Home » Practical Information » Expat Stories

Question: "Is it impolite to leave the gayung floating in the water of the bak mandi?"

Responses:

Yes = 4
No = 1 (but he changed his mind under cross-examination)
Neutral = 1 (but admits the correct thing to do is to take it out of the water).
Irrelevant Tangent = 1 (well, two if you count beck's response).

I think it's clear. The answer is YES, it's rude to leave the gayung floating in the water. Now get out there and spread the gospel to the unwashed heathen masses (well, I guess they must be washed, but that's beside the point).

A synopsis of the results:

Anak Laut: neutral. Correct is upside down on the side of the bak mandi, but maybe Indonesians don't care. This may be some people's pet peeve. [very insightful of you AL].

Joko: No. leave it any which way, no one cares (but under cross examination he acknowledged that it pissed his mom off to leave it floating in the mandi water). [extra credit for honesty, Joko]

PJ: Yes. PUT IT BACK ON THE MANDI [clearly a pet peeve, yes?]
Marina: Yes. Put it back on the mandi or it gets slimy, and slime is never polite. [with all due respect, Marina, I can think of one instance when a lack of "slime" could be construed as not being polite, . . . sort of.]

Dani: Yes, put it right side up on the edge of the bak mandi. She then reminded us of the old coconut shell dippers. [yes, I still see those sometimes in my travels].

Stone Age: [irrelevant tangent]. doesn't matter because only backwards people in backwards places use the traditional bathroom. Joko and Stone Age then mixed it up for a bit and digressed into discussions of Jerry Yang.

Finally, my response, as if you couldn't guess.

Me: YES, PUT IT BACK ON THE SIDE YOU PIGS. WHAT IF I HAVE DIRTY OR SOAPY HANDS, HUH? HOW THE HELL WILL I GET THE GAYUNG OUT WITHOUT GETTING THE WATER GROSS? SPEAKING OF WHICH, HOW THE HELL DO YOU DO IT? YOU MUST BE THE ONE GETTING THE WATER ALL CLOUDY AND GROSS AREN'T YOU?!!!!! ADMIT IT!!!

The complete responses, just for the sake of thoroughness.

Posted by Anak Laut on March 25, 2001 at 09:07:32:

: "is it impolite to leave the gayung floating in the mandi water?"

you mean floating in the kamar mandi ? of course it's impolite... because it means you flood the kamar mandi ... but if you mean floating in the .. uh .. the water container (it's something with 'mandi', but it's definitely not 'air mandi'.. I can't remember) Well, the right thing to do is to leave the gayung upside down on the side. I don't think Indonesians really care about how you put the gayung, but it could be someone's pet peeves.

Posted by joko on March 25, 2001 at 09:21:31:

You mean "Bak Mandi", answer is nobody pays attention to details as such, but..
My mom prefer to keep it neat on top of the Bak Mandi. Hei MS mandi cepat2x

Posted by PJ on March 25, 2001 at 23:58:36:

I hate it when it's in the water ... !
Without a doubt, my answer is an emphatic 'put it on the bak mandi'!
I just asked my Indonesian husband and he said, "kalau di atas air tidak sopan."
Different answer from Mas Joko though ...

Posted by joko on March 26, 2001 at 03:21:14:

I guess ur right, no wonder my mom always yell at me.

Posted by Stone Age on March 28, 2001 at 01:47:33:

Do you live in stone age or something? Unless you live in a far away and poor village, no one uses that mandi anymore?

Posted by joko on March 28, 2001 at 08:34:53:

absolutely, unless you don't live in JKT.
And the pool read: if it is not pertaining you, do not answer!!

Just curious, do you live in a high tech house?/ silicon valley resident?
If so, check it out even Jerry Yang is bringing out the trash can himself, every monday evening!
And if you don't know who he is then don't be a snob, calling us stone age living etc.

Posted by Stone Age on March 28, 2001 at 22:03:01:

what's jerry yang got to do with dippers
fyi, met jerry yang and his "lieutenants" 2 yrs ago. we ended up putting more venture money in one of his acquisition targets.
anymore questions about jerry yang, backward boy?

Posted by Marina on March 26, 2001 at 00:51:52:

Yes, it goes slimy and slime is never polite

Posted by Dani on March 26, 2001 at 16:38:46:

Remember Batok Kelapa dippers?

Remember when the dipper (gayung) was made of a coconut shell and not plastic ... wasn't so long ago!

Now, think of that coconut dipper floating around in the water day after day and you can easily see why people were told to keep the dipper out of the water after use.

In my hubby's family his mom (great matriarchal type) insisted the kids bring the batok kelapa outside the bathroom after use and hang it up ... so that it could dry out between uses!

VERY different world with all the plastic now. BTW ... it our house we keep the dipper on the ledge of the bak mandi ... and turned open side up. If you turn it upside down ... yucky mold could grow inside too :(

Wow ... interesting stuff in this thread :) What's next!!

This Web Poll has been solicited and compiled for you courtesy of MS ... a Expat Forum regular!!