Chewing the fat, a national sport?

I've lived all over the world at different times. I was born in North America, brought up in Europe and I have worked in Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America and Asia.

I've lived in Indonesia for some time now, but I have to admit, it still seems like a strange place from time to time.

Some things are just those minor oddities that take a little while to notice.

For example, almost everywhere else in the world there is a guaranteed subject for small talk available to all: the weather.

In Indonesia, no one talks about the weather -- it just is. How's the weather? Hot and sunny. Except in the rainy season. Then it's hot and sunny except when it rains. Not much room for conversation there.

Another difference is the degree of involvement people will have in one another's lives. Admittedly, I'm a Canadian, and that means my character is probably a little standoffish, reserved and perhaps a little formal. I mean, we say "Thank you," to ATMs.

Canadians could live their entire lives on a street and never know the names of the people in the house across from them; they wouldn't want to be forward or presumptuous.

Here, my beautiful Indonesian wife and I need only have occupied a new house for perhaps fifteen minutes before she is able to tell me the ages and occupations of each person on the block, who among them has had an affair, with whom and what their respective spouses' reactions to the discovery were.

Given how quickly the details of an illicit liaison become common knowledge, it's a source of wonder to me that anyone would risk it.

Gossip could well be the Indonesian national sport. Here it is practiced as a singles competition. My lovely wife can go for a walk around the block and come back with more news than is published in the entire paper you hold in your hands.

It is a doubles game: Yolanda, with the help of the maid, can gather detailed information, confirm it and disseminate it with an efficiency that CNN would envy.

It can be played as a team sport. Any group of three or more of her friends could piece together such obscure but complete data about the plans and aspirations, purchases and tastes, comings, goings, and daily routines of their fellow citizens that if they worked for the government, they could form an intelligence service of such efficiency that homeland security would be virtually guaranteed.

If gossip were an Olympic event, we'd see a lot more gold coming to this country. (On the other hand, maybe we wouldn't actually see it, since it probably wouldn't be televised.)

When driving in say, rural Ontario or small town British Columbia, and being unsure of directions, most Canadians would simply accept the fact that they are lost and will probably starve to death.

Being as reticent and reluctant to bother anyone as we are, a simple death by exposure and starvation would seem a small price to pay in order to remain anonymous.

But, pretending for a moment that one of us actually screwed up the effrontery to ask a stranger for directions, the encounter would probably go something like this:

"Excuse me, could you tell me how to get to the highway?"

"Certainly. Go two miles back along this road, turn left at the big white farmhouse, then you'll see the highway signs after about a mile."

"Thank you."

Alternatively, the response might be, "I'm afraid not. I'm new here." In which case we would say, "Thank you very much."

Not in Indonesia. Here, you're going to a new beach for the weekend. You ask your driver, before you get in the car, if he knows the way.

"Yes, yes, of course, like my children's names," you are assured. You have barely reached the outskirts of the city and you're pulling over.

"What's going on?" you ask your wife. "He's asking for directions," she replies as though you are hopelessly obtuse.

So you look out the window while a small crowd develops. A discussion among all the neighbors goes on for some time and then requires some additional reinforcements.

Local elders are called in for an opinion. Your driver takes in all of these opinions and, after a round of headshaking, shouting, laughing and pointing in a variety of directions, while a selection of children peer in fascination through the car windows at you, he gets back in. You drive for a few moments and pull over again. The ritual starts once more.

It seems that correct directions can only be arrived at by consensus. You ask a few dozen people and follow what seems to be the prevailing preference. Part of the difficulty, it seems, is that the strangers are so eager to please that they are incapable of admitting that they have no idea where your destination is, or worse yet, that you have gone the wrong way.

Consequently, they'll tell you anything you want to hear; they wouldn't want to upset you by letting you know that you have just driven 35 kilometers in the wrong direction. Much better to tell you you're almost there...it's just ahead. You'll be so much happier when you hear that.

Either that or they're just happy to have had a chance to practice the national sport with a new competitor.

-- Patrick Guntensperger