Views on Indonesia from leaders of tomorrow

Views on Indonesia from leaders of tomorrow

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia

"When I visited Indonesia, I was surprised at the gentleness and
friendliness of the people. They were so different to the angry
faces I'd seen on television," wrote a Year 10 student studying
Indonesian.

Another revealed, "I think my teacher was a spy when he was in
Indonesia. I'm learning Indonesian, so I can be a spy too."

The jury of an essay-writing competition in the Indonesian
language found themselves looking into a window otherwise not
accessible to them. Did these young people open up because they
knew those who read their essays would not know them? Or were
there some budding writers of thrillers among them?

This was the first competition of its kind, organized by the
Melbourne Institute of Asian Languages and Societies (MIALS) of
the University of Melbourne, assisted by the Victorian School of
Languages (VSL), and promoted by the Victorian Indonesian
Language Teachers Association (VILTA).

Arief Budiman, the Chair Professor of the Indonesian Program
in MIALS, confesses that the competition was a means of
reinfusing the excitement of studying Indonesian in Australian
secondary schools. With government funding shrinking each year,
aggravated further by the extended economic and perceived
security crises in Indonesia, the number of students taking up
Indonesian in secondary schools has inevitably gone down.

"The young people of today are going to be the leaders of
tomorrow. If they start developing friendships with their
Indonesian counterparts and understand Indonesia and its people
better, it will reflect well on the policy they develop later in
life," said Arief.

And, more immediate, when secondary school students study
Indonesian, they are more likely to choose a university course
which has something to do with Indonesia, such as Indonesian
politics, business law in Indonesia, Indonesian music, Indonesian
literature, and many, many other fields that will help strengthen
the ties between the two countries, especially when many of them
will also teach Indonesian.

Nani Hardjo, one of the tutors in the Indonesian Program, who
is also in charge of its events, came up with the idea of the
competition, and went to liaise with Lily Djajamihardja of the
Indonesian section of VSL. Lily then activated her network in
VILTA, which placed the announcement in its newsletter.

"One thing we have learned for our next competition is," said
Nani, "we need to advertise it earlier and more widely. The
teachers had less than two months to get their students
organized, so it was a rush. Even so, we still received 49
entries from 13 schools throughout the state of Victoria."

The competition consisted of three categories: for year 10,
year 11 and year 12. The topic was, How I became acquainted with
Indonesia. The entries were judged by the flow of the language,
the attractiveness of the content and grammatical correctness.

Lauren Usher, 16, of MacRobertson Girls' High School, the
first-prize winner of Year 11 category, compared how Indonesia
was perceived by Australians, before and after the Bali bombing
in October last year. And she added that her own perception had
not changed.

"I still see a beautiful country and a nice people. And I am
not scared of going back there, as often as I can afford to,"
said Lauren to The Jakarta Post. When she had to choose a
language in Year 9, she chose Indonesian and she does not regret
it. She hopes to become a teacher or translator, and to live and
work for some time in Indonesia.

Each of the seven jury members read seven of the 49 entries
and marked them from 50 percent to 95 percent. They then passed
on the marked essays to the two senior tutors at VSL, Lily
Djajamihardja and Rufin Kedang.

Leila Budiman, a jury member, recalls some interesting aspects
of the entries she read.

One of them wrote of being struck by the extent of poverty
when visiting Indonesia, while another told of feeling
overwhelmed by the crowds everywhere she went. Leila also
remembers an entrant described being impressed by the natural
beauty of Indonesia. "Bali, Yogya and Borobudur came up a lot in
the essays," recounted Leila.

Year 10 or year 11 students are not necessarily familiar with
any social situation outside Australia. They are bound to have
strong impressions when they visit Indonesia for the first time.
Entrants who had never been to Indonesia wrote that they were
infected by their teachers' enthusiasm in the country and its
people. One young entrant was even planning a fair way into the
future, to have his honeymoon in Indonesia.

On Friday Aug. 22, nine especially happy young Australians
received a certificate and a cash award each. The first-prize
winner in each category received AU$200, the second $150 and the
third $100. The other 40 each received a certificate as well as
encouragement from Indonesian Vice-Consul for Education Wahyu
Hersetiati.

"Don't regard this as a failure: Take it as success delayed,"
said Wahyu at the award-giving night at the Asia Center of the
University of Melbourne.