Say what? How much English is too much English
Krabbe K.E. Piting, Contributor, Jakarta
Bali, December 2003. I was having a delightfully cheap sushi dinner with a friend at the back of a popular Japanese restaurant (owned by the Yakuza, if you believe the rumors).
There were only two other groups in our section of the restaurant: a couple in their late teens and a pack of raucous Japanese tourists. It only seemed natural to assume that my friend and I were the only Indonesian patrons there, as conversations in Japanese and English alternately infiltrated our booth.
That is until a mobile phone rang and one half of the couple answered in perfect colloquial Bahasa Indonesia. A few minutes later, her partner ordered more beer in -- surprise, surprise -- Indonesian.
In case you haven't noticed (because you are too busy speaking English), Indonesians love to speak English, Jakartans in particular. We speak English to English-speaking people. We speak English to other Indonesians. Did I mention that Indonesians love to speak English?
I've been in countless meetings where everybody converses in English, and nary an expat is in sight. I've received memos in English from Indonesian colleagues. A radio station conducts their programs almost entirely in English and even christened their DJs with English names.
Watch local TV and you'll see and hear plenty of English being used: "More than you expect, gals," "The power to do more," "Yesterday is gone" Eh?
Most bewildering of all probably came from a leading telecom company with its "Committed 2U" slogan. U presumably means users across the archipelago, from "sk8ter bois" to the Timorese cloth weavers, all fluent English speakers, no doubt. Can somebody from their ad agency explain this to me, please?
But the best experience so far was when I went to an Indonesian student gathering abroad and everybody spoke English to one another. Silly me for expecting to converse in our mother tongue at such occasions. Was I too naive in thinking that every single student would eagerly seize the moment to speak a familiar language among fellow countrymen?
Without sounding too much like a Frenchman, I see this as a disease. Although I am very much aware of such a problem also affecting many non-English speaking countries, it still hurts when it hits so close to home. The whole phenomenon is embarrassing and tiresome.
It was not as prevalent five years ago. How did things get so sour so quickly? Should I blame the Internet? The flood of cheap pirated DVDs? The influx of magazine franchises that can't be bothered to translate some of their content into Bahasa Indonesia?
No, I blame the people.
Some say that English is the lingua franca of the world today. Fine, but that does not mean I have to talk about the weather with my Javanese colleague in English. I should, however, use it on a regional meeting where people with several nationalities are in attendance or when I travel abroad and have no knowledge whatsoever of the local language. Anything else seems superfluous.
Others say that English is used to reach a broader audience. Please hold me before I fall to the floor laughing. Fresno and Amsterdam are cities chock-full of Indonesians, and do you see signboards or ads in Bahasa Indonesia?
It all boils down to snobbery. Most people equate communicating in a foreign language with a higher social caste, a higher notch in the cool meter. Speaking English means you are a learned fellow (probably foreign educated) who vacations abroad. Speaking English means you're da man!
Maybe I am being too paranoid. Maybe the couple in the Japanese restaurant was talking in English to make up for the lack of foreign tourists during the supposedly high season. What- evuh. Anyway, what's the point of speaking English when we have Indonesian, one of the easiest languages in the world?