Australia-Japan festival bridges cultural gap
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
How do Japanese people serve tea to their guests? How do Australians and New Zealanders serve tea?
Indonesian Melissa Maria, a sixth semester student of the Japanese language department at LIA college for foreign languages, showed her audience how to perform Cha No Yu, the classic Japanese way to serve special green tea.
"First you have to hold your body steady while you sit with your knees bent and folded back," she claimed.
Ten minutes earlier, it was New Zealander Shane Boyd who presented a different kind of tea ceremony called "Billy Tea", which is done in Australia as well as his country.
The tea-serving exhibition was very lively, as it involved swinging the tea pot several times. Different from the Japanese tradition, generally tea is served with milk in Australia and New Zealand, he said.
The Australian and Japanese tea ceremonies are among the hundreds of cultural performances, scheduled to be presented from Wednesday to Saturday at the school in South Jakarta.
The Aussie-Japan Festival also include a bilingual Romeo and Juliet play. During the Shakespearean tragedy, Romeo delivers his dialog in Japanese, while Juliet speaks in English.
"We aim to show that Indonesia, as a country located between Japan and Australia, can bridge the differences that both countries have," the festival's project officer, Caesar Rizqie, said.
According to the college's director, Sudibyo Siyam, the festival was meant to expose the culture of the two countries that have the closest relations with Indonesia.
"We want to show the students the culture of these countries for the sake of a cross-cultural understanding that we want to develop among our students," he said.
In order to motivate the students to attentively observe each performance, the college's administration had decided to give their students four days off for the event.
"But they still have to come to the school and write a paper about the performances," said Sri Suryanti Sugeng, the college's deputy director for student affairs.
Representatives of the Australian and Japanese embassies, who attended the opening ceremony on Wednesday, praised the college's efforts at bridging the gap between their country's culture with the Indonesian culture.
"We really appreciate this kind of festival because it could create a peaceful environment among countries and could nurture the relations between people in Australia, Japan, and, of course, Indonesia," said Katsunishi Noriyuki, a representative of the Japanese Embassy.
Meanwhile, Beverly Mercer, a cultural counselor for the Australian embassy, said that this kind of festival could minimize misunderstanding, which often occurs between Indonesians and Australians and sometimes affects the countries' relationship.
"It's good to see that the students here are learning both, the Australian and Japanese cultures...And hopefully this will lead to a greater understanding between the people of those countries," she said. (006)