Selat Melaka bukan pemisah

So Bapak Presiden is here in Malaysia.

So there had been many issues affecting bilateral relation between the two nations, and somehow they have affected the people-to-people relationship. Somehow, I do think many of them were over-hyped and sensationalized.

Personally, I don't have any problem with the Indonesians per se and I don't think we all do. In fact, I can count on many of them as my friends. Friends who would invite me to their home whenever I was in their town, and friends I would invite for a meal at my own home here in KL.

The writer in Bontang - a remote Kalimantan gas town with a Badak engineer and his family at their home. Nice bungalow with two maids and a gardener, something I can never afford in KL. This is circa 1997, and his name escapes me at this moment. Maaf Pak. Sudah lama kita nggak ngobrol, iya.

If I were to meet them by chance at Sukarno-Hatta, or at any bandara for that matter, many would greet me with a title "Pak Guru." Personally I think the Indonesians are the most polite people (other than Japanese) on the face of the earth and that Malaysians (including me) are typically 180 degrees opposite.

I don't get the same red carpet treatment from anywhere else.

"Pak Guru" with his understudies at the end of a training session at Lemigas in Jakarta, circa 1996.

I should know. I have been frequenting Indonesia since 1994 and have travelled the length and breadth of the country. I am proud to say too that I have done the Friday prayers at many different mosques in Indonesia, more than what I have done in Malaysia. Aceh - the nothern most part of Indonesia, yes I have prayed Jumaat there; Medan, sure. Kg Haraban near Bukit Tinggi, and in Padang too (both in Sumatra Barat), mosques in Pekan Baru, and Dumai (both in Riau), mosques in Palembang, Sumatra Selatan.

In Jakarta, of course the Istiqlal, not to mention other smaller mosques and even in office building. Cirebon, Balongan, Jogja, Bandung are some of the cities I have been having my solat. Banjarmasin, Balikpapan and Bontang in Kalimantan, I have been to all.

I have stayed and do training for one months for their engineers in Jakarta, partially during the fasting month.

I have known one client (who later on became a good friend) - a big sized Batak named Simanjuntak. To be honest, he is perhaps the friendliest person that I have ever met. He would acknowledge me from the other end of Sepinggan Airport when I had only met him once - and everybody looked at me when he shouted my name when he saw me. As if I was his long lost friend!

I remember talking to one by the name of Ricky in the small oil town of Dumai in Riau. He once told me, "Pak Rahman, saya suka sama Ziana Zain, Fauziah Latif dan Ning Baizura." I smiled at him. "Waduh, Pak Ricky, kok suka sama yang cantik-cantik saja," I teased him.

"Well, not really," he responded, "Ning tidak cantik."

He was right (Sorry Ning!). But one can imagine the closeness of the relationship between the people of the two nations.

Another friend, Nurul - he, yes he is a he, is from Madura, told me during a phone chat some eight years ago, how our songbird Siti Nurhaliza was on telly the night before. "I wish she is Indonesian," he said. He was going ga-ga over her singing.

I laughed at him. "Yeah, right. Fat chance we would allow that to happen," I said.

So what's the problem really?

Government to government perhaps?

The one month training in Jakarta in 1997. We did our fasting together too. This is a time when my hair is still black.

EPILOGUE

The title of Pak Guru is just a term of endearment and I know it does not reflect my standing in the industry. I brought it up just to show just polite they are vis-a-vis us Malaysians. That's all.