You Know You’ve Been in Indonesia Too Long When…

Kenneth Yeung lists 100 signs of excessive assimilation by expats in Indonesia.

1. You are no longer surprised to see footprints on the toilet seat.
2. The footprints are your own.
3. You start boarding the plane to Singapore before your row is called.
4. You think you’ll disembark faster by retrieving your overhead bags before the plane has stopped.
5. You bring a dozen packets of Indomie with you on holiday.
6. You stop wondering how a civil servant on Rp8 million a month can afford a BMW.
7. Getting to or from the office in just 50 minutes means traffic wasn’t bad.
8. You confidently say “bisa” when you mean “no.”
9. You respond to text messages with sticker images that would be considered racist in your own country.
10. You politely summon a waiter by shouting “Mas!” from the other end of the restaurant.
11. You fully expect the waiter to respond “habis” to your order.
12. A 300-metre trip involves driving rather than walking.
13. You instinctively apologise for using your left hand.
14. You join a married colleague for drinks and aren’t surprised when he brings his girlfriend.
15. You watch videos on your phone at full volume in public spaces.
16. Your default response to humorous messages is “Wkwkwkwk.”
17. You smoke directly beside the no-smoking sign.
18. “Lagi on the way” has become a statement of intention, rather than a geographical fact.
19. You think queue-jumping is acceptable if you’re sufficiently assertive.
20. You never return from a trip without bringing oleh-olehfor colleagues.
21. You have learnt the hard way that besok can mean tomorrow, next week, or never.
22. You have a growing collection of Grand Lucky, Hero, and Indomaret shopping bags.
23. You habitually touch your heart after shaking hands.
24. You create a YouTube channel to preach your ignorance as wisdom.
25. You ask complete strangers their religion, whether they’re married, and how many children they have.
26. You ask people whether they’ve eaten, even if you have no intention of feeding them.
27. A spoon is more than enough for setting the table.
28. You carry a bottle of minyak kayu putih for every conceivable ailment.
29. You view pavements as valid parking spaces.
30. You pay a parking attendant who didn’t help you park.
31. A price tag is the opening amount for negotiation.
32. You quote prices and exchange rates by silently entering them into a calculator.
33. You share AI-generated videos with deafening canned laughter, convinced they are real.
34. Inhaling lethal air pollution feels normal.
35. You refer to Sweden’s greatest pop group as “A-B-B-A.”
36. You have begun using skin-whitening products.
37. You regard punctuality as a distasteful Western obsession.
38. You put your shopping on the minimart counter to reserve your spot while continuing to shop.
39. You buy air filters for your home and office but still hang out in smoke-filled bars.
40. You have stopped buying toilet paper.
41. You have given up saying, “Back home, we do it like…”
42. You can’t eat a meal without sambal.
43. You can halt oncoming traffic with a fluttering limp wrist action.
44. The top or bottom of an escalator is your preferred venue for a family meeting.
45. You no longer give way to vehicles already on a roundabout.
46. You believe in ghosts.
47. You wonder why the rest of the world isn’t using QRIS.
48. Your favourite bars have disappeared to make way for offices and padel clubs.
49. You stop converting rupiah prices to your home country’s currency.
50. You still have a pile of pirated DVDs of bad Indonesian horror movies from the early 2000s.
51. You appeared in a bad Indonesian horror movie in the early 2000s and are still waiting for better roles.
52. You find yourself carrying cat food to feed strays.
53. You consider a five-minute rain shower sufficient to bring an entire city to a standstill.
54. You regard an electrical socket with no earth connection as perfectly normal.
55. Local beer starts tasting OK.
56. You have a drawer full of takeaway cutlery, sachets, and elastic bands.
57. You no longer remember what blue sky or stars look like.
58. An explosive bout of diarrhoea is just another Tuesday.
59. You have forgotten how to pump gasoline at a fuel station.
60. You factor ‘facilitation payments’ and ‘unreceipted levies’ into your monthly budget.
61. You have become an expert in self-diagnosing masuk angin.
62. You routinely take antibiotics without a prescription.
63. You reach for your wallet when an unlicensed motorcyclist hits your car.
64. You gawp at foreigners from your own country, as if they are aliens.
65. You treat the office to lunch and cake on your birthday.
66. The sight of a plump cat with a full tail strikes you as unusual.
67. You no longer prepare to stop at pedestrian crossings.
68. You respond in Indonesian, even when people clearly want to practice their English.
69. You wait until you’re at the front of the line at the fast-food outlet before deciding what you want to order.
70. You give your Muslim friends Christmas gifts because they expect them.
71. You think Rp400,000 is a reasonable price for a bottle of lousy red wine.
72. You dress for winter when riding a motorbike.
73. You know that the person behind the counter may not actually be able to help you.
74. You regard a government office closing for lunch as an unavoidable fact of life.
75. You think females deserve to be catcalled if dressed ‘immodestly.’
76. You visit a shopping mall and don’t buy anything.
77. Your pet dog spends most of its life confined to a small cage.
78. You avoid Bali because it is full of foreigners.
79. You consider it normal to pay a middleman to renew your driving licence.
80. You relish the sport of barging into a lift or the MRT before passengers can exit.
81. You think of a motorcycle as a family vehicle.
82. You enjoy the crispy texture that plastic adds to deep-fried snacks.
83. You only date pale-skinned Indonesians.
84. Fried rice and instant noodles are a standard breakfast.
85. You bore newcomers with tales of how much better Indonesia was in the 1990s.
86. You get offended when the minimart cashier calls you “kak” instead of “pak” or “bu.”
87. You add “ya” or “lah” to the end of every sentence, ya.
88. You clap at the start of every song you know.
89. In emergencies, you don’t waste time trying to call an ambulance.
90. You don’t know how your washing machine works.
91. You agree that a hijab is more important than a helmet for female motorcyclists.
92. You can squat on your feet for more than a minute.
93. You’re on first-name terms with the staff at your local Immigration office.
94. You’ve memorised the lyrics of the Indonesian national anthem.
95. You expect a neck-and-shoulder massage with your haircut.
96. You find yourself agreeing with street protesters and joining them.
97. Retirement in Indonesia seems a better option than returning to your home country.
98. You enjoy hearing “Hello, Mister!” despite having spent years complaining about it.
99. You consider decades in Jakarta a badge of distinction rather than a symptom of stagnation.
100. You now have Indonesian grandchildren, yet you’re still doing visa runs.

Editor’s Note: Variations of this list have been circulating among expats in Indonesia for over 30 years, with Kenneth Yeung among the earlier compilers in the days of the now-defunct Expat Forum website, so he has freely adapted a few of the best ones from those early lists. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indonesia Expat.