When will we learn discipline

When will we learn discipline

A recent one-day bilateral conference involving a Japanese aid
organization and a professional association from Indonesia once
again gave me a lot of insights on what makes a nation great --
and what has debased a previously great nation.

That morning, half an hour before the opening session started,
all the Japanese guests were already seated in their assigned
places. The printouts of all their presentations for the entire
day were already photocopied and made available to all guests.
The speaker's notebook computer was connected to the video
projector, and his PowerPoint slide was loaded and ready to run
with just a tap on the spacebar.

The keynote speaker from the Indonesian side, however, arrived
two minutes before the session was supposed to start. There were
no PowerPoint slides from him, of course, and the hardcopy of the
text of his keynote speech was not available until later in the
day.

The keynote speeches were followed by a coffee break. Again,
before the break was over, the Japanese were already seated in
the conference room. Their Indonesian counterparts, on the other
hand, trickled into the room after the session had already
started.

As it happened, the Indonesian speaker, who was supposed to
deliver the first presentation of the session, was still nowhere
in sight. It was quite an awkward situation, as he had earlier
informed the conference committee that he would have to catch a
plane to Singapore right after his presentation. The committee
finally requested the Japanese speaker to go first with his
presentation.

Then came the lunch break. The next Indonesian speaker for the
session right afterwards arrived around 15 minutes before the end
of the break. Unfortunately, she did not immediately ask her
assistant to get her PowerPoint presentation ready even though
there was still ample time to do so. So, when everyone was
already seated and her session had already started, we all had to
wait until her notebook completed the long booting process.

What made it more interesting was that the notebook seemed to
be loaded with so many software bells and whistles on it that it
took ages until her .PPT file was loaded. To her credit, the
woman's presentation was the best from the Indonesian side. The
Japanese speaker after her was as prepared as the others before
him.

Later in the afternoon, a closed session was scheduled to
discuss how the Japanese organization would be able to help us.

When the time came to start the meeting, the speaker for the
Indonesian group suddenly disappeared. Because the Japanese had
long took their seats -- as always -- I decided to go out to
look for him.

I found him in the upstairs lobby talking on his cell phone.

As the meeting went on, the people on the Indonesian side kept
leaving and reentering the meeting room, including the group
speaker and the president of our association. I could not see how
we would ever be able to maintain a clear thread of discussions
with these key people always in and out all the time, but that
was what happened.

Meanwhile, the Japanese stayed glued to their chairs
throughout the meeting. Granted, they were here to offer us
assistance, but it was pretty obvious that their Indonesian
counterparts were more concerned with their own business.

And then there were those annoying cell phones. One of these
even started to beep as its owner was making a suggestion to the
Japanese group. Interestingly, instead of simply pressing the
on/off button to switch it off, he took the time to pick it up
and answer the call -- and then resumed his comment.

It was a very amusing, enlightening and at the same time
indescribably embarrassing day for me. But, at least it once
again made me realize what distinguishes the developed word from
the developing world.

While I was deeply embarrassed by the level of insensitivity
so starkly demonstrated by my countrymen, I also learned then
that people from a refined culture such as the Japanese know how
to respect their hosts and were still willing to show a high
level of courtesy although they were not receiving much of it in
return.

I was also reminded that in advanced cultures -- whether
western or eastern -- a high level of discipline, thorough
planning and attention to minute details are just some of the
most crucial underpinnings.

Can we Indonesians ever acquire these traits?

-- Maulana Sukarna