Sun, Sep 21, 2025 page8

• The hidden frictions of migrant life

  • By Gita T
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  In debates over why some Indonesian migrants struggle to adapt to different cultures abroad, the hijab is often seen as the flashpoint. Cases from Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Japan show that domestic helpers or caregivers insist on wearing long jilbab or looser robes. Non-governmental organizations defend this as a case of religious freedom — and they are not wrong — but they rarely account for the host’s perspective. Clothing is not neutral; it carries an atmosphere. In intimate spaces, a full-body cover can be perceived as distance or silent judgement.

  This tension is striking given that jilbab and burqa are not part of Indonesia’s historical tradition. Twenty years ago, Islam in Indonesia was widely viewed as moderate, which was reflected in clothing. After the political reform movement following the Asian financial crisis in 1997 — religiosity surged. Gulf scholarships and da’wah (an Arabic word meaning spreading the true message about Islam) networks brought stricter dress codes. By the 2010s, jilbab and even a niqab, a scarf that covers most of the face, were visible in provincial capitals and peri-urban areas. They spread not as continuity, but as adoption — borrowed symbols repurposed without their original Gulf cultural scaffolding.

  The adoption was due to unstable economies and thin national identities, as people defaulted to the closest form of belonging, such as family, tribe and religion. A jilbab is a low-cost signal: I am protected, I belong, I carry moral authority. In the Gulf, it is continuity. In Indonesia, it is defense.

  This defensive logic is not limited to clothing. At home, it shows up as “poverty pride”: Doubling down on dignity rather than bending. Abroad, it can look like refusing tasks or lobbying to bring relatives into the job. These are not random acts of entitlement — they are a dignity defense, carried into new contexts. What looks like stubbornness to hosts is often just armor.

  Armor radiates. Anyone who has sat in a cafe in Indonesia beside a group of jilbab wearers knows the energy it generates. Employers abroad feel the same atmosphere — even if unnamed. The discomfort is not hatred, it is chemistry: One side projecting defense, the other reading it as rejection.

  In Taiwan, employers have even demanded that Indonesian caregivers remove headscarves, because in a culturally homogenous setting, such visible markers can feel like barriers to intimacy. Studies show that Indonesian caregivers in Taiwan report bullying tied to stress — proof atmosphere matters in care work.

  Hosts are often urged to be “understanding,” and they should be, but what does understanding mean? Is it avoiding meanness, or absorbing every form of behavior without critique? The risk is that defensive pride, carried abroad as armor, gets misread as immutable culture and normalized under the pressure of tolerance. What begins as empathy can slide into infection of the host’s identity: You must adjust to me.

  Of course, not every migrant follows this pattern. It is more common among migrant workers with little prior exposure to other cultures. Without that exposure, difference feels less like a puzzle to solve and more like a threat. By contrast, migrants who are educated, have traveled and are multilingual arrive with tighter inner maps and more flexibility. Migrant workers arrive precarious and undertrained, with thicker shields. When the host culture itself is highly rigid, as in Japan or Taiwan, even small mismatches in etiquette or uniform become evidence of disrespect.

  On paper, importing labor makes perfect sense. However, hosts are not just importing skills; they are importing shields. Without acclimation before they board a plane, small frictions spiral until kindness feels like condescension and correction feels like cruelty. This is not monsters versus victims. It is fragility colliding with fragility.

  Textbook theory suggests that Indonesia, with its vast diversity, should be a model of pluralism and resilient coexistence. Yet much of this tolerance operates at a surface level, often directed outward toward tourists and international observers, while tensions and frictions persist beneath the surface.

  Indonesia is a case study in how identity fabric can mutate far from its potential — a reminder that no society’s cohesion is guaranteed. This surface-level tolerance also means Indonesia has never fully metabolized certain traumatic episodes that fell hardest on minority groups just a few decades ago.

  Taiwan’s labor policy is not only an economic matter — it also shapes the trust fabric that binds households together. When defensive pride is normalized as “immutable culture,” host societies gradually internalize it. By the time the shift becomes visible, the fabric might already have mutated beyond recognition.

  Reducing cultural clashes requires smarter preparation. Migrant workers need to learn cultural scripts: What to expect, and what not to expect, so that both sides can read each other more clearly. Bringing in labor without building resilience is negligence disguised as empathy.

  Gita T is a Chinese-Indonesian writer and researcher based in Taipei, focusing on migration, identity and intangible values that often get left off the spreadsheets.
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