Javanese 'Unggah-ungguh' and Foreigner Openness

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On my way to my hometown last week, I suddenly thought of this:

What will happen if we combine Javanese unggah-ungguh with Foreigner openness in daily life?

For you who still unfamiliar with, Javanese unggah-ungguh is how we behave to respect older people. So we can position ourselves as younger who need guidance and make us speak politely with them.

This culture has been proven to make the Javanese famous with their politeness because we are respecting each other. The younger respect the older, and the older guide the younger.

But, from my point of view, politeness sometimes can be a big wall that prevents us to express the opinion. Because there is a kind of unwritten regulation said that as the younger we must not "challenge" the older's idea.

If we could see the impact in the future, this habit surely will prevent our development as a person. Because maybe our unspoken idea is what really needed to solve the problem.

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I got the opportunity to work on a company and joined the team which the member comes from all over Indonesia, even there is also foreigner too. Maybe it will make a thought "Can this team become solid with various members' backgrounds in it?".

In real life, instead, my team is known as the solid one compared to the other teams, because we successfully to finished many projects in a short time.

The secret? Because there is a right combination of politeness culture with openness to express and appreciate each other opinion. There is no one who feels humiliated when they express the opinion because everyone knows that it's for a good purpose. In my opinion, the presence of the foreigner in the team is one of the keys to build that good team's solidity.

For information, the foreigner, he is an experienced guy in IT who have many experiences in the various company all over the world. Also, he has already been living in Indonesia for a long time, especially Yogyakarta. So, he is kind like the true example of this article's title. The one who can combine Javanese 'unggah-ungguh' but still can keep their openness for idea and opinion. He spread that good combination to the team and make a great mood in the team.

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I wonder if that good combination can be applied in the everyday life of society. Maybe the number of conflict between each other will go down and down. Everybody still can respect each other and express their idea/opinion.

Me and my team's colleagues have proven it at work, and the impact was really good for our development as a person or team. We can always open with various critics and input, so we can keep learning to improve ourselves to be better and give a good impact on the others.