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