Why Chinese are "Cheapskates" and Locals are "Slackers": Historical Comparison & Assumption.

It's  19th of July 2017, 20:42 PM. I just went home from Bandung Electronic  Center and then i decide to fetch a taxi to back to Ciumbuleuit, this  driver apparently is sundanese from his accent and words spoken, then  again he is a fairly nice guy, he talked to me politely about his  routines as a taxi driver, how he will start from Cimahi and then wait  for customers in front of Bandung Electronic Center 'till night. When we  talked about traffic in Bandung, especially about the crowded Cipaganti  road, he mentioned that he hated on-line taxi drivers, mainly the  chinese-indonesian whom he perceived as "...already rich people,.. 

why  don't they give thanks to God for all they have and just stop being so  greedy by taking our little income !?", when i asked him does he hate  chinese-indonesians? He mentioned that yes, he does because  chinese-indonesians are taking over the economy of Indonesia from the  locals. As a chinese-indonesian myself, i felt very lucky that the  driver doesn't acknowledge my heritage and ethnicity that night, he  stares at me with relaxed stare in his eyes, he felt that he is  comfortable to bash the chinese-indonesians with me because in his mind,  i am not a chinese-indonesian.

That  was a very interesting and also intense night in my life, how do you  feel if you are present next to a stranger who you know hates you ? i  mean i do kind of scared when he passionately tell that all  chinese-indonesians are greedy and evil (albeit in polite mannerism) but  i wish he soon find out that there are many chinese-indonesians that  are suffering in poverty, many of them are living in hardships, in slums  and poor districts that are,.. you know..not rich. But that night i am  stroke by a thought : a theory that may explain the discord between the  "pribumi"/ "locals" and the "tionghoa"/ "chinese-indonesians" and why  the hatred lives on today especially in the stereotypes they attribute  to each other.

The  stereotype is that the chinese-indonesians are greedy and workaholic on  the other side the native indonesians are lazy, laid back and slow.

Let's  break this down : back way in the past, mainly in the colonial era when  the Dutch (netherlands) still control this country, the native  indonesians (mainly java island inhabitants) are mostly agricultural  based society, and agricultural society has seasonal work period, for  example a peasant plant the seed in certain month and then work the  fields and then gather the crops, then for a couple of months they can  rest and then enjoy the crop they have planted months ago,

 their lives  can be sustained without much work in the fields (at least normatively)  because nature will grow the plants, animals need time to breed and it's  out of their control so they can have many rest , also their work is  quite hard and tiring, they go to their fields, plant the seed and walk  back home, sometimes that kind of activities can take them quite far  from their houses and can be very tiresome with hills and valleys on  their way which may also bond them as a society more because long walks  usually means long talks and sharing between many fellow peasants and  farmers which also a character of Indonesians.

On  the other side, chinese-indonesians founs work as either factory  workers or like the most of them like to do : become a merchant and  trade goods. The chinese indonesians buy and sell things mostly by  establish a store or a shop or in some cases restaurants this means that  although work can be overload but they don't have to face physical  obstacles like the farmers and peasants do, what the chinese merchants  face however is constant competition and need constant oversight on  logistics, income, workers salaries and also their share of profit.

This  condition makes chinese-indonesians normatively need to work nearly  everyday with little to no holiday with careful calculation and they  became profit-oriented society of merchants with hard work ethics and  diligence, competitiveness also make them have less of social bond with  each other as they see another as a competitior or worse : a threat to  his or her bussiness which because they are making a living from the  bussiness they owned , they became so dependant on the bussiness and the  threat to their bussiness became a threat to themselves as they  perceived.

Now  compare the two characteristics i gave you, can you place yourself in  both of the perspectives? I am sure if you are capable to see through  these two different perspectives you will understand. First,  chinese-indonesians may perceive the natives as "lazy" because they  don't work as roughly or as diligent because they have more spare time  which is actually (in my opinion) is normal as it is a part of their  job. And also the constant competitiveness against the familial bond can  cause misunderstanding where the natives perceive the  chinese-indonesians as arrogant and only think about the bussiness or  even in some cases, greedy. 

For me, this theory makes sense because the  lack of communication and immersion back in the collonial era. As we  know, back in the day we can assume that children will inherit their  parent's profession, a son of a merchant will most likely be a merchant,  a child of a farmer will likely also be a farmer because they inherit  real private-owned properties of their family so this mindset is  inherited from the older generations to the younger generations which  can explain why in the year 2017 there's still be a piece of this  ancient mindset that potentially break our unity apart.