Culture #1: Can I take picture with you, Mister?

My friends and I on the slope of Mt. Merapi, Yogyakarta

As a non-Indonesian person who are visiting tourism places like the temples, did you often experience that question? I guess your answer is YES :D

It is common for me to hear stories from my international friends that they had stop every few meter because local people asked them to take picture. In the first time, some of my friends thought that the local people asked help to take picture of them (maybe because everybody wants to be in the picture). NO. They don't want the help of taking picture. They want the foreigners to be IN the picture.

Some foreigners will easily say yes. My friend said it made him felt like celebrity :D Besides that, there was always smiles on their faces after the photo session so it made him happy as well.

But, others also said no because, yeah, if you already said yes to one person, the others would start to ask you for more pictures. Then, you couldn't enjoy the place and just standing there staring at the camera lens. That's the risk for being celebrity :P

Q: Why is that? Why everybody want to take picture of us?
A: Well, I don't really know their personal reasons. But I will tell you some general reasons...

The Minimum Contact with Foreigners

For many people, they only see foreigners on the TV and never really meet them in real life. When they have encounter with foreigners, they are extremely amazed; by the skin color, height, nose shape, eyes color and shape, and other differences. They rarely see differences and it makes them interested. So, when they meet foreigners, they want to still-frame that moment. As the result, foreigner become the object for the pictures.

Well, let me tell you that I used to be like that as well; taking pictures with foreigners. However, after awhile, I start to have international friends and the 'picture, picture' habit started to be lessen and finally gone. Because I have regular contact with foreigners, inter-country encounter becomes a common thing. I don't feel any urge to store every encounter in pictures anymore. For some people, this encounter is something special because they have minimum or maybe zero contact with foreigners :)

The Idea of Beauty

Almost every month, we have new Hollywood movies played in the theater. Most of the actors have tall body figure, beautiful white skin, wonderful blonde or brunette hair, and dramatic blue or green eyes (opposite, most of Indonesian have black hair, dark brown eyes, and brown skin). Same thing is also seen on the TV. However, the main point that many people want here is the white skin. Moreover, the commercials shown on the electronic box often say that beauty is white. That's why, when local people see someone with white skin, it is like,'Oh my God, they are very beautiful human-being!'


However, in my opinion, Indonesian is easy to be amazed and loves to keep it in a picture. Maybe it is because everybody is amazing....

So, prepare your very beautiful smile because photo session is waiting :D