I have just returned to Medan from Tuapeijat, Indonesia where the GKLI hosted a preaching workshop and graciously invited me to be the main presenter. I hope to write a brief update on that soon, but what’s on my mind right now are the conversations I had with the GKLI leadership and pastors about cultural differences between Indonesians and Westerners.
The following story (my very brief scan of the internet suggests it comes out of Brazil) gets to some of what we were talking about, though I don’t think it adequately gets to the cause of the differences.
Once a fisherman was sitting near the seashore, relaxing under the shadow of a tree smoking his beedi. Suddenly a rich businessman passing by approached him and enquired as to why he was sitting under a tree smoking and not working. To this the poor fisherman replied that he had caught enough fish for the day.
Hearing this confused the rich man who then replied, “Why don’t you catch more fish instead of sitting in shadow wasting your time?”
Fisherman furrowing his brow, and inquired, “Why should I spend my time catching more fish?”
Exasperated as though the answer was obvious, the rich man responded, “If you had more fish you could sell them and earn more money.”
Puzzled the fisherman puffed on his beedi and directing his gaze to the sea asked “Why do I need more money?”
The business man swung his hand toward the modest boat drawn up on the beach and said, “With more money you could get a better boat.” Anticipating another objection he continued, “You could go fishing in deeper waters and catch even more fish and earn even more money.”
The fisherman rested his back upon the palm tree and wondered out loud, “What would all that money buy me?”
The business man looking to the sand and massaging his brow explained, “You could buy more boats and go into business and become successful like me.”
The fisherman responded, “What would success bring?”
The business man almost chuckling to himself explained, “After a few years of hard work and dedication you could earn enough to retire and enjoy your life peacefully.”
The fisherman put his hands behind his head and took in the ocean breeze and answered, “But that’s what I am doing right now.”
A quick reflection on this story concludes that the moral is money doesn’t necessarily bring happiness and one does not need wealth to enjoy life peacefully. And that is probably a moral of this story, but I think it has more potential than that. While the story doesn’t explicitly say that the businessman is a westerner and the fisherman is a native of the tropics, I think assuming that fact helps to draw out major cultural differences which I have seen at work between western expats in Indonesia—like my family and me—and the native Indonesians.
I have frequently heard westerners here make the observation that Indonesians do what they need to get by, but they don’t do what they need to thrive. Implying that if they worked just a little harder they could improve their quality of life. It’s two different definitions of ‘thrive’ that this story draws out.
Our definitions of success are much different. I think they are influenced by the reality of harsh winters. Think of the stories we hear and tell our whole lives. Stories about ants and grasshoppers teaching that we must work hard in the Summer to have enough for the winter. This instills in us a very long term view of success. It is natural to see success as something that only comes after years of hard work and planning. Indonesians don’t tell those stories because there is no winter to demand long term food storage. The land is continually producing. It seems that their definition of success and their definition of ‘thriving’ is more short term than ours. We might call that lazy, and we’d be wrong. I wonder what they would call our definition of success and thriving?