Editor’s Note:
This article was contributed by expatriate writer Susan McKinley and was originally published in Kem Chicks World magazine. While Indonesia has changed dramatically since it was first written, the story remains a thoughtful reminder of the cultural, educational, and technological differences that can shape interactions between employers and household staff.
What is the favorite subject of discussion for expatriates? Call them what you will, we love to talk about our employees, staff, or household helpers. They are integral parts of our everyday lives. Very few of us had the good fortune to have so much help before coming to Indonesia. That makes the experience a novelty and a frequent topic of conversation.
The amusing anecdote list about staff could number in the millions. Expatriates constantly tell humorous stories, one after the other, about the silly things one of their staff did. My husband always responded to jealous friends and family during home leave by saying, “Imagine you have a house full of adolescents working for you. Now, do you think we have it so soft?”
If you look at their world from a certain perspective, many of these anecdotes explain themselves.
The view of staff I would like to illustrate here is to “walk a mile in their shoes,” or thongs as it were. Imagine the way many of them were brought up and it will explain so many of their actions that we find (allegedly) stupid or lacking in common sense. If you were raised in a village, living in a tiny house with a dirt floor, no running water, and no electricity, how would you respond to technology? How would you take it if your employer tried to explain electricity, plumbing, computers, or other modern conveniences to you—especially when that employer does not speak your language particularly well?
One evening my husband’s colleague, Paul, came home from the office. Through the pouring rain, he noticed that one of the floodlights shining onto the garden had burned out. He got a spare floodlight and told his jaga that the light needed to be changed. He went inside, changed out of his work clothes, got a beer, and settled onto the sofa with a newspaper.
A few minutes later, he noticed movement outside the window and looked up to see the jaga walking across the lawn. The jaga was carrying the spare floodlight and an aluminum ladder and was padding across the grass in his bare feet to change the light … in the rain.
Paul ran outside to stop him and instructed him to wait until the rain stopped. Paul, a logical Dutchman, could not understand why anybody would be so foolish as to change an outdoor light during a rainstorm.
There were two issues at work here. First, the jaga had received an instruction and it was his job to carry that order out. His assumption, no doubt, was that the boss knew best. Secondly, the jaga did not understand electricity in the same way those of us who grew up with it do and therefore did not appreciate the danger. But it certainly made for a good story at parties.
Paul’s jaga provided another memorable story a few months later. Paul was between drivers and drove himself home from work one afternoon. He tossed his keys to the jaga and asked him to wash the car.
Later, while relaxing inside the house, Paul heard the familiar squeak the car emitted whenever the lock button on the key ring was pressed. Naturally, he assumed the washing had been completed.
A while later, Paul decided to head out to buy supplies before visitors arrived the next day. He walked into the garage and found the jaga sitting quietly in the driver’s seat. No panic. No stress. He was simply sitting there looking out the window. And waiting.
The explanation was surprisingly simple. While wiping down the inside of the vehicle, the jaga had accidentally sat on the key ring that was lying on the seat. He triggered the lock button and locked himself inside the car.
Most of us would immediately honk the horn to attract attention. But this jaga had never driven a car before. How would he know where the horn was located? So he simply sat there, patiently waiting for Paul to return and rescue him.
Paul has repeated this story many times and it always generates laughter. The poor jaga has no idea how much entertainment he has provided to complete strangers simply by locking himself in a car.
But think for a moment about taking your great-grandparents or grandparents out of the world they knew—perhaps from a farm in the early twentieth century—and suddenly placing them into a modern technological society. Their reaction to unfamiliar technology might not be all that different from Paul’s jaga.
Or would it?
We impatient expatriates can hardly tolerate sitting in a traffic jam for a few extra minutes, even though we know we will eventually reach our destination. Yet this jaga was content to sit quietly in the car until Paul’s return, which he knew was inevitable.
So perhaps the real question is this: who actually needed to learn the lesson?
By Susan McKinley
First published in Kem Chicks World magazine.
