Mind your language, wherever you take it

TEMBAGAPURA, Irian Jaya (JP): Living among people of different cultural backgrounds may give rise to some unforgettable experiences. A recent embarrassing experience may, in time, become unforgettable for me. As an urban Javanese living among the rural Irianese as a social researcher, I, of course, have had to adapt, especially in regard to certain aspects of culture, one of which is language.

People in Tembagapura who work for a private copper and gold mining company come from different cities in Indonesia. They arrived with their own cultures, languages and dialects. We could say that Tembagapura is a melting pot where cultures and languages really mingle. This place has a variety of cultures, languages and customs. But for our purpose we can divide the people here into native and nonnative residents. Formerly, Tembagapura was inhabited by the Amungme, one of some 250 tribes in Irian Jaya. Other tribes in the surrounding area are the Kamoro, the Ekari, the Dani, the Nduga, the Damal and the Moni.

The most striking thing about living in such an area is the feeling of ethnocentrism that one experiences. People assume that everything they do and think are what other people should do and think. Briefly, when someone observes something beyond his or her social norms, he or she will regard it as something strange, funny, ridiculous, silly or even bad. The feeling of ethnocentrism admittedly leads people to feeling offended when people from a different cultural background tease him or her of doing something wrong from their point of view.

Once I interviewed an Amungme man from Banti, a rural village located about five kilometers from PT Freeport Indonesia, who had been working at the mining company for several years. He used a strange Indonesian word when he wanted to say rumah sakit (hospital). When he said takis instead of sakit, I realized that his pronunciation was wrong and understood what he actually meant. But I could not help laughing spontaneously.

To me it was very funny. I asked him several times to repeat it. I did not realize I had offended him until he reacted angrily.

"Don't laugh at me, Sir," he said harshly. "We have our language, and you have yours, right?"

"Your language is, of course, far different from mine," he commented.

I was astounded at getting such an answer. He reacted as if he was very angry with me. However, soon I apologized and I told him I did not mean to offend him.

The other day a similar incident happened to a friend of mine who teaches Indonesian at the company's literacy program. One morning he greeted one of his students by asking him Tekolah kah? (Are you going to school?). The teacher knew that most of the Amungme had difficulty differentiating between the letter "s" and the letter "t". To them the two letters are interchangeable. Often they pronounce "s" as "t". Which is why they say tekolah instead of sekolah (school). Unexpectedly, the man became angry with my friend.

"If you know that I say it wrong, then tell me how to say it correctly. Don't tease me by imitating what we say, Sir!"

A similar experience also happened to another friend who is a mathematics instructor in the Training Department of the company. He was embarrassed at being scolded by one of the workers. This guy works as a janitor. He was mad because my friend had called him "boss".

"Hello boss! Would you like to help me copy these papers?" he asked. "Surprisingly, the janitor glared at him.

"Don't call me boss, Sir !" he scolded. "You're the boss here, not me. I'm just a janitor!" he berated him.

Still he grumbled and said: "Don't tease me by calling me boss! You Javanese, you come here to exploit us. It is very difficult for you to get a job in Java. Then you come here to colonize us!"

In his displeasure at being addressed in such a way, he grumbled further: "You are very rich now because you have a good salary. You make money here by colonizing us! I am poor because I just get a little money even though I am Irianese -- the owner of this land."

At realizing he had offended the janitor, my friend apologized.

"I am sorry I offended you. I didn't mean it, actually. It's just my habit to call my friends boss," my friend replied, adding that it was one way of being friendly.

"Don't say such things anymore. I don't like it," said the janitor.

The aforementioned experiences point out that we have to realize that what we think is right is not always right from another's point of view. Right or wrong is not only a matter of something commonly perceived as right or wrong.

Right can be wrong from someone else's viewpoint. And something considered wrong by others can be right from another's viewpoint. Emotional responses such as sadness, happiness laughter, anger, etc. are also different from each other. So, choose your words carefully when speaking with people of different cultural backgrounds.

-- Agus Nur Prabowo