Learning Indonesian on the floor of a Kuta hotel, and why language is the best due diligence

There was no other way

An 88-room resort does not run in English. The kitchen, the maintenance crew, the suppliers who turn up at the back gate and the local officials who decide whether your permits are in order all speak Indonesian, and most of them in Kuta also speak Balinese. I could hire a translator for a meeting. I could not hire one for every conversation in a hotel that runs 24 hours a day. So I learned, badly at first, from the people who worked for me.

What the language gives you

Three things, and they get more valuable the longer you stay.

You hear what is actually being said. A translator gives you the summary. The language gives you the hesitation before the answer, the joke at your expense, the thing the landowner says to his brother while you are supposedly not listening. In a land negotiation that is the whole deal.

People deal with you differently. An Australian who speaks Indonesian is not a tourist and not a bule with a lawyer. In Buwun Mas, village leaders and officials talk to me directly. At the community day in June I spoke to the village without a translator, and I think that mattered more than anything we handed over.

You can check. A contract, a certificate, a letter from a regency office. I can read them. Not as a lawyer, but well enough to know when the summary I have been given does not match the page.

What it does not replace

It does not replace a notary, a lawyer or the BPN land office. Kinnara Capital buys land only once ownership is confirmed through the courts and the BPN, and I would do that whether I spoke the language or not. The language is what lets me understand what those professionals are telling me, and notice when something is being left out.

For Australians buying here

You do not need to be fluent to buy a villa. You do need to accept that you are operating in a system you cannot read, and to put people you trust between you and the paperwork, chosen and paid by you. Then learn enough to be polite and to follow a conversation. The effort is noticed, and the goodwill it buys is real. The Lombok guide for Australians covers the practical side.

Fifteen years on

I still make mistakes in Indonesian, and my staff still enjoy them. But every important thing I have done in this country since 2011, from selling Troppo Zone to assembling land in Lombok, has been done in the language of the people I was dealing with. I cannot think of a better investment I have made.