SOFTSKILL

NAJIHATUL FITRI
15611084
4SA01

Influences of Western Culture on Indonesian Adolescents

It is often said that to annihilate a country does not need any tanks, guns, or millions of soldiers.  What is needed then to conquer a country?  The answer to the question is simple, that is,  by making its young generation or adolescents forget their culture(s).  In this sense, culture means various ways of life, characters, and identities which are  important for a nation.  It can be reflected in the society, that is, the people who live in a country.

A really dangerous situation created by Western television shows, social networks like facebooks and twitters, films, political systems/issues, and even “religions” which are irrelevant to Indonesian culture.  In this context, we may find McDonald’s almost everywhere in Indonesian key cities, open for 24 hours, and pretty busy all the time, which is good on one hand.  On the other hand though, it may simply mean the death of our traditional foods like nasi goreng andbakso.

The death of our traditional culture can also be seen in relation to the culture of politeness in which Indonesia is very good at.  Yet, many Indonesian adolescents have abandoned this culture; they are no longer polite because of the influence of the so-called Western movies, musics, and literary works.  This also happens in other cultural forms which are unique to Indonesia.  Most young generation of Indonesia has already fogotten them; Indonesian youths are now even more western than eastern because of a very strong influence of the Western culture on their daily lives.

There could be several reasons for such phenomena.  The first is that our teenagers usually need new things. Unfortunatey, Indonesian culture does not generally offer such new things as much as Western culture does.  In other words, Western culture fits Indonesian teenagers well, especially adolescent girls who usually try to imitate how Western people dress up.   The second is that in general Indonesian teenagers feel curbed by their tradition that cannot give them better life.  Because of this feeling, they try to satisfy themselves by adopting Western culture that they believe is full of new things created by their customs and traditions. The third is that teenagers generally want to appear differently by adoting new customs with new life styles.  They believe that such life styles would satisfy them, make them more joyful and creative.  They also believe that those life styles are suitable to be imitated.