Approaching New People

Talking about the way of approaching new people and also about polite and impolite question, actually we are talking about a standard. As we already knew, different country and different culture have the different standard. That’s why we have to understand other’s culture standard in order to avoid misunderstanding about we as Indonesian people with the foreigner.
I met a friend from Medicine Faculty according to this matter. Her name is Ng Hui Ying. She is a Malaysian Chinese who studies in semester three at UGM. She told me that in her culture, it is so important to keep the privacy of people there. We can’t do or say something to them as we want without asking their permission. It is really contrast with our culture where someone used to ask everything about people even the one who they just meet.
In Indonesia, it is common to invite the new people to come to our house for dinner or just little discussion. But in her culture, it is a bit strange to do that. Because they just invite someone to their home if there is an important thing to talk. She told me that if you bring your boy friend to your home, it means you want to marry him. But it is different case if you bring your friends for only having fun at your home.
If we ask people there about their family or their job, it is polite. Also when we ask them about religion, it is still polite. Because there are so many believes, so they will tolerate about the difference of believe. But it is not polite ask them about age. They will be very annoyed, especially the ladies.