Dealing with my Identity Crisis
Growing up as 1.25 generation Indonesian-born-Chinese-Australian
First, a bit of biography about me.
I was born in Indonesia as a Chinese descent, which makes me an Indonesian-born-Chinese.
What does this mean?
Am I half Indonesian, and half Chinese? Am I Chinese? Am Indonesian? Am I Australian?
Well to make it simple:
My great grandparents are pure Chinese by blood, and they emigrated from China to Indonesia and stayed in Indonesia until I was born.
That makes me a 3rd generation Indonesian-born-Chinese.
Even though I was born as a Chinese descent, that doesn’t mean that I can speak Chinese. Indonesian was the only language I spoke with my family and friends. I also learned English as well at school as it was a compulsory subject, but never used it to communicate to native speakers.
Beginning a New Life in Australia.
I’ve always wanted to study web design but I never had a chance to do it. Indonesia wasn’t known for arts and tech, so my only option was to go overseas.
At the time Indonesia had just gotten out of a economical and political turmoil, so I needed somewhere that wasn’t too far away and or expensive just in case I had to rush home. Australia seemed like the best choice because it was. It’s definitely closer, and upon research the school fees weren’t as expensive as the U.S.
So with the help of my parents’ financial aid, they sent me to Melbourne, Australia in attempt to get a better education.
The first few years living in Australia
I wasn’t scared or worried about living in another country. I was rather excited because I have never lived in another country before, Australia seemed like the best choice because it was.
America ≠ Australia
All I knew about western culture was from watching TV shows, movies, pretty much pop culture so I thought Australia would be similar.
I was so naive I thought that Australia was the same as America. I had to pick up slowly about the new culture, and it was almost like a reset for me. To learn everything from scratch.
Learning English
I’ve always loved learning English, and it was the only subject in high school where I aced the most. I thought I was pretty good at it until I had to use it in Australia.
And it was tough, especially in the beginning. People picked on my heavy mix of Indonesian and American accent, and I didn’t like it. I worked hard to get to where I was, but unfortunately because not only both of my school and tutoring teachers were mostly either from the U.S.A or had American accents, I used to follow a lot of American Pop Culture like their TV Shows, Movies and Music.
So I had to quickly pick up my game to be more accepted.
University life was hard
When I came to Australia, I was surprise that people worked and think by themselves independently. No one would dictate to them what to do and when.
Growing up, all my life I have been dictated to— from what we should do in life, why we’re doing it wrong, how we should think, or what not to say.
At school we were told to copy the writings from the blackboard, and rarely we got to express our opinions on exams. Everything has been decided and we didn’t need to think.
Creative or critical thinking were deemed unnecessary.
So when I moved to Australia, I had a hard time making an opinion piece because I didn’t know how and what to think, or even how to put that in writing. It was a rough journey for me.
Australia. My New Home.
After I finished University, I decided to work in Australia. Even though I got more comfortable speaking English, I was still exploring this new country I’m currently living in and in a way, I was still trying to figure out my own identity because I was lost.
I had an identity crisis, and by picking up these new behaviours and way of thinking I was able to understand myself a little bit more.
Australians are generally friendly
Australians love to meet new people, and they do this is by talking to people around them regardless of their gender, race, age or social status. This makes Australians more extroverted than most Indonesians. They were trained to do this since they were young!
While back in Indonesia, me and the people around me tend to stick to each other and people they already know around them. They get to know new people through connections and mutual friends, and not necessarily random people on the streets.
This type of relationship is almost built from trust, and by meeting new people from the people you know means that we can trust them better than strangers who have no connections to us.
Australians love to hug
This is how they show affection as well as part of being friendly and accepting. This is the norm thing to do, and there is no shame in doing it!
Well Indonesians look at each other and say hi to great others, or wave to each other when you’re lucky.
Indonesia is still quite a traditional country that has strong religious values, because of this, segregation between sexes still exist. Touching the opposite sex with seamlessly harmless acts, such as hugging in public, is frowned upon.
So when I got to Australia, I felt awkward whenever someone gave me a hug. I wasn’t sure how long I should be hugging for, or where I placed my hands or my head, or whether I should add kiss on the cheeks beforehand.
Australians are chill
Australians know how and when to be serious, it’s almost like they have an automatic switch when to do it. For example, the attitude of “it’s not the end of the world” when something has gone wrong unintentionally. It teaches you how to handle a mistake, and that it is alright to not be perfect, or to know everything.
Australians work to live, and not live to work.
Coming from a minority community in Indonesia, we just couldn’t afford making any mistakes. Money is hard to get, and we constantly had to work harder than the majority of Indonesians due to discriminations. Because to this, they stress a lot and this carries on to the next generation.
The word “retirement” doesn’t exist in their dictionary. Work is considered to be more important than life, not to just themselves but to also their children. They don’t want the children to also suffer the same way as them thus making this working culture to end until the rest of their lives.
Australians are not popular for their fashion sense
Although you don’t see this in work situation, the wife beater combined with cargo pants are the uniforms to Australian guys.
Australians tend to prefer comfort than style, and this could be because of the weather as well as the beach-cultured attitude. So even though Australia has 4 seasons, the summer season can be really hot compare to the winter season — no snow unless you go up to the mountain area.
Because of this, people prefer to dress down and more comfortably — in case they need to go to the beach!
In the first few years living in Australia, I dressed down. I wanted to fit in to the society. You know — jeans, t-shirt and thongs (flip-flip for Americans) in summer or ugg boots in winter. Which was very different to how I used to dress back in Indonesia.
Coming from a third world country, I didn’t want to be associated with the more underprivileged families. My family was far from rich, but we were well off enough. In order to do that, I dressed up more — so instead of wearing t-shirt and jeans I would’ve put on dressier outfits as well as branded shoes.
Australian’s search of identity
It makes you different to the rest of the people who like things that are also liked by other people. At the same time, because of this Australians tend to give labels to each groups. “Goths”, “Emos”, “Geeks” and many, many more.
On the other hand, blending in with the group is considered to be appropriate in Indonesia because it means that you’re part of the group and that you’re not selfish. For example, what is currently popular in the country means that you’re most likely will have to like it too because everyone else like it.
They want to fit in with the rest of the community to feel like they belong, and essentially be as cool as everyone else.
Australian’s way of making a joke
Ah, the beauty of sarcasm.
Australian’s humour is quite similar to British, where sarcasm is part of everyday life. To give a better example than the I.T Crowd reference above, let’s just say a friend asked me to bring a book and I unintentionally forgot to bring it the next day.
Me: “Oh, I just realised that I forgot to bring the book today. I’ll bring them tomorrow, sorry!”
Friend: “Yeah, you BETTER be sorry.”
This is done with the appropriate tone and expressions to make this more endearing rather than an insult, but you get the idea.
You didn’t get the idea? That’s ok, I didn’t either. It took me a while to understand this and at first I wasn’t quite sure whether people were being serious or when they were being sarcastic. Most times I took it as an insult.
Australians are good at expressing opinions
Australians are taught to express opinions from a fairly young, even for everyday lives. For example, questioning something is always encouraged. You don’t just accept it without any reasons. You start building confidence when you were young. It’s a good practice.
I struggled with this concept. When I started school and ultimately working in Australia, I didn’t know how to express my thinking verbally, or how to come up with creative ideas. When I did, I didn’t have any confidence in sharing my ideas.
Australians don’t really care about hierarchy
Everyone is on the same level in the eye of Australians. It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, lawyer or tradies, high school students or professors. Humans are humans and they should be treated equally regardless of their status or age. For example, just because someone is older and have more experience in life doesn’t mean that they’re always right.
Growing up in Indonesia, seniority is considered to be an important part of life. For example, we weren’t allowed to question our teachers if we had problems with a system. If it‘s not broken, why fix it?
This caused us to be more of a lamb rather than a shepherd.
What have I learnt?
Looking at the world in different perspectives
Experiencing different cultures has been an eye opener for me and has taught me to be more open minded to my surroundings. I can now pick things up quickly and try to understand cultural differences when I interact with others.
Understanding the tradition and culture will help me find out where they’re coming from and why they do things differently to me.
Life is short and you only live once
Growing up in a third-world country as a minority is difficult. In some cultures, minorities have to work harder than the majority to receive the same level of recognition. Therefore taking risks has greater consequences and is not an option for minorities who can only rely on their family if things go wrong. If we do, we would fall behind and that has consequences for future generations whom would have to suffer with our choices for the rest of their lives.
But I’m an Australian citizen now, and Australia is my new home. Society doesn’t work the same way as how it was back in Indonesia.
As long as one have the rights to live and work in Australia, all people are seen as equals that deserve the same opportunities — despite any differences in race or the country where you came from.
Being proud of who I am and where I came from
While desperately trying to fit into my new surroundings I lost track of who I was. For example, I hung out with Australians rather than with my Indonesian friends because I wanted to speak English fluently. As a result, everyday I gradually spoke less Indonesian because I was too embarrassed to use it in front of others who didn’t speak the language. Hell, it’s so unpopular that most Australians couldn’t even recognise it.
But then after I hung out with other people who have had similar experiences to me, I came to a conclusion that I won’t and will never be able to be like a full Australian who was born and grew up in Australia.
And that is totally okay because this makes me a unique individual — an individual who has gone through the ups and downs of their young adult lives living in another country trying to fit in.
So I take this as a learning experience and use it a foundation in life instead of trying to get rid of it because of I thought they were shameful and embarrassing.
This has shaped me to be who I am now. It’s part of my identity.
