In Reply to: You must have been in the same Cab as posted by Balimagic on Friday, 3. February 2006 at 05:05 Bali Time:
Have you tried pretending you can't speak English? I have tried this, forcing street vendors to automatically give up on me. By mastering some of "our language", English, the Indonesians have succeeded in moving the power balance away from us. I think the whole thing boils down to the fact that knowledge is power and to a certain degree the Indonesians have the non speakers of Indonesian over a barrel because the non speakers dont know how much a litre of petrol costs, don't know where they are, don't know they are going the long way and don't know they are in a dodgy taxi, and dont know the 'real' worth of a hotel room. I personally have several advantages because I am a reasonably fluent speaker of Indonesian so I have some clout on a day to day basis and all of this was reinforced this year when I was in Taipei for 24 hours and I don't speak any Chinese. Suddenly I felt totally powerless. There I experieced a sense of adventure that many first timers to Indonesia must surely feel. This is not meant to be a lecture about the virtue of jumping in and learning Indonesian, but this little piece has probably turned in to that. cheers. Thomas. Melbourne
thomas@indoeasy.com.au