Integrated

Indonesians tend to be very friendly to foreigners.
I feel very much at home in this wonderful country.

I totally agree with Fred although I can only speak from long first hand experience by my own integration in Bali.  It's good to hear that integrating with the locals is just as easy in the metro Jakarta area.

However, with that said, there is an alarming increase of expats surging into Bali (and I suspect Java as well) who have absolutely no interest in any sort of integration with the locals.  These expats tend to live in all expat housing developments, take no interest in the local culture and learn nothing about it, and they pretty much limit their contact with the locals to those who wash and iron their clothes, fix their meals, tend to their kids, cut their grass and clean their pools.

This segregation by this “new breed” of expats is self imposed and there is no encouragement or suggestions by the locals that they act this way.

These “expat ghettoes” can be found all over southern Bali and the trend is alarming.

Ubudian wrote:

These “expat ghettoes” can be found all over southern Bali and the trend is alarming.

The problem is far less so in Jakarta but many do live in bule bubbles.
They live in some apartment, they pay a stupidly high price to rent, go to work when their driver picks them up, spend eight hours in the office, commonly surrounded by other expats and arrange to go to expat bars, where they probably talk about how all Indonesian girls are either pro or just gold diggers, after their wallet and willing to go to bed with them to get to it.
That may be before or after they have the conversation about how expensive it is to live in Indonesia.

If you live in a sewage farm, you tend to see a lot of poo but totally miss the flower garden next door.

My worst nightmare vision of these bule neo-colonialists is a group of them sitting around the veranda bar at the Canggu Club sipping gin and tonics, wearing pith helmets and khaki shirts all bemoaning their “lazy” domestic help that they pay around $50 US a month.  Part II of my nightmare is the current Russian Invasion which I will leave for another day, but suffice for now to say, that Ivan the Terrible would be proud of his kin lately pouring into Bali like a tsunami. 

I'm always tempted to introduce them to my collection of kris in a most personal, up front manner.   

mas fred wrote:

Ubudian wrote:

These “expat ghettoes” can be found all over southern Bali and the trend is alarming.

The problem is far less so in Jakarta but many do live in bule bubbles.
They live in some apartment, they pay a stupidly high price to rent, go to work when their driver picks them up, spend eight hours in the office, commonly surrounded by other expats and arrange to go to expat bars, where they probably talk about how all Indonesian girls are either pro or just gold diggers, after their wallet and willing to go to bed with them to get to it.
That may be before or after they have the conversation about how expensive it is to live in Indonesia.

If you live in a sewage farm, you tend to see a lot of poo but totally miss the flower garden next door.

I totally agree with Fred.

Being fully immersed into Jakarta where I am the only bule about suits me (Tegal Parang). I used to live in apartments full of expats and it was not that great.
I guess those sent to work here prefer the lifestyle they left whereas those that chose to come here adapt and accept what they have but thats human nature.
If my employer paid me a western salary then I guess I would choose a more western lifestyle but he does not so I enjoy blending east and west. Bintang and Pizza Hut if you like.

When I was working for an Indonesian company in Jakarta mid 1995 I chose to live in Bogor as it was far enough away to not have too many expats and not too far away from work.

With regard to Russian invasion, Pattaya in Thailand is full of them now.