Insurer AAMI's 'Rhonda and Ketut' Balinese love story was teased out over four commercials and three years. The marketing strategy, blurring advertising and entertainment, has come to its long-awaited, soapy end. Whether you have loved it or cringed at it, the campaign is a huge success, and its campy, cocktail soaked tentacles have penetrated the Australian mainstream.
But for the millions who tuned into the AAMI saga, how many have been puzzled by the brown-skinned man with the funny hankie on his head?
The knowledge Australians have for our closest Asian neighbour is poor. And awareness of Bali does not translate into awareness of Indonesia. According to a Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade report released last year, 30 per cent of respondents didn't know Bali was part of Indonesia.
In the final ad, Rhonda chooses Ketut over an Australian man. Ketut says to Rhonda, 'Saya cinta kamu' — 'I love you'. This is the first time in history that Indonesian language has been used in an Australian TV commercial for a national brand.
Indonesia suffers from a lack of popularity in Australia. How is it that most of us are clueless to common words like 'I' or 'love' from the country that straddles our northern border? Indonesia is the world's third largest democracy, it's vital to our national security, and we share approximately $15 billion worth of annual trade. But we prefer to bathe in apathy until tragedy whets our appetite for the place.
The latest research into the state of Indonesian language found it was vanishing from our schools and universities. An Asia Education Foundation report found 99 per cent of all Australian students studying Indonesian quit before year 12. More recently, Murdoch University Professor David Hill found enrolment in Indonesian courses fell nationally by 40 per cent from 2001 to 2010 and by 70 per cent in NSW.
Aren't we supposed to be preparing for the 'Asian century'? There is a policy belief that this means learning an Asian language. Julia Gillard's 2012 'Australia in the Asian Century White Paper' recommended every Australian student be given the opportunity to learn a 'targeted' language from kindergarten to year 12.
And this is bipartisan. Last December, Tony Abbott stressed the need for more Australians to 'speak Asian languages, catch cultural meanings and navigate local networks'. Abbott has established a new $15 million dollar Australian centre for Indonesian studies to help Australians to 'get to know contemporary Indonesia better.'
Is Australia's 'mono-linguility' an economic disadvantage? Probably not, there are enough bilingual Australians who are native Asian speakers to get us over the line, and English still is the lingua franca of the global economy. You don't have to be fluent in the mother tongue to do business in Jakarta. But failing to embed and grow Asian language in our education systems hurts our cultural IQ more than anything, making us more introspective and susceptible to mistrust and ignorance.
It's often said that Australia has 'a love affair with Bali', which AAMI has embodied in the Rhonda and Ketut story. But why is half the Australian True Crime genre about Bali-gone-bad? Titles like It's Snowing in Bali (referring to cocaine), I Survived Kerobokan (the prison), Bali 9: The Untold Story (remember them?), Bali Raw: An Expose of the Underbelly of Bali and at least three books about Schapelle Corby reveal an unhealthy obsession with the ills of one small island.
Dangers in Bali are real. The deaths of Noelene and Yvana Bischoff in January — most likely from food poisoning — were disturbing. Deaths and critical illness from toxic home brewed alcohol have been heavily reported in the last two years. But traffic accidents, robberies, violence and stupidity can happen anywhere.
More than loving Bali, it seems we love to fear and misunderstand it. And our relationship with Indonesia as a nation is the same. A year prior to the Rhonda and Ketut campaign, a Lowy Institute poll found that 61 per cent of respondents thought Indonesia posed a military threat to Australia. The DFAT report on Australian attitudes towards Indonesia found that the majority think its law-making practice is based on Islamic code.
It also ranked word-associations from respondents: 'Holidays' came in first, but was followed by 'Islamic country', 'people smugglers', 'bombs and terrorism', 'religious extremism', 'poverty' and 'drug smuggling.'
The DFAT poll was conducted in 2012. Since then our Government has lit a rocket under Indonesia's backside. 'Turn back the boats', spying allegations, territorial breaches ... I can't imagine Australian attitudes have improved much in the last six months when all news from Indonesia has centred around their justifiably pissed off president and foreign minister.
We can only hope our diplomatic relationship is restored soon. Meanwhile, let's all follow AAMI, Rhonda and Ketut into a Bali sunset, make an offering to Shiva and sink our toes into the possibly of having a romance of understanding, respect and love with our close neighbour.
Ali Winters is a freelance writer with a background in tertiary Indonesian studies.