While gradually orbiting the entire province of East Java on my motorbike over the last five days I pondered various things. One of them was this:
As a – ahem – bule in Indonesia, one gets addressed using various terms. Terms of address are a serious matter in this country; and a slight confusion about what exactly to call this large, rather pink and decidedly scruffy fellow on a motorbike is often apparent.
Anyway, I was wondering what other wandering bules most like to be called.
As an avowed liberal bedwetter labouring under the new white man's burden of post colonial guilt I obviously cringe – and die a little inside – every time I get called "tuan". So that's a no.
I feel somehow undeserving – and faintly fraudulent – if I get a "pak".
"Om" I'm undecided on, though I'm pretty sure I feel more comfortable with it than the previous two.
The one I most like being called – "mas" – is, it seems the one that is least common (amongst people I don't know), though while I was eating my martabak earlier two little ragamuffins came begging along the pavement and they "mas"d me, which made me so happy I actually gave the little blighters a couple of coins. They'd have got nothing if they cringed and beseeched with a "tuan"…
Inevitably of course there is commonest of all – "misterrrrr", which I am entirely resigned too, but I wish they wouldn't.
"Om" I'm undecided on, though I'm pretty sure I feel more comfortable with it than the previous two.
The one I most like being called – "mas" – is, it seems the one that is least common (amongst people I don't know), though while I was eating my martabak earlier two little ragamuffins came begging along the pavement and they "mas"d me, which made me so happy I actually gave the little blighters a couple of coins. They'd have got nothing if they cringed and beseeched with a "tuan"…
Anyway, which one do you lot prefer?
Om sounds silly.when u hang out with a girl and she called u om, ummmmm it sounds like she go out with senior citizen.LOL
mas is better also for bule.:P
means people respect u here even ur not a javanesse.
since im an indo girl, i'd prefer people call me MBAK.lol.
if i were a bule guy, i'd prefer they call me MAS….:)
What about koh? You missed koh! I get that sometimes, to my face, don't look chinese at all. But mas I like best, yes. Om and pak I don't like as they make me feel old, sometimes.
Ah, Koh… I didn't mention that one because it's one that I've never been called to the best of my knowledge. Interesting.
In the last five days I've had all the others repeatedly. A little part of Catholics from Lumajang met at the beach at Wato Ulo yesterday (with a nun in tow). They used "om" despite the fact that they were manifestly older than me.
But yes, it's the age thing, plus that faint sense of undeserving fraudulence that troubles me about Pak. I discussed this with some youths once, and they maintained that Om fell somewhere between Pak and Mas in terms of age/status, so I guess it's a bit better. Certainly less formal anyway, though you're right riniss, it would be kind of wierd to have a girl call you it on a date.
That reminds me of a funny story…
Ages ago I had one of those episodes that happen in Indonesia when you get a string of endless missed calls on your mobile phone. Just one ring, then gone, from an unfamilier number.
Obviously you should ignore them, but this went on for weeks, and one night when I'd had three of them in a row while trying to sleep I furiously called back and had this ridiculous, conversation with some girl.
Me [angrily]: Why did you call me?
She: I didn't call you, you called me, om…
Me: Where did you get my number?
She: Where did you get my number, om?
Me [angry again]: You've been missed-calling me every day for two weeks!
She: [sweetly] Don't be angry, om, are you angry?
Me [slightly abashed]: I just want to know why you keep missed-calling me. It's late; I'm trying to sleep…
She: Om, you have a funny accent; are you from abroad, om?
Me [angry again now]: *swearword* click….
Then an SMS: Don't be angry ya, om, if I have wronged you. May I get to know you, om?
I did not reply. Don't ever call back if you get these random missed calls… I only mentioned it because she called me om. Sorry; not quite sure what that demonstrates, but something, perhaps…
Post edited 4:46 am – December 19, 2009 by devilkitty
If i were foreigner id prefer to be called "Mas/Mbak" but "Pak/Ibu" at work :p
Koh = if people call you Koh then you look like Chinese. Om/Tante = casual for a man much older than our age. Mas/Mbak = more casual & polite for a man younger/older/same age.. Pak/Bu = formal for older man, or for people on working environment. Tuan/Nyonya = very formal, feudal and so rarely used, usually still be used by maid or driver who work for feudalistic employer. Misterrrrr is umm.. weird but actually a friendly calling for foreigners by Indonesian people who dont meet foreigners too much in their life, ato biasanya panggilan orang2 yg masih "silau bule".
Tim, the phones, I only bought one fairly recently for the relatively good camera/video camera it has so rarely use it for communicating with anyone but did just a few days get a series of sms'es from god knows who which got increasingly angry about me for being sombong for not replying….there was no term of reference in them though as one of them had to ask whether I was male/female.
Pak, depends on your situation a bit, I'm an old married family man, so I don't find getting called pak at all strange, when the person knows me as a family man…..
Koh, doesn't happen often and I certainly don't look chinese Devil (don't make me show you my ugly mug, you've already got my ugly voice), I have theories about it……partly it's a function of being in surabaya (like tim), which is a rather chinese city in many ways….. It can come from people who habitually, all day long, possibly because of their jobs, deal with chinese people all the time and it's just, well, a habit for them to say 'koh'. One chinese lady recently who called me koh did it quite self-consciously, she actually asked me if it was alright to call me koh instead of mister…..in her case it was a deliberate sort of show of solidarity/friendliness or sucking up, depending on your view.
anyway, second theory which ties into the first a little but I'm less confident with, is that it's a way of designating you as 'the other' for Javanese people in this case. He's not like me/us so he gets called 'koh'. – In reference to what I said above, it's surabaya and there are so many chinese and it's just so common to say koh…
Tuan, I got that from an old housekeeper, she was in her 40's and had worked for a dutch family once, she pronounced it like yuan and it sounded pretty funny, at that stage in my life it was utterly ridiculous being called tuan….
timdog: u remind me about when i was in a store they said:"terimakasih TANTE" .I stared at that cashier girl and gave my anger looks.LOL.because i dont like someone called me TANTE *or it is OM if u are a guy*.
seems like im an old lady even they meant to respect me.:(
maybe people call other OM/TANTE because the way "these OM-TANTE people" look like urban people.it could be like that.
for me, i do mind if someone call me tante.
except for the kids *like my nephew call me tante rini, it is ok*:P
sometimes TANTE means negative.lol.an old lady who has fair with young guy *errrr…like aston kutcher and demi moore maybe, lol* he will call TANTE to his old lady.LOL..so that sounds horrible for me if somebody called me TANTE.:P
or timdog, what about if I call u "OM timdog" and we are hangout to somewhere.i bet everyone will have bad thinking of me and u like:"hm..this girl maybe an escort girl who has relations with bule.because she calls that bule OM".as matter of fact, we are just friend who just meet outthere and have chit chat or for cup of coffee.no more, that's it.LOL
mr patung: koh for guy, cik for girl.
and im the victim. everytime i go to store or somewhere, they thought im a chinese so they called me "cik". i just laughed and told them "im not chinese".but they didnt believe me, even i have two big eyes.LOL.that's okay.it gives me the advantages by them calling me "cik" when i was in the store/mangga dua/itc.they would give me big discounts for things i would buy.LOL
riniss said: mr patung: koh for guy, cik for girl.
I know, but I've never been called cik thankfully….
timdog: u remind me about when i was in a store they said:"terimakasih TANTE" .I stared at that cashier girl and gave my anger looks.LOL.because i dont like someone called me TANTE *or it is OM if u are a guy*.
seems like im an old lady even they meant to respect me.:(
How abot meneer? or menir? from old dutch word? that would be funny. I could remember my grandmother who never seen bule since colonial name caucasian with that, that's very funny. She still could remember few dutch language actually.
My uncles from village call caucasian "orang barat" so does my mom.
Patung, welcome to the wonderful world of mobilephonedom in Indonesia. Give your number to one random and there's a fair chance that you'll end up receiving a bunch of SMSs from his/her various friends making no effort to introduce or explain themselves, often as not with nothing more than two words, and not even a name "Boleh kenal?" Um… No…
There are though various prank SMSs that seem just to get sent out to random numbers. Lots of them purport to be from the devil, or something like that, which I personally find hysterical. Potentially much less funny are the ones supposedly from a woman you have wronged. Never received one myself, but someone did once show me a truly blood-curdling one in which the messager talked bitterly about how "neither she nor your unborn child which she was carrying would ever demand anything of you, but how she wished your unfortunate wife knew the truth about you etc, etc…" Obvioius potential for domestic trauma there.
anyway, second theory which ties into the first a little but I'm less confident with, is that it's a way of designating you as 'the other' for Javanese people in this case. He's not like me/us so he gets called 'koh'. – In reference to what I said above, it's surabaya and there are so many chinese and it's just so common to say koh…
It hadn't occured to me, but there could definitely be something in this. The confusion in how to address you as a foreigner is very often apparent, especially if the circumstances don't make the respective status of yourself and the addresser clear: "Sh*t! What the hell should I call him? I'm pretty sure he's younger than me, and he looks like he could do with some new clothes, so I guess Pak's out of the question, but would Mas be too forward? Dammit, I'll just call him Misterrr…"
Using Koh could – in conjunction with the other factors you mention – also be a result of this. Not so much, I suspect, principally as a way of defining you as Other than as a result of confusion about where to place you in the normal hierarchy…
Tante Riniss, you can call me Om, I don't mind. Incidentally, "Uncle" is very widely used in India and Pakistan, with a slightly different inference to Om here (they use both the English word and the local versions, Kaka or Chacha). It's generally an affectionate and informal form of address for someone even slightly older or more senior. I once wandered around the town of Khulna in Bangladesh with two guys of similar age to myself who insisted on calling not only me, but also each other, "Uncle" – "Uncle?" "Yes uncle?" "Uncle, where should we go now?" "Uncle I don't know; let's ask our guest – [to me] uncle?" – to the point where I had to demand they stop…
Farah, yes I forgot meneer. A friend of mine used (when in a relationship with a foreigner) to refer to herself wryly as "Nyonya Meneer". She's cool.
I heard "Orang Barat" much more often than bule while traversing the backroads of Jatim over the last few days actually…
Well for me, all our staff refer to me by my first name but that took some doing and is a earnt respect thing on both sides. As for someone, I don't know Pak is the norm in a business environment or where my/our companies money is at stake. Funnily enough our staff get more concerned than I do, to them to use anything less than Pak in that kind of environment is disrepecting them as much as me and they get most offended.
If a guest at hotel tuan is fine (no different than Sir in the west in simliar situation)
In work environments it's always "Pak", which I don't mind, as all my male colleagues get it, regardless of their origin and/or age. As Oigal says it's just formal and respectful.
I got "Meneer" in Manado, which kind of threw me, as it was from a bunch of very polite school kids. I didn't know Dutch colonialism was so long lasting .
With me, "Tuan" is sometimes used but it has always been in the context of replacing the 2nd person singular, rather than as an extant title.
Pak/Bu is the norm, and the safest way to address someone, in a business environment.
Mas/Mbak is used in more informal situation, or when we've known the people well.
Anyhow, I'm often called 'Teh', the short of 'Teteh' since I am sundanesse…. The pair of Teteh, which is 'Aa', once became very popular following the popularity of Aa Gym. With the declining prestige of Aa Gym due to his polygami scandal, the term Aa is degraded to some extent…… So, I prefer to call a man casually with 'Akang' or 'Kang' now…
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