Strategic whining

We’ve all heard it, we’ve all been there. Life is full of ups and downs, the sweets and the bitters. When things go well, you give thanks to your favorite deity, feel a little good about yourself, or simply thank the sheer dumb luck that came your way. When things are not so good however, people cope differently. Some of us resort to alcohol (ojok lho nik, diliak orang mosok pantes / please don’t, people might see you). Some of us write journals (hiii lu kok ndek rumah terus nulis-nulis ndak sepi tah, lek gini terus carane yak apa mau entuk bojo, kapan kawine lu nikkk.... / if you keep writing, when are you gonna go out and meet a potential spouse? when are you ever gonna get married?). Some of us even try to sleep through it (nyoooo nyo lu kok cek malese seh / bum!!). However, most of us have a surefire way to alleviate stress that results from external circumstances. We whine. We complain, we talk to our friends, we ask them for advice, or even use them just as sounding board, we vent off. In short, we whine. This whining mysteriously builds bonds and camaraderie between the speaker and listener. It can even creates and strengthen trust relationship that already exists between them. Thus, it’s not surprise that friends do whine to each other, although hopefully not about each other. 

As a Chibayan, you must also have heard people whining around you, and even whined yourself, for the day we stop whining and truly be content with what we have, that’s the day the earth stops rotating. But we Chibayans have also perfected a new technique of whining. A type of whining that is designed to put the listeners below the feet of the speaker. A type of whining that is not intended, even for a split second, to be a complaint about one’s life situation. A type of whining that is simply put, bragging. A bragging whine. A strategic whine.

You’ve heard it before:

Mateng lho anakku iki, dipilih suruh melok pelajaran tambahan. Hii yak apa ya, lak kesel nemen, wis pulang sekolah sek disuruh melok gitu2an lagi. Tapi tak pikir ya ndak papa wes, cek ada kegiatane ya, timbang ndek omah tok ndlahom2 gitu. Katane kelase kelas pilihan, mek gae sing nilai ne ciamik. Be’e keja dikirim lomba2 gitu ya.

(Loosely translated: Mateng my child is being selected for an after-school class, I’m worried for his/her endurance. Oh well... I guess it’s better than not doing anything at home. This class is exclusive to the top performing students, by invitation only, to prep them for competitions.)

Or,

Anakku sitok ini soro lho, nggarai kene jantungen ae. Ndak ngomong-ngomong tau-tau njupuk diving license, terus nyang Lombok nyelem-nyelem. Tak bilangi, bahaaaaaaya lho nyo laut itu. Tapi tak pikir-pikir lagi, ya ndak papa wis ya, lak apik toh. Malah tak bilangi, “beruntung ya lu isa liak dunia sing orang lain ndak isa liak. Cobak lek papa isa puter balik waktu, papa ya tak belajar diving pisan.”

(Loosely translated: My son is so troublesome, almost gave me a heart attack. Without telling us, he got a diving license, and then went diving to Lombok. I told him that the ocean is a dangerous place. But on second thought, I think that’s okay. It is beautiful down there. I told him how lucky he is to be able to see a world that most people can’t. If only I could turn back time, I would have learned diving as well.)

Now you get the picture. A whining that seems to complain about a plight concerning one’s child, a whining that at first seems to beg for sympathy. And just as we the listeners began to lower their guard and start to offer sympathy and the emotional helping hand, the whine took a 180 and turned into a bragging. It turned into an opportunity to assert the speaker’s superiority over us, as evidenced by the speaker’s child’s superiority over our children. It hurts not because of the bragging itself. We’ve come to expect it. It hurts simply because for that instant moment, we truly felt sorry and genuinely wanted to help. But seriously, no. If you’re a real Chibayan, you won’t fall for it because:

1. You do it too
2. You won’t feel sympathetic to begin with.

But it works extremely well on unsuspecting listeners. Go try it.

Anatomy of a strategic whine

The Whine

Mateng lho anakku iki, dipilih suruh melok pelajaran tambahan. Hii yak apa ya, lak kesel nemen, wis pulang sekolah sek disuruh melok gitu2an lagi.
(Mateng my child is being selected for an after-school class, I’m worried for his/her endurance.)

Anakku sitok ini soro lho, nggarai kene jantungen ae. Ndak ngomong-ngomong tau-tau njupuk diving license, terus nyang Lombok nyelem-nyelem. Tak bilangi, bahaaaaaaya lho nyo laut itu.
(My son is so troublesome, almost gave me a heart attack. Without telling us, he got a diving license, and then went diving to Lombok. I told him that the ocean is a dangerous place. )

This part is most straightforward. You start it off with an actual whine. If you had just kept it to this part, it is actually a whine. A complain. The kind that builds and enhances trust. The kind that actually invites sympathy. The kind that, if it had come from a non-Chibayan, you would expect it to stop right here.

The Trivializer

Tapi tak pikir ya ndak papa wes, cek ada kegiatane ya, timbang ndek omah tok ndlahom2 gitu.
(Oh well... I guess it’s better than not doing anything at home.)

Tapi tak pikir-pikir lagi, ya ndak papa wis ya, lak apik toh.
(But on second thought, I think that’s okay. It is beautiful down there.)

This is when the speaker lets us know that it wasn’t actually a whine at all. Despite the fact that the whine sounded serious, it really wasn’t. The trivializer provides justification that the predicament that was mentioned earlier wasn’t really all that bad. It’s just okay. Actually, if you think about it, there really is nothing wrong with the child. It’s just a new fact about him/her. It’s just a relay of information. The speaker might as well say, “oh hey, the sky is blue.”

The Brag

Katane kelase kelas pilihan, mek gae sing nilai ne ciamik. Be’e keja dikirim lomba2 gitu ya.
(This class is exclusive to the top performing students, by invitation only, to prep them for competitions.)

Malah tak bilangi, “beruntung ya lu isa liak dunia sing orang lain ndak isa liak. Cobak lek papa isa puter balik waktu, papa ya tak belajar diving pisan.”
(I told him how lucky he is to be able to see a world that most people can’t. If only I could turn back time, I would have learned diving as well.)

This is when the speaker reveals the true intention of the whining. When you just read the brag by itself, it comes off really arrogant, out of nowhere, and uncalled for. While it really is our nature, social rules have pretty much require us to mask it a little. Package it as a whining. Add a little negativity to it. Cover it under the guise of sharing one’s burden in a group of friends. Then it would be perceived as trying to put a dash of sugar in your medicine, except:

1. There is a disproportionate amount of sugar and medicine, too much sugar and not enough medicine.
2. No one got fooled. The listeners see right through, because the listeners also do it.

Strategic Whining

So then, why do we call it strategic whining? It seems straight-forward until now. Think about what you want to brag, add a little negativity to the situation, and justify why the negativity really is not a negative. It’s a zero. Reorder the sentences, and voila. You got your own bragging whine. What’s so strategic about it?

The Chibayans who have mastered this technique actually take it a step further by carefully selecting the audience to which this type of whining is delivered to. In order for the brag to register with a resounding BAM in the listener’s head, the listener must:

• Agree with the trivializer. People have different value systems (yes, even us), and to some people, some things are legitimately negative concerns and some other things are trivial concerns. If the speaker chose the right listeners, the trivializer would add nothing new. The listeners wouldn’t have to be explained why the situation wasn’t so bad after all. In the first example above, the listeners must really think that after-school classes are not that exhausting after all and that the speaker is over-reacting.
• Be actually jealous with the brag. In the second example, the brag is only effective if the listeners agree that diving is cool, that it is beautiful sight to see, and that it is a privilege to be able to dive.

The expert whiners also tailor the spices of their whines according to their audience. In the first example, this whine would only be told precisely to those parents whose children do nothing at home, parents whose children “ndek omah tok ndlahom2 gitu.” In the second example, the whine is that much more effective if it’s told to the parents whose children can’t dive, but want to dive.

So now you have the basics of Chibayan style bragging. It’s never quite simple. It’s an art, and hopefully the anatomy lesson above would help you in crafting your very first strategic whining. As an exercise problem, dissect the following whine into its components:

Eh sakno lho anakku itu lagi pindahan. Tak takok’i, laopo seh kok repot2 pindahan terus. Katane kerjaane dipindah ambek kantore. Tapi saaken toh ya ngepak ngepak barange uakehe sak mono. Tak tanya’i, ndak isa minta tetep ae tah? Katane “ndak isa ma, sing sue ku dinaekno uakeh, makane mesti nurut ini.” Lha yak apa lek gitu?

(Loosely translated: My poor daughter,she’s moving. I askedher why going through all the hassle. She said she’s being relocated by her work. But still, there’s so much stuff to pack. I asked her if she could ask to stay, but she said “No Ma I can’t. I’m getting a nice pay bump from this.” What can you say?)