Question

What do Thai, Cambodian & Vietnamese people think about Indonesians?

Answer 1

We have a few Indonesian friends when studied in university. We met them in some class. We get along easily though I didn’t good at English. They are nice and humble. My friends and I like to bring Thai sweet to share with them like Khaw Tom mud. Khanom tarn. Kanom Bai jak we are glad to know we have similar traditional sweets.

Answer 2

Thank you All for your nice answers. Some are a bit surprising, some are exactly as expected :)

In return, I would like to share my personal opinions/impressions toward Vietnamese/Cambodian/Thai people.

Btw, I have ever been to Thailand (3 times), and Cambodia (once), but not yet to Vietnam (just passing by its airspace lol). But fortunately I do have abundant friends from these 3 countries. Therefore, my opinions are based on my own experiences, and do not represent my fellow countrymen.

(Now i...

Answer 3

Based on my own experience with Indonesian. I have two Indonesian friends. They are friendly, helpful and like to joke a lot just like Cambodian. There is no directly flight from Indonesia to Cambodia, so people from both countries don’t know much about each other. I hope in the future we can learn from each other more.

Answer 4

Like some have said, I could not speak for all Vietnamese but from my point of me, Indonesians are great.

I have chances to join some regional conferences for youth and Indonesians are always the most friendly people; in an humble way. They are open-minded, humorous, sincere, not lousy or too arrogant. They may not be the host of the party but seemingly a good friend to kick start a talk.

I always have a feeling that; Thai and Filipino are really active, funny and they know how to break the ice of an event; while Malaysian, Brunei or Cambodian are a bit quiet, do less talking. So where are Indonesians? They are in the middle.

Probably due to the variety of religions, Indonesians are pretty diverse in many ways. It is not by chance but all of my best foreign friends are Indonesians.

Answer 5

I am Vietnamese and I will answer you from a Vietnamese point of view. We think you as a country in ASEAN is our close partner. We have nothing bad to say about you or any major military competition. The only competition we have is football. We think Indonesians have the same love of football as we do

Answer 6

I can’t speak for the rest but in general I believe that Indonesia feel somewhat distance and fly under the radar for most Thai people.

Most would think that Indonesian will probably be just like another Malaysian in a little further away country with a more population. At least I did, for a long while even when I left my first university for a while. It wasn’t until when I took my second degree a couple of years ago that I got a chance to befriend an Indonesian and get more indept view about how the country and the society look like (thay they are definitely far more diversed country than what I innitially thought)

Personally, I only know that the country has Red Durian, Comodo Dragon, and the largest economy in the region and not much else until now.

After that, well I do like their president, especially when first took the office. He feel and even looks a bit like Obama.. and I like the fact that he did try to maintain and respect people of none Muslim faith and none-Malay ethnic group.

Lately though, the country action has, to bw honest, a string of disappointment for me. Especially in regard of religious differences and racial issue. I do believe that they can do better and hope so.

Answer 7

Here is my opinion, as a Vietnamese.

most Vietnamese don't have much infomation about Indonesian, the most religion in Indo is Muslism. Their economy is the biggest in Asean. the population is also the biggest. That's all we know.

Answer 8

I am not Thai / Cambodian / Vietnamese, but I stayed in all of them:

Thailand (Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Chiang Rai, Phuket, Krabi, etc.)

Cambodia (Siem Riep and Phnom Penh)

Vietnam (Da Nang, Hoi An, Dalat, Ho Chi Minh/Saigon, Hanoi)

Based on my experience, when I worked and stayed there, I made friends with some locals. Sometimes we talked about a neighbor country such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, Philipines. This is what I found:

It’s not my opinion, but what I was told by them as locals.

Thais abut Indonesia:

In some tourist spots in Thailand they learn and can speak Bahasa Indonesia well with their Thai cute accent. Why? Because they know that Indonesia is a huge country and a good market for their tourism. I even have a Thai good friend who learned Bahasa. But they will assume Indonesia is a Muslim country, that's why they will service Indonesians only with Halal food, unless you tell them that you can eat anything. Don’t worry Thailand knows Indonesia well

Cambodia about Indonesia:

It's interesting, some Cambodians for sure will say thank you a lot to Indonesians since they have a good relationship in history when Indonesia sent some troops to help Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge. I'm not really sure about the details but some Cambodians I knew really say thanks a lot for the Indonesian Government's help. So it means they know about Indonesia quite well. I even found a district in Cambodia where many Indonesians lived and worked. Don’t worry again Cambodians also know Indonesia well.

Vietnamese about Indonesia:

Not all of Vietnamese knew about Indonesia since Vietnam itself for me is a unique country, communist but with an open market economy. So, I'm not sureif they know about other countries. But some well educated Vietnamese for sure know about Bali. Vietnamese also kind like Indonesians, hard working and ambitious. For Vietnamese it's quite hard to travel to Indonesia, so that's why don’t expect them too much to know about Indonesia. But in government relations, don’t worry, the Vietnamese and Indonesian governments have a good relationship as ASEAN Members.

I hope my answer can make my Indonesian fellows not feeling inferior anymore.

Don’t worry just because maybe some other countries on this planet don’t know about Indonesia it doesn’t mean you are nothing.

Answer 9

Have only met Balinese, and initial impression is they are friendly people. Haven’t been there long enough to say otherwise.

Answer 10

A Thai here.

Overall we are OK with you. Actually years ago many considered you to be the best friend among all ASEAN. However the rank dropped sharply in recent years due to

1. AFF football matches between us years ago, which lots of your fans went too wild and attacked by spamming rude words on many Thai celebrities’ social media. These celebrities have nothing (repeat again, nothing) to do with any sports at all. That’s really inappropriate and it showed nothing but rudeness and uneducation. Add that this along with your domestic football manners, ie. ' 'It's a graveyard, not entertainment': Inside one of sport's most deadly fan cultures , Indonesian football fan beaten to death by rival supporters , and the Senayan riots against Thailand team decades ago makes it worst (Regarding Senayan riot, ask your seniors what happened. Kiatisak Senamuang, former Thai coach who was praised by many SE Asian countries, was still a player at that time and was in that incident. It was decades ago — 20–30 years may be — yet we all remembered and it was talked about every time we or anybody have to play at that stadium. Sadly it’s not a good talk)

Note: After the AFF matches between Thailand and Malaysia on the previous tournament there were lots of threads in a biggest Thai webboard which praised Malaysian for their kindness as a host and their manner. Some were translated to English and send to them so they would know our appreciation. None with such thread from the matches between Thailand and Indonesia in the next tournament was made. Figure it out for yourself.

2. Some are so stick with “Ladyboy” things. See the link below. Read the comments on the link and you'll see that all of you Indonesian guys would say that "Ladyboys" etc. It’s sexism, and it show how you were raised by your parents. If you have nothing good to say, just say nothing. For LGBTQ, in your culture you might not accept them. Here we do. We view them as human, not sub-human or freak and we proud that they can be anything they want. Our culture might be different. What you want to view your LGBTQ, ie. Indonesia Threatened to Ban All of Instagram Due to This One Gay Artist , Gay Muslim comic strip goes off Instagram after Indonesia outrage , is your business and we would not intervene, but please don’t use your standard with other culture which is not yours, esp. if that culture harm none of their people. Their country, their culture, not yours. If you do, that mean you set your standard to the rest of the world. Self-center is not something wise to do. Please remember we hold different faith. Really really mean no offense but your faith is notorious as sexism and male domination. If I were you I would show the world they were wrong, not to prove they are right. Most important, you don’t know the people you make fun of. If you don’t know anything about someone, giving them respect is the first thing you should do, right? It’s basic manner worldwide. What would you feel if somebody look at you at the first time and said you are a terrorist who killed innocent people/children just because you are from some religion? It seems like many of you are not taught to do to others what you want them to do to you, and it reflects who you are, not them or anybody.

Lately it’s a big news in Thailand when you guys nosy with an marriage in Thailand by Thai couples. Repeat again marriage in Thailand by Thai couple under Thai laws. It has nothing to do with Indonesian at all. And it became a very big news. See below and think for yourself what would you feel regarding Indonesian.

สุริยา เกิดแสง

ไทยไม่สอนเพศศึกษาเหรอ? ชาวเน็ตอินโดเหยียด คู่แต่งงานชายรักชาย

Du Lịch Thái Lan : Một đám cưới đồng tính ở Thái Lan, lại đang là đề tài..

Married Thai couple shaken by harassment, death threats from homophobic Indonesians

Gay couple in Thailand receive death threats from Indonesian netizens after sharing wedding photos

Also some of you guys are messing around with us. That’s OK. Problem is that many lacks manners. The number of these people are…well, really far beyond our expectation. Worst is that when warned, you would not listen and act in a really immature way. There are lots of samples but I would give you just one. Open the video below in a new tab then Ctrl+F and type for CHAMID SAHLAN in the box to see an example from him and his upvoters, also read what Mr. Annas Failasuf Al said after being warned. Think for yourselves how you would think about these type of people.

3. Some of your fanatic are nosy with religion differences in our country. It's OK if "I cannot do that because it's against my religion". It's not OK if "Others cannot do that because it's against my religion" Again what would you feel if we do the same thing to your country? Don’t like it, right? That’s what we feel.

Add: Some Thai mentioned long ago in our web community that Indonesians in VietnamAnswer hate Thai, for whatever reason they don’t know. At first I just listened. Now, after a long period of more observation, not just in VietnamAnswer but also in other Indonesian forums like Detik, Kompas, etc, I tend to agree. It seems like your dislike toward us is growing in recent years. So frequent I’ve seen negative comments from Indonesian against Thai or Thailand even though some topics have nothing related with them (“them” refers to both Thailand and/or Indonesia). Some spread fake news (lots. It makes me smile when I read because it shows that the majority of you have very few knowledge about Thailand (wonder if it’s so with other mainland ASEAN countries)) You assume and/or easily lead by your medias instead of doing simple research to find the answer. And same with those Thai, I don’t know the reasons behind your disfavor

BTW, if any of you guys want to delete my comment. Fine. But please remember 1. you ask what we feel, so I answered. That’s all. 2. It’s the fact. I even shows the sources of what I said. I don’t said it out of nothing. Remember also that you cannot change anything unless you first accept that there’s a problem. If you want to change it, tell your people and teach your children to respect others, because deleting my comment will improve nothing. It’s just sweeping something under the carpet. You fool yourselves by ignoring that it’s exist while they do. And trust me it would only increase in size because you don’t fix that problem. There are proof. I posted my comment years ago, yet you deleted it and now the problem grew bigger than it should be. See the gay couple above for example.