Reflection - East meets West, or does it really?

I read a narrative entitled “East meets West, or does it really?” by Jock Wong for one of my classes. After reading the story, I feel happy because I learn something new from the story. I have learned two things from the story.

First, I learn a new concept related to culture, language, and identity. The concept is cultural differences also refer to the different ways in looking at the same thing. I found this kind of situation in my life. The example is in Indonesia context: when my cousins in Ambon wanted me to make them a glass of ice tea, they asked me directly by saying “adek buatkan kaka es teh dong”, but my Javanese cousins preferred to talk about another thing (e.g. the weather) at the first time, and then, they will ask me to make a glass of ice tea. It shows me how different the people in west part of Indonesia with the people in east part of Indonesia.

In addition, reading the story made me think of the advantage and the disadvantage of being bicultural. The advantage is that we have knowledge about more than one culture. Even though it seems that being bicultural situation is beneficial, but I found a disadvantage of being bicultural in my life. I am confused of my identity. Am I an Ambonese (as my father is) or Javanese (as my mother is)? Not only about the self-identity, has being bicultural also made me not to be able to acquire the local languages my parents have because since I was a child my parents wanted me to use Bahasa Indonesia in order to be able to communicate with both of them.

Finally, the writing is an inspiring story for me.