By Ali Syarief
As I often say, Hippo members are Japanese. However, this needs to be underlined clearly: they are not Japanese in the conventional or stereotypical sense often imagined by the outside world. They are new Japanese—what I call Hippo Jin. A new kind of Japanese, shaped by a mindset that is flexible, open, and capable of adapting easily to the outside world, especially when engaging with different cultures.
In much cross-cultural literature, Japanese society is often portrayed as orderly, reserved, and distant. This depiction is not entirely wrong, but it is no longer complete. Hippo Jin emerges as both an anomaly and an evolution: a generation that does not feel threatened by difference, that blends in without anxiety, and that is not trapped in cultural superiority. They come not as tourists burdened with expectations, but as human beings ready to learn.
When these Hippo Jin encounter Indonesians—people widely known for their warmth, openness, and sometimes excessive attentiveness toward guests, even to the point of welcoming them into their homes as host families—something meaningful happens. What unfolds is not a clash of cultures, but a meeting of values that naturally affirm one another.
The homestay experience in Jakarta became a living space for this encounter. There were no formal protocols, no symbolic distances, no pressure to “become like us.” Instead, there was daily life: sharing meals, laughing despite imperfect language, small misunderstandings resolved with smiles, and moments of silence that still felt warm. At this point, language ceased to be the primary tool of communication; empathy took its place.
I cannot—and perhaps need not—describe the experience in excessive detail. There are simply too many words, too many nuances, too many emotions that would lose their meaning if forced into sentences. But if it must be distilled, the essence is simple and universal: to love each other.
Love, in this context, is neither romance nor an empty humanitarian slogan. It manifests as a willingness to accept, to understand without judgment, and to live together—even if only temporarily—within difference. Here, cross-cultural understanding is no longer theory; it becomes a lived experience.
Hippo Jin may arrive as Japanese, but they return home as human beings who are slightly more worldly. And we, Indonesians, perhaps are not “teaching” anything at all—except one most fundamental truth in intercultural relations: that being human, wherever one comes from, always begins with the courage to love one another.
