Tell me about Trump

“You have a new president,” said the village head on tiny Ay Island, a remote outpost in far eastern Indonesia once famed for its indigenous nutmeg. It was an observation I’d grown used to hearing in recent months — though often it involved a question about what I thought of Donald Trump.

The village elder, wearing a traditional fez-like cap, was holding court on a local family’s porch after prayer at the mosque. I was seeking shelter from a fierce tropical rainstorm, and after weeks of being asked what I though of my new president, I appreciated that he went no further.

As a foreigner in Indonesia, I am used to questions: Where do you come from? Where do you stay? Are you married? Is there a “candidate?”

But the Trump line of inquiry is new, and not particularly welcome. Barack Obama has spent time in Indonesia as a child, and Indonesians largely liked him. Trump was more of an unknown entity, and his presidency was a curiosity to many.

In a cafe co-run by an American woman from Massachusetts, I batted away the question from a man named Lestario Widodo, part of a team of civil servants exploring the Banda Islands’ potential as a special economic zone. 

I had been the one leading the inquisition, about their work and what it involved. Then the group’s food arrived and I encouraged them to eat, happy that their contented chomping had saved me from a reverse inquiry. 

Widodo wouldn’t let me get away so easily, taking a pause in bites of fried rice to ask my opinion about my new president. “We can talk about it after you tell me more about your environmental assessment,” I replied with a wink.

The next day the same question came from Agil, a tour guide sitting atop a fishing boat plying its way through choppy waters to Rhun, the island the British traded the with Dutch for Manhattan. 

“Why do you ask?” I responded.

“I’m curious if what we hear about him is true.”

“And what do you hear?” 

“That he doesn’t want black people in the country. That he’s a good businessman,” Agil said.

“Black people or Muslims?” I said by way of clarification. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country and people here have been keeping an eye on news of immigration bans and Islam-based discrimination. I assumed this was what he was referring to.

Agil was clear: “dark people” (orang hitam) he said.

Finding answers to these questions poses a challenge for me, a foreign correspondent who has lived outside the U.S. for nearly a decade and was in Indonesia during last year’s election and campaign season. As a reporter I feel the need to inform and educate, as a U.S. citizen I want to make clear that Trump doesn’t speak for or represent all Americans.

To Agil, I said there was a lot of intolerance and hatred in America. There is a fear of people who are different. Trump was a manifestation of that sentiment. Is he a good businessman? No, he is not.

Now, I’m returning to the U.S. and eager to see how Americans are responding to such questions. My conservations will be far more fraught than they are in Indonesia, but for me it will be an education and a chance to learn about how America has changed since I left eight years ago.