In Reply to: Not being an ausssie yourself you will posted by sherbert on Monday, 30. August 2010 at 06:29 Bali Time:
because I sort of agree with you on that comment. Whilst in no way saying that there are not genuine friendships between tourists of all nationalities and Indonesians, I do agree that what you mention does exist.
It's not a peculiarly Indonesian habit to tell tourists/customers/people in general what they want to hear. You will get the taxi drivers who tell Aussies that they prefer them to any other race because they are so friendly AND they tip......
We all like to be liked, or at least most of us I think, so when a Brit is told they like British tourists best because they are not loud like Aussies they will tend to believe it just like the Aussie in the taxi.
Back to the taxis again. If we get into a cab in Sanur which is much frequented by Dutch people and I open the conversation in Bahasa Indonesia they will assume I am Dutch and start to tell me how they love the Dutch because so many of them speak some or a lot of Indonesian. If my husband opens the conversation they will often tell him how much they love Aussies because they are so friendly (and tip).
It's not rocket science there are things to like and dislike about all races and ways of using sweet talk in the tourist industry to make the customer feel good.....or generous.....