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Teacher-student Relationships
During my year at high school in Australia, I had an up and
down emotional feeling. I was up when I was excited to do new
challenging activities like when I went bush walking with my teachers.
I was the only student who went with them after the activity was advertised
on the school notice board. My relationships with my teachers were excellent.
They treated me really as a friend as well as a student. I felt like
I was looked after but still given my freedom to convey what my opinion
was. And this was when it came to the difference between Indonesian
teachers and Australian teachers. Indonesian teachers are all very friendly
on any matters that they can help you. But one thing though, they
rarely mix their school life with their home-life. You cannot just
easily go to their house and socialise and maybe discuss homework with
them. Even though one or two of them do. In Indonesia, it really
depends how you approach the teachers. If they like you, you can
always visit them at home. But if you are not very close the conversation
only relates to school.
Basically, the relationships that we built in my homestay, at school
and with people in the community taught me a lot.
(Illy, Sydney)
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The Stranger
I stayed in a student house in Ontario, Canada with 4 other students.
One of them has a seven-year-old daughter named Justine. For the
first 3 weeks, Justine didn't want to speak to me and was very unfriendly.
I didn't know what was wrong. I didn't tell her father about it as I seldom
saw him at home.
One day, however, I happened to have the chance to talk to her father
and Justine was also there at the time. Her father said "Harto, I'm
very sorry, but I forgot to introduce my daughter to you. Justine,
this is Harto". I shook hands with her and said "Hi Justine, nice
to meet you". "Nice to meet you, too Harto", she replied. After her
father introduced her to me, she talked to me and we became close.
Just then I realised the cause of the problem. She considered me a stranger
and she had been told it was dangerous to speak to a stranger. After her
father introduced her to me, I wasn't a stranger anymore, so she dared
to speak to me, and even became my close friend.
(Harto, ADS 3B)
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Comparing Supervisors
Based on my observation (and my experience), relationships between
students and supervisors can vary in terms of formality.
I met my supervisor almost every day, because we worked in the same
lab. My relationship with my supervisor was like a relationship with
a friend. When I needed help, I went to his office and asked him
to come to the lab to look at my work. Appointments were not really
necessary. Students and supervisors in my faculty often went
to the bar together on Friday evening and we always celebrated students'
or a supervisor's birthday.
I had two friends who were studying at the Faculty of Education.
Their relationship with their supervisor was more formal. They had
to make an appointment to meet their supervisor and they worked in their
own office. Students who worked in the lab cooperated more with their supervisor
as well as with other fellow students.
(Pharma,UNUD, ex-Deakin Uni.)
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In the Doghouse
We have an expression in English for when the wife is angry at the
husband and is punishing him by ignoring him or making him sleep in another
room. We say that the husband is "in the doghouse", suggesting he
has been banished to sleeping with the dogs. (Interestingly, there
is no equivalent expression for husbands being angry with wives!)
Often, when you ask a husband what he did to deserve being in the doghouse,
he says he doesn't know. So either the husband is insensitive, of
the wife has misread his behaviour.
Then people look at the behaviour of others, whether they are spouses,
friends or strangers, in both cross-cultural and intra-cultural relationships,
I believe there is always an assumption that those other people
think the same way that you do, and therefore that their behaviour has
the same meaning as it would have if you yourself did it. This is
a mistake, commonly made by husbands as well as wives. All people
have different understanding and experiences, which lead them to see things
differently, and behave differently. This is especially true if people
have different cultural backgrounds.
It requires a lot of openness and flexibility for any two people
to understand each other well. I think that people should ask themselves,
'What is my partner's intention or purpose in doing this thing that irritates
me?' The answer will rarely be that their intention is a bad one.
If partners can see that the intentions on both sides are positive, there
will be a better basis for building understanding and compromise.
(Vlad, IALF)
Saving Face
John, from England, is married to Tuti, from Jakarta. He talks
about 'saving face'.
If my wife feels she's in a position where she has to acknowledge
she's wrong, she'll try and catch me out. She will admit she's wrong
if forced to, but will try and blame me in the process. So, I try
not to put her in the position of having to admit she's done something
wrong. This means that she 'saves face', i.e. isn't embarrassed.
Family Relationships
Budi was an exchange student in Australia when he was in high
school.
First when I arrived, I settled in okay although in the first three
months I had this feeling of homesickness. However it gradually disappeared
and I became closer to them. My father and mother were the ones who
made me feel part of their family and I was like a son to them. The
fourth child was a daughter who had been on exchange in Malaysia so we
could communicate a little in Malay. The youngest daughter, Kate,
seemed to find it harder to accept me as a member of the family as she
didn't talk freely to me. I tried to ease the situation when I talked
to her but sometimes she became moody. Tony the second youngest was
also the same. Sometimes she got jealous of the way her parents treated
me. So sometimes I had to be careful and keep considering her feelings.
But it really was different with Alison, Kate's older sister who played
and talked to me more often than the others. I missed her the most
when I left. She gave me a farewell card that I only could open on
the plane home. "It will not be the same anymore after you leave
us" . |
