It took me a bit to answer
I gotta say that so far I never had any real problems with the law or government institutions or with the workers. Most of them were friendly and if you meet some government workers with a bad mood, that is nothing too special in any country of the world I guess.
That being said, I still don't have the impression that the laws concerning expats are reall expat friendly, even if you a married to a local person. Sure, usually nobody stands in your way if you fought your way through bureaucracy and have all the documents complete but that's about it. Even as someone who is married to a local I wouldn't say I feel totally save here in terms of protection by the law. Iam not thinking about that permanently or live in fear or something like that
, but if someone asks me about I would say I don't feel that safe. I have the feeling that you can never be sure about what the next thing is that makes your life a bit more difficult. Even though it got a lot better in terms of corruption, I still feel that some people still can do too much what they want or make it difficult for you.
I can understand that much of this comes from the conolization trauma and things like that.
In general my fear is that things might get worse. Since the world in general isn't likely to see better times in the future. I also feel like many governments and societies get more comfortable in using all kind of and agreeing with all kind of extremism. I may sound a little bit pessimistic here and I don't claim this as the truth, but it is my gut feeling.
For the people of this country, I really never had a problem with anynone here (except with my neighbor a few months ago, but that was the only problem I ever had). I think that is just due to my personality. Iam easy to adapt and I treat everyone friendly and with respect. I respect the culture and rules, don't look down on people and would never disrespected someone or something on purpose as long as people don't push for it.
Some people here said they don't wanna mix too much with locals or like to live in their bubble in terms of recreating the culture that they are used to. I think everyone should just do what they want with their life, it is fine by me and as long as we respect each other and follow the law no one should tell someone how to live.
That being said, I was never the most social person and Iam more of a loner but i have some good Indonesian friends, they mostly live in Jakarta so I seldom see them since we live in Batam. Even though Iam more of a loner I still like people in general and Iam happy to have a talk with whoever wants to talk but Iam in most cases not the conversation starter. In Indonesia it is nothing special to get approached by locals who are interested in you. Last time I talked in german with my daughter, we were on the playground, and some other man came to me and talked in german.
He said he studied in Germany years ago, we had a quite long conversation.
Although I also gotta say that these occasions became lesser from when I visited the first time i 2008. My gut feeling comes up again
, I have the personal feeling that some people take more distance now towards foreigners and also towards people with a different religion. Maybe Iam wrong here, but I can't shake the feeling. That goes kinda hand in hand with the feeling that many people get more attracted to extreme ideas.
Overall I get along with most people. My wife is of chinese ethnic and although some Chinese tend to be a little bit arrogant and stuff, our family is not. Without wanting to brag I can say that we are friends to some of the richest but also some of the poorest familys here and we always had friends with vastly different backgrounds. If you know a bit about Indonesia then you know that a Chinese/Bule couple is probably often seen as the epitome of money and arrogance. Both of that is not us.
Oh and like Bad_azz said, I also never was someone who actively seeked contact with other expats. I don't even know any expat besides the people here in this forum. I also not actively choose to not know expats but maybe I just was never in these circles so far and I don't actively force it. The only expat I know is the husband of our niece, he is from India.
Well i already talked quite a lot of uninteresting stuff
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The only things I want to add is what others already said. Stay respectful, don't get into the kind of trouble that gets you involved with the law and surly stay away from drugs.