Will share my thoughts and experience once I have experience this for a few months.

But a common words of wisdom from some of my Malaysian colleagues working there is to spend time to understand them first before doing anything.

Malam Mas. Kamu apa kabar. Gimana kehidupan kamu sekarang pas disana. Bisa cocok beradaptasi dengan kehidupan disana.

Aku mikirin kamu mesti udah bisa berbicara pake bahasa indonesia.

Penasaran dong mas. Jangan marah marah ye

This post has been edited by kesvani: Sep 5 2024, 11:09 PM

Sore Pak.

I can comfortably read most of their emails but once they start conversing I lose track of what they're trying to say. Conversing is still quite a challenge. Still trying to learn.

Food wise, loving the Sundanese food,though my colleague like to sit in the floor type. Don't know how time I got the kaki kebas.

So far so good, but I do get frustrated by some local admin matters.

me too. Ngobrol gampang mas karna kita bisa pikir ketika baca. Kalau bicara udah jadi susah karna kita mau dengarin ngomonganya dan pikir pada waktu yang sama.

Jangan campur aduk artinya ya mas karna meskipun katanya sama tapi artinya beda kaya kata bahasa Indonesia percuma itu artinya gak ada guna tapi arti percuma di malaysia itu gratis😆😆😆

Ini mesti pake terjemahan.

This post has been edited by kesvani: Sep 9 2024, 09:07 PM

Thought I just give a 6 months update here:

1) My area is pretty much a manufacturing hub, so loads of Japanese companies here. Hence locals here quite used to seeing foreigners

2) Imported goods are generally more expensive here, which is why I do any large purchase back in Malaysia. Only exception is phone because you have to pay a certain amount of taxes for a foreign phone to use local sim card

3) I hate sitting on floors to eat, but the locals love it.

4) Demonstration and strikes are pretty common in companies. Some with reasonable demands (usually labour unions) and sometimes the local groups want pressure companies to do business with them (even locals hate these local groups because they know they just want easy money from ali baba arrangements)

5) Night scene is bizarre. Being able to speak bahasa means you get access to the locals night scene at local prices.

6) People here are friendly, but that also means that they freely talk to random people they meet on the streets just about anything

7) As such, there are no secrets.

8) I wonder why do they need to hire expats to fill some middle management role here, and after working with some of them here, I do realize they're mostly used to the Japanese style of working (i.e. they expect their higher ups to give instructions). European/American style working where you give the destination and objective and they're expect to path their own strategy is a new thing.

They're also extremely hierachial. Your subordinates will never give their own ideas. Collaboration between staff of multiple ranks is foreign to them.

Since they're hierachial, job title is extremely important to them. You still see some habits where managers dismiss some supervisors opinion on the basis of their rank.

Feel free to ask me anything on working in Indonesia, but I have to say, Indonesia is an extremely large and diverse country. Working in different area will have different experience.