The land of smiles

I had heard many times before coming to Indonesia that in this country everyone always smiled and people were extremely friendly. It was when I finally got here that I understood what that really meant. A smile here is just a common feature of the people, a law followed by one and all. The linguistic implications of smiling surpass any words or sentence structures, and here a smile is literally worth one thousand words.

As a newcomer in this country, I keep trying to decipher the language in order to communicate, but I have started to realize that I already know many of the common expressions used by the locals. I asked my neighbors “How do you say ‘nice to meet you’?” and they replied that there wasn’t a direct translation for that phrase; instead of saying it, you just smile and show the other person that you are pleased to have met him/her. I asked a coworker “How do you say ‘have a nice day’?” All she could think of was “smile!” That’s how you wish someone a nice day. My Bahasa Indonesia just keeps getting better every day!

I think of all the empty phrases that people repeat mechanically without actually meaning anything. Often you hear at the cash register in a store “have a nice day,” and the person uttering those words doesn’t even look at you when saying it. Sometimes you don’t even reply because their repetitive character seemed to have lowered their register and erased their meaning. What a difference it makes when you look at someone and just smile. It actually makes you more prone to having a nice day!

New Indonesian friends