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| Ngarai Sianok, Bukittinggi, February 2025 |
I met Rahmat of Bukittinggi by chance near his house, which is by a small suspension bridge across the canyon and close to the hotel I was staying in. He brought me on a small walking trip to Kotogadang village and the next day he was biking me up and down West Sumatra. The first thing I noticed about him and his family (his brother and mother were there) was how casually and directly they asked you to part with your money. The second thing was that he seemed to know every living soul in Kotogadang. “Do you know everyone in this village?” I asked him. He replied: “I don’t. I just greet everyone I see.” For Saturday and Sunday I tried doing the same as him. When we saw an elder, we nodded and said “pak” or “bu”. If they were about our age, we said “abang”, “kak”, and so on.
On Sunday we came across some spots where, according to Rahmat, gotong royong was happening. This was where, for example, a tree has fallen across the street, and the whole village would be there to help clear up the mess and direct traffic. Naturally, there would be a kid holding up a cardboard box to me, and Rahmat would encourage me to stuff cash into it. You could hear about gotong royong in Singapore as something that happened in the remote past; the generations above mine would remember what it is – the idea of a community coming and working together, but those of my generation and later have hardly heard it. Perhaps, this was something that got left behind when the villages of Singapore were demolished and the people were moved to public housing, and, as affluence grew, we forgot even to greet our neighbours.
In Singapore, we are very used to seeing the world in terms of status markers. Good manners is no different. When we see people being graceful, we say they have “refinement” and are of “high class”. This way of understanding fell apart in Kotogadang, where people act so gracefully to one another yet the kid over there gets bowled over when you hand her 50k rupiah (4 SGD). What could be missing here?
The fundamental point of having good manners is LOVE. We do this also because God is Love. Has Dumbledore whipped the dead horse to death yet? Yes? Even so, I’m going to have my turn at it now.
Humanity is set up so that the other is always a part of our lives. Could it have been any different? Coral polyps can live an entire life of leisurely existence sessile, eating whatever the ocean currents shove right in front of their mouths, and release gametes on their own when mating season comes. Some animals live their whole lives alone – for reproduction, the male octopus can leave a spermatophore under the rock somewhere and the female octopus can come along later to pick it up, and they never have to meet. Humans are afforded no such luxury. We have the other and if the other is absent from our lives, we go batshit. And living with the other means we are constantly acting out of each other’s best interests. And so much of it is made up with the small things we do to make the lives of others more pleasant.
The best part of this idea is that many other good habits in life can be rephrased to serve this end: If I dress up well before leaving the house, it is not to puff myself up and let people know how rich I am, but to make it more pleasant for people who I will meet. If I work hard, it is not just for my renumeration, but for the hope that the fruits of my work will benefit the public. If I land hits on my sparring partner at the dojo, it is not so that I can hurt them, but to say to them that they deserve my best.
A lot of why I joined the Work is its insistence that our daily lives are paths to sainthood, that one is not obliged to line up the weekends with endless devotions, retreats, or constant basking in deep religious feelings. The spirit of the Work taught me that small things are bigger than big things, like how the small instances of good manners add up to Charity, the greatest of the virtues.
