Guess What? Robert Smith

Guess What? Robert Smith

"What do you call the word 'development' in bahasa Indonesia, perkembangan or pengembangan," asked Robert Smith, of the U.S. Commercial and Information Center, to his Indonesian colleague Melink Simanjuntak.

"I keep practicing my bahasa Indonesia in almost every occasion," claimed Smith, who is more popularly known as 'Pak Bob' by his employees and local reporters.

He admitted that he only took a short course on bahasa before he left for Indonesia, "I just attended a 36-week course on bahasa Indonesia, that's why I still cannot master the bahasa, which has such an abundant vocabulary."

Having been in his current position as center director of the U.S. Commercial and Information Center for three years has enabled him to widely practice his bahasa with a large number of prominent Indonesian people, including government officials, businessmen, scientists and media people.

"But still, I find difficulties in using prefixes and suffixes," the director said, smiling. (raw)