Mind your language, wherever you take it

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