One of the Chinese classes I take is at the Chinese Cultural University in Taipei. It meets on Sunday afternoons for 2 hours and it is free. Many of my fellow classmates are Indonesian students studying at the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology(NTUST). While their professors might lecture in Chinese, their textbooks, homework and tests will be in English. This is not unusual as the language of Science, Math and Technology is mostly English. They study English in Indonesia, and so going to college in Taiwan is not such a stretch.
NTUST has about 10,000 students of which 500 are foreign students and 200 of those are from Indonesian. Like many universities in Taiwan, NTUST has a EMBA program, English language Master's of Business Administration, which is popular with other Asian students.
My fellow student's invited me to their three day Indonesian Cultural Exhibition at NTUST. On the first day, 7 of Florence's family and I went to the cultural exhibition and workshop. They had exhibits of dances, writing, games, clothing, singing, food, ... Indonesia is a big country, the 4th largest in the world with 230 million people spread out over 13,000 islands.
On the last day of the Exhibition, they had a Cultural Performance, in which they used song and dance to tell the story of Gajah Mada. Around 1340 AD, Gajah Mada united the islands of Indonesia under one king. In their performance, they follow the travels of Gajah Mada as he visits the different island kingdoms and brings them under the control of the Javanese King.
Most Westerners(like me) know of Indonesia from only the tourist island of Bali,
but the theme of Gajah Mada's trip allowed the students to showcase many more of the Indonesian cultures. (I got there kind of late and had an assigned seat in the back, the auditorium was packed with over 1000 viewers.) There were the typical speeches by University and Indonesian officials, they should all remember: "Everyone appreciates a short speech, the shorter the better." (But I think politicians like to hear themselves talk.)
There were dance performances
singing performances
and reenactments that might have passed for comedy sketches.
I came away with a much better understanding of Indonesia and a better appreciation of young people. It was a fun two and half hour performance.
I didn't realize that there were so many people in Indonesia. Last year you helped put Bali on my list of places I want to visit.
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