Editor’s Note:
This article is an opinion piece contributed by Aida Greenbury and reflects the author’s personal observations and experiences living in Indonesia’s international community. References to individuals and situations are anecdotal and should be read as social commentary rather than generalizations about any nationality, culture, or group.
Do people actually get wiser as they get older? Or do people just basically get older?
When I was a kid, I looked up to older people with fascination. They must know a lot more than me, I used to think. As one Indonesian saying goes: “Sudah makan banyak garam, sudah bijaksana.” Or in English: “One who has tasted a lot of salt must be wise.” But when I got a bit older I didn’t really listen to my elders anymore. I tried to find my own truth, thus developing my own wisdom. Is it a part of the aging process to want to be wiser?
Now in my early thirties, sometimes I don’t feel like I’m as wise as I thought I should be. And when I look around me, there are a lot of people in their thirties, forties, or fifties who, again, I think, are not as wise as they should be at that age. Okay, this is getting eerie. Is it a macro phenomenon? Or is the phenomenon even slightly more micro, which means it’s only happening within the international community in the Big Durian?
Putri, my strong-headed Indonesian girlfriend, was in tears when I saw her for our weekly chit-chat two days ago. Putri is (if she still is now!) married to a 45-year-old American guy. She hesitated for a few minutes, but after a typical girly greeting of cuddles and hugs she told me her melancholic drama.
“I think I’m going to leave my husband. I can’t stand his behavior anymore. When we first met he was all sweet and romantic—he used to call me ‘his precious’ for God’s sake. But a year after we got married, I realized that he was simply a rude person. He said and did negative things without even thinking about the consequences, hurting other people’s feelings and mostly mine.
“I thought I could talk to him and make him understand that his behavior was just unacceptable—measured by any culture. Years and years went by without much riff-raff, until recently. He has picked up the habit of going out once a week to get drunk, staying out until six o’clock in the morning in a prostitute-infested bar. The last time he did it was when our child was suffering a high fever. He didn’t even care.”
Putri stopped and made a loud noise blowing her nose. Then she continued her tale of woe.
“Look, this isn’t about the difference between Western and Eastern cultures anymore. Viewed from any culture, what he did was wrong. He said that that is who he is and I should just accept it. But the fact is, he wasn’t like that when I married him. And I can’t just accept these unacceptable behaviors. He should’ve married a meek ‘yes-sir pembantu type’ girl from Blok M if he wanted to treat his wife like a doormat all the time. Oooh, and there are a million other problems too.”
I took a deep breath. I always brag that I’m a good listener. But this time I was too good a listener; I was broiling with anger at her husband. Still, morally I was required to calm her emotions a bit.
“Perhaps, if you can be a bit more patient, he will change?” Geez, my advice sounded even more lame than that Ally McBeal character from the television series.
“But you see, my friend, men do not change. They just get older but they do not get any wiser,” she replied with a sad smile on her tear-streaked face.
Ouch. If I were a man, I would be devastated. Putri’s sentence is probably one of the most degrading declarations related to mankind.
The next illustration is not a story of the infamous ayam type Indonesian girls. No, Odell is a mature, soft-spoken Javanese woman in her thirties. She has a couple of kids, a loving husband who is ten years older than her, and her own strong career. And Odell has a lover.
When I asked Odell the how-to and why questions (not that I wanted to practice the same lifestyle, although the idea is, for a merely humble human being like myself, quite amusing), Odell described it in a straightforward manner.
“What is not to love about Angus? He is young, sexy, and charismatic. He has his own career that he’s very proud of and doesn’t want to settle down. He’s the stallion that I always envision at the back of my brain. And with my situation now, as a not-so-young happily married successful woman, I actually feel protected from any negative rumors. The best part about Angus is, he will never tell anybody. You know that one of men’s habits is to brag and tell their drinking mates about the women they have had sex with? Well, Angus’ lips are sealed.”
Odell explained this between a hush-hush voice and giggles.
Is it because I’m surrounded by people from various cultural backgrounds that I’m subjected to these dramas? Is this one of the fruits of the interaction between the local and international community? Or could these stories happen anywhere? Can anybody imagine Putri’s and Odell’s stories happening somewhere in a peaceful valley in Wonosari, Central Java?
For example, if I go to a local drinking spot in Jakarta, I usually see nothing more intriguing than a guy clearing his throat with a loud disgusting sound or toddlers running around wildly between chairs, chased by their nannies with a spoonful of food in their hands. If I go to an expatriate-frequented drinking hole, I see grandfathers cuddling brown-skinned bar girls who are the same age as their granddaughters. I see men speaking with slurred voices while continuing to gulp glasses of golden liquid. And I see local married women bragging loudly about sleeping with men besides their husbands to keep their pockets full.
If the phenomenon does have something to do with the mixed-culture environment, then maybe Indonesian society is not really ready to embrace these alien influences? I’m not going to say which part is the one that is “holier than thou.”
I think morality has nothing to do with people’s age, but I think it surely has something to do—no matter how weak the relation—with cultural backgrounds. If you think young studs in their twenties and bar girls in their teens are the only groups who can behave carelessly and stupidly, then you are wrong. I was wrong about this.
Maybe some people do get wiser when they’re older, but some people don’t, regardless of their sex. The surrounding lifestyle and cultural background certainly do have an effect on the process. People who do get wiser as they age should stick together, and likewise. That would be fairer, wouldn’t it? Especially for Odell’s husband and Putri.
When I was younger, I used to look up to Pak Achmad, a distant relative of mine who is ten years older than me, with great admiration. He was always the wise one. He was always there to protect me from the bullies at school. He was there to guide me when I was writing my thesis.
Now, in his mid-forties, he is curled up in a jail cell. He was sentenced to eight months for a white-collar crime.
So much for wisdom!
Article contributed by Aida Greenbury.
