she was pregnant with our first child, I made a decision to stop drinking so I could he a good father.

It's very different for Indonesian women to be seen with Westerners here. There's a lot of negative reaction to seeing a mixed couple. Maybe it's to do with a mistrust of foreigners; they've done an awful lot to take advantage of this country in the past. Perhaps its unpatriotic to go out with someone from another country. But there's a strong undercurrent of resentment that we both feel and it's quite often verbalized if we walk or cycle together.

The worst experience we had was when we were walking home one night and people threw rocks at us for no reason; just the fact that we were a mixed couple. They accused Dewi of being a sex worker. I suppose it was incomprehensible for them that she would be with a foreigner for any reason other than money. Racism is probably the worst aspect of living here.

Lunch is about 12:00 p.m., either at the canteen or the food stalls outside. Usually nasi padang, fried rice or gado-gado. Padang food is great. Too much sambal can be bad -- I was told off by a doctor for using too much. A lot of people stick to Western diets but it's just so prohibitively expensive.

In the afternoons I have to somehow juggle teaching with timetabling, running the office and marketing. I quite often go out to visit clients. It's fun doing the extra stuff but I like being in the classroom and hopefully doing something that's significant for the students.

A regular practice with students before the end of a course is to offer their teacher a present. One group I had did this, but when I gave them the results some of them hadn't passed and they kept the present. The gifts are not bribes though. Sometimes students will come up to me and ask if there is any way they can get a higher score, but I remain very British and say no.

Teaching hours are a nightmare, but the fact that things are not done the same way twice makes it varied.

Salaries and conditions have definitely dropped dramatically and prices have gone up. I'm paid in rupiah and can't save any money, so I probably have about another two years left teaching in this profession before I have to educate my children. If things don't get better, I'll have to leave and go to somewhere where I can afford the education. I'd like to stay here for good; I like Indonesia and can't see myself living in the U.K. any more. But it's difficult for foreign men. I'm rather at the mercy of sponsors and government regulations.

I usually finish work about 6:00 p.m. I drive home in my Kijang and I find it useful to play very peaceful music on the way. I play classical music and it keeps me from getting angry at crazy drivers and arriving home stressed. When I arrive home, both my kids jump up and down and go "daddy, daddy ...". I know it's corny, but it's pretty nice. I get mad cuddles which is great.

I don't eat that much in the evenings; usually after we've put the kids to bed at 7:30, I'll just have something light like fruit. We go out less often than we should. About once a month we'll go to an Indonesian restaurant.

I think trying to reduce your cultural expectations to zero, so that you have none, is the secret to surviving and being happy here. If you expect things to be done on time; if you expect there not to be corruption; if you expect people to be broad minded, then you are expecting too much and are going to be disappointed, upset and frustrated. These kind of expectations I try and suppress -- sometimes successfully.

Indonesian students have changed a lot in the last ten years. They were very frightened when I first got here and weren't open to discussion on anything sensitive. Soeharto was the hero of everyone. Now people are willing to take risks.

Indonesians have this stereotype that all expats are rich. It's impossible to get across the fact that some of us are here doing good jobs but not earning that much. I'm probably being paid less than a first-year receptionist in the U.K.

What I miss most about England is being able to walk and the privacy. People here don't understand the idea of personal space; it's very difficult to have time on your own.

The level of education here does not inspire me with confidence. For a long time, the education system was controlled by the government and specific skills such as critical thinking were kept out of the syllabus on purpose. I want my kids to learn how to think for themselves, not to have the answers fed to them. There was a study done where Indonesian university graduates were compared to twelfth-grade high school students in the U.K.

I go to bed early, usually about 9:30. Dewi tells me I worry too much, but I suppose its probably just getting the hang of being someone with responsibilities. I have a lot of worries about the future; Indonesia is still very uncertain."