West VS East

If we talk about stereotype among people in this world, the problems would be complicated. It is caused by different background of someone will cause different perspective of something, for example American look at Indonesian’s culture is still primitive. In this journal, I am going to tell you about the stereotype of east people about west people. In this case, west is United States, and east is Indonesia.

People of Indonesia have so many different perspectives about United States. Before the globalization era, united states had already become the most modern country in the world, and because of that, people over the world imitate their behaviors, cultures, religion, and so on. Until now, United States is still become the reflection of another Europe country, Asia, Africa, and Australia. And now we have a question for people of Indonesia, what are your opinions about United States?

People of Indonesia see the influences of west culture and way of living in this modern world. The first stereotype is people of Indonesia think that west culture is modern, and it is suitable to be adopted. As we look around us, people are heading to west culture in doing their activities, for instance my friend, Tony cuts his hair with punk style, like west rock singer, whereas not all west rock singers have punk style hair. Another example is style of dressing. In Indonesian’s mind, foreigners usually wear gown with expensive jewelry that can show their self-confidence, social class, and charming.

            The second is west styles of living are so exclusive even they always show up their expensive jewelries in their body. With this kind of style of living, it is hard to be adopted in Indonesia because it is not as modern as United States. We can see from foreign people in Bali that live in Indonesia for years or months have exclusive life. They usually rent for an high class apartment and they eat regularly in high class restaurants. If we see in a real situation in the United States, there are so many poor people who eat poorly; they have small house, work as farmer, street singer, or flower seller. This kind of stereotype appears around people of Indonesia because they only see several foreign people who come to Indonesia, and the exchange rate is also different.

            In brief, the stereotypes that appear from people of Indonesia are like judgment. People of Indonesia think west are the best, the richest, the most modern in every aspects of life. Actually, they are not like what people of Indonesia think of them. Not all wests’ cultures are modern, and not all styles of living are exclusive in the United States (west).