Mental poverty leads to lavish spending

By Ignas Kleden

This is the second of two articles linking poverty and the Indonesian middle class' habit of spending lavishly on celebrations.

JAKARTA (JP): The extravagance of the Indonesian middle class is most evident in their parties. The lavish affairs have no real meaning, but are staged to show off wealth. In modern developed societies, however, parties are much simpler and creative, and the guests engage in a process of social and cultural learning.

Most feasts in Indonesia demonstrate the financial capacity of the host rather than the host's taste or cultural capacity.

A recent example is the secondary school in South Jakarta that celebrated its 6th lustrum. The budget proposed for the celebration topped Rp 140 million and the parents of the students were required to contribute at least Rp 30,000.

I tried to put forward the idea of spending half the amount on the party while sparing the other half for more productive purposes. Much can be done for the school with Rp 70 million. One possibility would be to spend the money to send exceptional teachers on short overseas trips to witness how teaching is conducted in other countries. An English teacher, for example, could visit Australia, Malaysia or the United States for three or four months to learn how English is taught in other countries.

It isn't always possible to raise salaries, but it is certainly possible to find other ways to motivate teachers to perform better. Creative schools can only develop if they have creative teachers, and creative teachers can be produced if creative ways are found to motivate them towards better performance.

I witnessed a German secondary school anniversary two years ago. The parents were not involved in planning the celebration, nor were they required to contribute financially. Instead, the students staged the musical Jim Knopf und Lukas der Lokomotiff|hrer) three times a day for a week. The show was sold out and got wide press coverage. The performance was so successful that the students collected enough money to buy a school bus for their sister-school in Zimbabwe, Africa. I asked the German students why they bought the bus and they replied that their fellow students in Zimbabwe would otherwise have to walk 20 km everyday to school.

The German case illustrates that big celebrations don't necessarily have to be a moment for big spending or conspicuous consumption. They can be a good opportunity to develop imagination and creativity in cooperation with other people. This creative aspect is ignored at Indonesian feasts, an urban tendency that might have deep cultural roots.

At traditional feasts in Indonesia, the meal is of course a very important element. This is because feasts in traditional villages had a redistributive function. Traditional feasts were an opportunity to provide other villagers with a big meal, in order to compensate for the lack of food which the villagers faced in everyday life. The host distributes some of his income to fellow villagers, thereby reinforcing and strengthening solidarity. Big feasts, a result of rural poverty, were an opportunity to share prosperity, and, in the case of poor families, an opportunity to share poverty.

The urban middle class' celebrations of course have nothing to do with poverty, but the feast's pattern often still reflects traditional habits. A meal bigger than necessary is still the norm. This is ironic because the guests are never in need of food. They come to the party to honor those being celebrated, while looking for opportunities meet to busy friends and colleagues.

The urban middle class' parties are an opportunity for a social get-together, not to redistribute wealth.

If a smaller meal was provided, other programs, which could meet cultural needs, could be included and provide the playfulness that is lacking at most Indonesian parties. Indonesian invitations have the same, formal wording. There seems to be very little effort to design an invitation which is interesting, original or fanciful.

During my years in Western Europe, an invitation was always a reflection of the host's creativity. Children design their own invitations, the wording usually a pleasure in itself.

The celebration was always original and resourceful, the food being only a part of the party. In winter they go bowling, ice skating and swimming, and enjoy a normal, inexpensive meal. In the summer they go to the lake or cycle, and then have a meal or a tea party. The quality of the celebration is measured by how fun it was, not what was consumed.

The fact that many Indonesian parties are still pseudo- traditional should not be surprising. This is easy to explain from an anthropological or sociological point of view. Social mobility and increased income is not always accompanied by mental reorientation and cultural sophistication. Many rich Indonesian urbanites might be still enmeshed in a cultural lag, whereby they are tightly bound to their cultural roots and orient themselves towards cultural values not compatible to urbanization. Living in a city does not automatically bring a change in cultural habit, taste or inclinations. It is very likely that some people might be socially urbanized but remain a traditional villager as far as their tastes are concerned. Cultural lag is a very common anthropological phenomenon.

The gap between social development and cultural development can also be discerned in rural areas. Villagers who have an access to information from urban areas gradually orient themselves towards urban lifestyles and behave according to urban aspirations -- the urbanization of villages.

The conspicuous consumption visible at many Indonesian middle- class feasts might result from a mental poverty, a mentality not yet free from traditions which prevail among the very poor.

The writer is a sociologist now working at the SPES Research Foundation.

Window: The conspicuous consumption visible at many Indonesian middle-class feasts might result from a mental poverty, a mentality not yet free from traditions which prevail among the very poor.