clipped from www.antara.co.id Indonesian festival opens in Melbourne Melbourne (ANTARA News) – An Indonesian festival with trade exhibitions, food bazaar and art performances was officially opened in Waterfront City; Dockland area in Melbourne on Saturday morning. Organized by the Indonesian consulate general (KJRI) in Melbourne for the third time to date, the festival was opened by Indonesian Ambassador to Australia and Vanuatu TH Hamzah Thayeb. The ambassador said Indonesia and Australia as neighboring countries must continue to develop their friendship and partnership cooperation. In the meantime, Indonesian Consul General in Melbourne Budiman Bahar said the Indonesian festival was held to build stronger relations in the trade, tourism and investment fields. “The trade volume between Indonesia and Australia in 2006 reached 10.4 billion dollars, making Indonesia Australia`s 13th biggest trade partner,” he said. He said the Australian people would get better knowledge about the beauty of Indonesia

Above is the recent news about festival indonesia recently held in melbourne (more information about the festival: www.festivalindonesia.com.au). The event itself was relatively successful. To me personally i regarded this event as a wake up call. A wake up call to ask myself do i know much about my own-self, the culture that i was brought up with. the culture that i have taken for granted.

One of my Australian friend admitted that he is quite envy that we had so much culture and its products to be proud of. He saw one of the traditional wedding gown and was amazed how beautiful it was. How it was made with such details and care. It does kind of embarrassing that i was so busy promoting this event to my local friends (even though i wasn’t involved in the committee) but when being asked things about the products shown in the stall or the dances which was being performed i wasn’t really able to give a satisfactory explanation. Even the performances that coming from my own province, my hometown, i wasn’t able to give much details on them…how sad

However, there was one dance, ”tari saman” from Aceh, that i was pretty touched by, not by the fact the dance is my favourite traditional dance, but because one of the dancer was an Indonesian from Papua. That was I call a the true ” from Sabang to Merauke.

Other things that i also noticed, many of the committees that were actively involved are indonesian chinese descendants (ICD) (I personally think chinese indonesians are politically incorrect term, as ICD have been ages living and mixed with other Indonesian, they are not chinese who happens to have indonesian citizenship, they are Indonesians who happens to have chinese descendants). I happened to notice, besides my only friend, who is Indonesian javanese, the rest of the publication team are all indonesian chinese descendant. They were all busily giving out leaflets in every corner of the city. I was touched and proud, if this thing could be used to measure your love for your country, their love to Indonesia is, surely, not less than mine.

What i like to see in the future, perhaps, ”tari saman” is being performed not only by Indonesian Acehnese, Javanese and Papuans, but also along with their Indonesian chinese descendant counterpart. Hopefully!

clipped from www.kidzania.co.id KIDZANIA is a unique EDUTAINMENT CENTER for children between 1 to 13 years old and their parents. It is a kid-sized replica of a real city, with streets, buildings, retail and different vehicles going around the City. Here, children play adult roles and they learn how to be a doctor, a pilot, a construction worker, a private detective, an archeologist, an F1 driver and over 100 other PROFESSIONS and OCCUPATIONS. There is a replica of the MOST REPRESENTATIVE BUILDINGS IN A CITY such as Hospital, Supermarket, Beauty Salon, Theatre, Industrial sites, and many more. (See “City Tour”). KIDZANIA is a SAFE, INTERACTIVE and HIGHLY EDUCATIONAL center where kids wear the uniform and perform the role they are playing. Led by HIGHLY QUALIFIED TEAM, they learn the complexities of the adult world, and learn the value of money, just as in real life. In KIDZANIA, kids use our official currency KIDZOS. Here, children learn to appreciate the value of money, by performing over 100 professions

It does sounds fun, does it? What would i do if i were a parent, would i send my kid to this place? Not a chance. Even if i did earn millions rupiah/month, i wouldn’t waste the money.  First, it is way too expensive for a place for kids to play. For just a role play, why should it be so complicated? And teaching the children to appreciate the value of money since the early age (we’re talking about 5-13 yo) what’s the real point? So, the kid knows that being a doctor will earn you a lot of money instead of thingking being a doctor will saves a lot of lives. Why do we have to on such a hurry introducing our children to the adult world, which is quite mean world to some. Children should stay in their own world. Children’s world.

Building children’s creativity doesn’t have to rely on expensive toys or complicated activities. It can start from simple games like finger paint, sand building, ball playing, hide and seek, etc. I personally can still recall how i enjoyed so much playing in the mud. How i can’t wait for the rain to come so i can play ball under it.

Climbing the tree was another favourite game of me and my friends. We loved to pretend that we were in some deserted island, middle of nowhere, and trying to rescue ourselves. We don’t play with advance technology, (forget play station, just to watch Gaban, a japanese robot series on a video, we have to watch it from a next-door house with a bunch of other kids) but we were very creative making our own technology. We can make and fly our own ”fighting” kite and its special threads.

Movies such Bridge to Terabhitia and The Cure ( it’s a must  seen movies for parents), has reminded me how the children could be very creative with the things surround them and how the nature could provide them  with such.