Anyone who has undertaken activities requiring exact communication in foreign lands has stories to tell. Often they have a few more gray hairs than usual, too. There seems to be an interesting and sometimes disastrous disconnection between what is said, what is heard and what happens next. No matter how much detailed instruction is given, there is always space for individual interpretation.
Of course, giving less instruction leaves much more room for interpretation.I remember a story told to me by a Canadian diplomat posted to Delhi a couple of decades ago. She lived in a big old house and the kitchen was in a hut at the foot of a large garden. Weather permitting, she loved to have breakfast on the garden terrace, savouring the exotic ambience and the excellent tea. Only one tiny flaw rendered her breakfasts imperfect. The toast was always cold.
Those of us of a certain age and raised in the traditions of the Commonwealth are familiar with the dubious British practice of serving toast in little silver racks. Although attractive, it ensures that the toast is not only cold, but flabby. Very disappointing if one is looking forward to a slice of crisp, hot toast with butter melting into it.
This lady’s cook was an old Brahmin who had been trained in strict British tradition. The leap from cold toast to hot seemed too great. He gazed in puzzlement down his elegant nose at her as she tried to explain the concept, but the silver toast rack continued to bear its limp and chilly payload every morning.
Then one day the bearer proudly presented toast that was actually warm. Not hot enough to melt butter, but appreciably warmer than previously. The lady was delighted, and decided to reinforce her approval with a visit to the kitchen hut. She strode through the garden and paused at the kitchen door. The cook, bare to the waist, was frying her breakfast eggs. He was carefully holding a slice of toast under each arm.
This example of imperfect communication may suggest that extremely detailed instructions will circumvent such misadventures. However, it seems that there will always be room for the listener to add some individuality. This appears to be especially true in Bali, as anyone who is involved in production can attest. One can direct the tukang to make an item exactly like THIS, paint it a certain shade of yellow with a special brush and have it ready on Tuesday. When he delivers it (on Friday) he is quite hurt by our cool reception. After all, we didn’t tell him NOT to paint little blue hearts all over it. The lady didn’t tell the cook NOT to keep the toast warm in his armpits. Since we didn’t give them a complete brief, they don’t consider themselves in the wrong; they have merely been imperfectly instructed.
After a while you become a little neurotic about giving obsessively detailed instructions and wondering what still can go wrong. It’s amazing how a producer can add individual touches in ways that would never in a hundred years occur to you. I’ve heard stories from designers and exporters who have ordered several thousand somethings all exactly the same, and come back later to find that they were either not the same as each other or measurably different from the sample. This can be disconcerting when you are packing a large Christmas order.
The Balinese have these issues too when making products here. My pembantu Wayan and the women in her village weave stunning laundry baskets from lontar palm. Wayan was delighted to get an order for 6 big baskets, and we carefully planned the production. I took a photograph of the sample basket to show the design, enlarged it and had it laminated. Wayan bought the correct materials and I made a sketch of the finished basket with exact measurements. Wayan delivered all these to her friends and gave them full instructions.
A week later she arrived at work with a stricken expression, sat down and put her head on the table. “What’s the matter with these people?” she wailed. They had made the baskets in different sizes, with the wrong motif and had added a few hot pink touches of their own. But it was rather gratifying to learn that the communication gap spanned all communities.
So I was particularly careful when instructing Nyoman about my gate before I went away for a few days. He had carved a nice sign that said Ibu Cat, and I asked him to repaint the double Balinese gate and attach the sign. Even after all this time it did not occur to me to say, “Do exactly this and no more. Do not use your initiative. Do not try to make it better. Just paint the gate and hang up the sign.”
I don’t know where he found that particular shade of red, but it certainly makes the house easy to find. The Balinese are sensitive about balance, and Nyoman was evidently uncomfortable that one panel of the gate had a sign and the other did not. So he carved a companion piece that said ‘House’ and hung it on the other panel. He was terribly pleased with himself. I still can’t bring myself to explain that my bright red entrance declaring ‘Ibu Cat House’ now resembles a bordello. It wasn’t his fault; he had been imperfectly instructed.
