How bad is being Javanese?

In the late of this century, many believe that the race discrimination is not a problem anymore. Well, there is no exact suppression on the minor ethnic in many areas in the world. Black and White can live together and enroll each position in many field, it is well supported by the winning of Barack Obama in the US election that prove the equality among many ethnics.

However, for me this discrimination is actually still becoming a problem. At least for me as a minor community now in Makassar, one of the city in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. As a new comer here, I absolutely don’t have any idea about people’s culture and habit. I thought it’s not gonna be so hard to adjust since this is in still Indonesia. In fact, it’s totally not true. It’s so hard to adjust with people here.

Lets first talk about the social life here, as long as I know, there are 3 ethnics here which are Bugis, Makassar and Javanese. Most Javanese works in low level likes vendors, sellers in the traditional market and food stall owner. It is like the position of Maduranese in Java that mostly works in traditional market with a rude character. Here, the greeting “Mas” will be refers to the vendors or people that u can ask for help in many buildings. When my father (who is Bugis) saw someone who performs little bit messy, he said “you are just like mas-mas ” which reflects that Mas – mas always be so messy. As my friend here told me, the customers usually calls the seller by “mas” just because the sellers are mostly Javanese.

Today, I met the Head of trade and industry field in Makassar. My friend said he is Javanese, so I asked him “are you from Java”. His face is turned unfriendly while saying ‘ummh, yes I am from Java, but I need to to emphasize that I am from Jakarta’ (Jakarta reflects to the most modern part in Indonesia). I can see from his eyes that he doesn’t want to be considered as Javanese. Then, I started to ask myself ‘is it bad being Javanese here’

I don’t mean to be so sensitive in responding many phenomenons that I found during my new living here. But those make me remember that in many parts in the world, perhaps there are still negative stereotype that stigmatizes certain community or ethnics. Like how people in Columbia warns me to be careful with Black because they usually are sensitive because of their hard condition. Or how my parents warns me to not have relation with some certain ethnic because they usually have more than two wives.

At the end, I come to the conclusion that I am so proud of everything I have in my life. Ethnics doesn’t mean anything except the heritage. So who cares that you are Javanese, Chinese, Bugis, Makassar, Sundanese or Maduranese? I think only a man with a narrow mind can categorize people in such boxes.