Hong Kong People vs Javanese People
and Javanese in Hong Kong

To start this writing, I would like to emphasize that what I am going to tell about cultural differences is what I got from my experiences. Born in Blitar from both Javanese parent, I used to live in Sumatra when I was kid. I started to work as migrant worker in Singapore for two years when I finished my High School. Back from Singapore, I then worked in Hong Kong for almost five years before decided to be home and study in university. To make a long story short, I used to meet many people from many different cultures. From my experience too, perhaps, I do not see people from other culture background with so much amazement or see them like they were born with two heads. Of course, there is always something interesting when we talk about cultural differences. I do not understand (yet) how to tell this story in nice order, but to limit my writing in order to stay focus I would try to only talk about the openness between Hong Kong people and Indonesia (especially Javanese).

Hong Kong People

Hong Kong is multi-culture country. There are so many people from so many different countries come to Hong Kong. There are Chinese, Indonesian, Pakistan, Indian, English, American, Italian, Australian, etc. The language used is English and Cantonese. In Hong Kong, being able to speak English is very important in order to be able to communicate well. Hong Kong was once English colony, therefore, Hong Kong people had adopted Western culture in almost all of their daily activities. Openness is what clearly had been assimilated well in Hong Kong people behaviors. They take yes for yes, and no for no. When no should meant yes, they will take it as a lie.

This openness spreads to any people regardless from whichever country they come from. Chinese who was known for their indirectness tend to become direct people; more open. Being open or direct is also can be seen from their willingness to share knowledge, to have a country free from corruption, to have a good sympathy to other less fortuned, and to give chance to whoever wants to achieve more in their life; spreading fair competition.

In Hong Kong, people feel secure. They trust people because they don’t have to guess what others might think when they have questions. In direct society like this, people also tend to show their anger when they thing something is wrong or does not comply their expectation. When we do something wrong and then act as if we do nothing and do not mention sorry for what we do, it is not surprise if they become very angry about it. This would some times leads to very nasty situation and we would completely lose their trust at all. In this kind of society saying sorry, excuse me, thank you is very important. We have to verbalize all if we want to avoid misunderstanding between one and another.

Javanese People

Talking about Javanese is like how good we hide our true feeling. Javanese are indirect people. Javanese do not speak what they think should not be said, kids were told not to do something without reasoning. When these kids grow up they would stop to ask questions. Silence is gold is what they understand. Javanese often say no for something that actually meant yes. And smile instead of saying yes or no, let people to guess what he or she actually meant. This indirectness is stronger when they feel that some thing that they are going to say would cause embarrassment, impolite, or arrogant.
Javanese has more than two patterns of Java languages which each language used shows how good the behavior of the users are. Languages used to speak to older people should be a level higher than language used to speak with your friend. This manner shows how good your attitude is. How good your parent has brought you up. For Javanese, you do not speak frankly if it will cause the older angry, sad, or shame even though it is some thing that’s really true.

In Javanese society, you do not criticize the older. What is done by the older is something that is right. This situation makes youngsters do not have confident to achieve more, to compete in a fair competition, because things are often done under the table. Nepotism spreads widely. Leaders are only for older. Corruption is then difficult to detect. Even if this is detected, it is not easy to erase it because it has been rooted through generations to generations.

For people do not used to live in Java society, this situation some times is very stressing. For me, for not having chance to learn Java language (the good one), communicate with older is often very uncomfortable. I am also afraid to say some thing. I am afraid of being said as impolite.

Javanese People in Hong Kong

Recently, many Indonesian (Javanese) are going to Hong Kong to find work, about 120,000 person to be exact. Indonesia which has sorted of vacancy but thousand jobless finds Hong Kong as good place to find work. Indonesians are then sent to Hong Kong to work, mostly as domestic helpers. With reasonable salary, working in Hong Kong is tempting. Problem exists when the understanding of each other culture is not learned.

Come from very different culture, mostly Javanese do not settle well in Hong Kong especially when they are new. They savor shock culture. They find it difficult to coup with Hong Kong people openness. They see Hong Kong people are noisy, demanding, and too frank. For Hong Kong people, Javanese are liar, slow, and childish. These bosses do not understand when their worker cries instead of saying sorry for some thing that they ask about the job that is not done well.
Another example, when Javanese were asked if the had eaten, they say they had, even if they had not. For Javanese, it is shameful to say that you are hungry and need food, so instead of saying yes they would say no. For Javanese this act is not a lie, but some thing that’s normally done. Problem occurs when they eats when no one sees them. Imagine if this act (eat when no one see) is done by a worker and accidentally known by the boss. The boss might think that the worker is lying or worse they might excuse their worker prefer of stealing the food instead of accept it from the boss directly.

This miscommunication could be avoided by learning each other cultures. For migrant workers who work in Hong Kong it is important to understand Hong Kong culture well before they are sent to work there. In fact, learning language only is not enough to understand others culture. One should be open to accept something that is completely different with his or hers.

By learning Hong Kong people culture of being direct, perhaps, one day it would bring good effect in good way for Indonesia. Perhaps, it will bring changes for better society in Javanese community when these workers come back to their home land. These workers hopefully will bring a good way on rising up their kids which at the end will lead too more open generation to Indonesia. Will it be possible? Why not!***

*tugas menulis artikel untuk mata kuliah English Culture Background