Why is working in Indonesia so difficult?

There are cultural differences between working in "The West" (and by "The West" I don't mean the M4 corridor beyond Swindon), and in Indonesia. The relaxed attitude to productivity, the music and TV in the office, the timekeeping, the socialising, have all made trying to work effectively in my placement very difficult. This is the sort of thing that you can either get used to, or at least put up with - but I've been feeling the cultural differences go much deeper than this.

Now, from an unlikely source, comes some insight. Listening to the podcast of In Our Time, the utterly, utterly brilliant Radio 4 programme about the history of ideas, I heard Jeremy Black (Professor of History, University of Exeter), talking about the reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened in Britain, and not somewhere else:

[Britain had] A culture in which people believe that you should change things, that you should apply knowledge for change. That's really important, whereas many other cultures in the world, and this isn't a racist point, it's a point that notes the dominance of cultural conditioning, do not believe in either the value of change, and do not believe that the purpose of knowledge is to apply it to obtain change. I think that's really crucial in Britain.

[Apologies to Prof. Black if this is not word perfect, I transcribed it directly from the podcast.]

This really articulates what I've been feeling - VSO's commitment to development, as positive change through sharing skills, seems to be at odds with how things are done here. It's as though we've recognised the challenges (there are no problems here, only challenges), but haven't accepted that facing these challenges will need change. It's difficult and immensely frustrating to be in this position.

[In Our Time podcasts can be downloaded here. I can particularly recommend the Industrial Revolution 2-parter, as Melvin Bragg weighs into some robust argument with the other participants. It would never happen in Indonesia.]