Mister Creep

“Hey Mister!”
As five little voices from the group of punky youngsters get louder, giggling and yelling out any English words they know, I can’t help but glance over my shoulder.
Yup, they’re definitely talking to me. I am the mister here. You see, most school children learn some English in Indonesia and have been taught the polite form of saying hi is “Mister”, regardless of age or sex. Then they have so little chance to practice their English that what little they learn usually falls to the wayside. Until of course they see me, BULE. Then they get really excited. Everyday I walk past greeted by “Halo, how are you? Where you from” at least once, more recently there have been a lot of “Obamas**!” And then of course, my favorite, after I pass by: “something I can’t understand, more I can’t understand BULE, babble babble gibberish” and gaping faces or amazed and sniggering children.

I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to looking up from a pair of shoes in the mall and see all eyes trained on me, salesgirls and other customers alike. Or being asked to take countless pictures with other peoples families and even their small children. But I have found being bule an advantage in certain areas as well. Like the time I was ‘camera creeping’ on this little girl in the Borbodur temple, Yogakarta. Everyone else was taking touristy photos of the temple, the temple and themselves, the temple, themselves and us Bules. But I just wanted this picture of the cutest asian girl pouting in her big sunhat. She was full of sass and knew it, and I wanted a picture. I was stealthy, but being bule is never being stealthy enough. As her family walked away I cut around a column to snap a picture of her, only to look up and see her parents staring at me. Oppsy, I was that creep with the camera taking a picture of a strange kid. I snuck around the other side and tried to disappear into the group I was with, therefore trying to appear less than creepy. Only I accidentally walked into pose with a bule fest, and after three pictures with random people squeezing me like we were BFF’s, I started recounting my mortification and creepiness to my friends, halfway through the incident I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the girl with the sunhat’s father!

Speechless, I gaped at him while he addressed in an incomprehensible slew of wild sounds(that Bahasa Indonesia is tricky!). I could only imagine what he was saying to me, I wanted to melt into the floor and disappear. M grabbed my camera, “they want a picture with you” and he pushed me next to the little girl who obviously did not want another picture, and was not the least bit impressed whether I was in it or not. Only in Indonesia would me being caught in the most creepy and awkward situation end with me being treated like a celebrity just for being white, and foreign and a rare, rare sight indeed.


**Side Note: The Obama comment is actually quite funny in and of itself, it seems Indonesia is crawling with “Obama’s children”, a joke that never seems to get old here, and refers to really dark skinned Indonesians who look ‘black’ in a country where white, white skin is considered a beauty ideal. It’s also a bit of Indonesian Obama fever, which interestingly enough is due to Obama’s previously close ties with the nation. The president himself went to elementary school in Jakarta from 1st through 4th when his mom married an Indonesian man. However now that Mr. Obama has postponed his arranged visit to Indonesia three times, I wonder how long Obama fever will be seen as a positive and prideful thing for Indonesia.