Social boo-boo: Getting confused between mas, mbak, kak, bu and pak

One of the first few things one notices when you step into any big departmental stores or restaurtants in Jakarta, is the number of staffs these establishments hire - everywhere you look/go, there's at least 2-3 staffs standing together waiting to serve. Secondly, the non-stop welcome greetings of "Selamat siang or selamat datang bu/pak/kak. Bisa membantu?" (translates as "Good day or welcome Ma'am/Sir. Can I be of assistance?"

Most of the time I get called 'bu' but occasionally I get called 'kak' as well. Initially, I thought they could recognised that I was a Malaysian because back in KL, it is norm to address someone older as 'kak' for females and 'bang' for males. But a recent shopping experience made me realised that actually it is a non-gender specific address for someone older. We were shopping for pants at the men department in Metro Pondok Indah Mall, and I noticed the sales assistant was addressing Hubs as 'pak' and 'kak' interchangeably. And everytime he used 'kak', I thought he was talking to me but from the eye contact he was still talking to Hubs. Later I confirmed with Hubs that yup, 'kak' can be used to call an older male or female.

So what about 'mas' and 'mbak'? So far, I noticed in a service setting, it is usually used to address the waiters/sales assistants. For males, you would use 'mas' and for female it is 'mbak'. I tot it was non-gender specific again, so you can imagine Hubs's reaction when he overheard me calling the male waiter as 'mbak'. Like ai-yai-yai-yai-yai mortification :P

According to wiki, they seems to classify the various addresses by age. 'Bu' or 'Ibu' is generally used for much older females and the male equivalent is 'Pak' or 'Bapak. For older male or female, one can use 'mas' or 'mbak' respectively or the universal 'kak'

Recently, I have started going to the local markets as well to get our daily groceries. And Hubs was mindful to teach me how to address the seller. The ideal respectful way is to call them as 'pak' or 'bu', and I noticed that at these markets, I tend to get called 'nyonya' or 'nya' which is used to address a married female.