JUNE 7 — On September 6, 2012, I arrived at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport with little more than Rp 1 million (US$84.3) and a befuddled look on my face. I found myself on the other side of the world from the United States, clothing soaked with sweat, without a familiar face in sight. My adventure was just beginning.
I spent 10 months studying Indonesian language and culture at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta under the auspices of the Indonesian government’s Darmasiswa Indonesian Scholarship Program. The Darmasiswa scholarship places foreign students and recent graduates in universities throughout Indonesia to study Indonesian arts and culture. Living on a Rp 2 million monthly stipend is just enough to survive on by eating street food and Indomie, Indonesia’s famous instant noodles.
The classroom experience was helpful in teaching Indonesian language and culture, but it was even more helpful in teaching about the way Indonesia, as a country, functions. I learned about navigating immense bureaucracies and how to deal with the hierarchal establishment. I learned the importance of etiquette and presentation — the nuances of social interaction required to operate within an Indonesian institution.
Much of my Darmasiswa education took place on the streets. I looked forward to my morning commute because I never knew what I would see and learn on the way, whether it was dangerous near-collisions with bicycle taxis or a pet monkey chained to a tree. Every morning I was greeted by beaming children, and sometimes excited old-timers, with the exclamation “Hello Misterr”, with that beautiful rolled R. My Javanese girlfriend taught me the proper jongkok, or flat-footed squat form necessary for using my new Indonesian toilet. I can’t say I’ve yet mastered that skill.
A friend from just south of the city taught me how to curse in Javanese. I rode across the island of Java on my motorcycle and not only saw, but felt, the beauty and happiness in the smiling faces of the Indonesian people, whether astoundingly poor or extravagantly rich. I learned to dress more conservatively, wearing only long pants, despite the incredible heat, just as the locals did. My street-education was an exciting exercise in the sharing of culture, heritage and values.
The Darmasiswa’s reach extended even beyond my interactions with Indonesia. I encountered people I never expected to meet during my time in Southeast Asia. My rented house was shared with a Dane, a Lithuanian and a local engineer. After class came to a close, I often found myself sweating profusely on the bamboo couch in my living room, listening to the tuk-tuk-tuk sound of the traveling bakso (meatball) vendor. I sat between the Lithuanian and the Dane, listening in on a light-hearted exchange about robberies at Danish summer homes and suspicious parked cars with Lithuanian license plates. It was an odd pairing of Eastern and Western Europe. The engineer would chime in, bluntly asking why Lithuanians like to break into Danish property.
The scene of an American, a Western European an Eastern European and an Indonesian sitting together in Yogyakarta casually chatting was special and unique. International exchange programs create a positive space for global communication between more than just two countries. These programs are effective in exposing participants from different parts of the world to each other and asking them to live and work together in a foreign environment.
This year, I am serving as a Fulbright Scholar. I am an English Teaching Assistant in Peninsular Malaysia, where I design and teach interactive lessons to high school students, while also sharing American ideas and customs.
I am a cultural ambassador, representing America in physical form to a small Southeast Asian community that has previously only seen and experienced America through television and film. I have the opportunity to learn about the various diverse racial groups that make up Malaysia. I visit Chinese churches, Hindu temples and hear the early morning call to prayer from the local mosque. My sense of purpose in Malaysia is quite similar to what I felt in Indonesia: a desire to immerse myself in the local culture, speak the local language, to teach, to learn and promote a feeling of common humanity.
The Darmasiswa scholarship, the US Fulbright Program and other similar exchange programs are extremely successful in nurturing mutual understanding on an individual, national and international level. They organically create bonds between individuals and nations where there once were no such relationships. It is through this kind of cultural diplomacy that economic and political diplomacy also come about.
The bonds that I have formed with Southeast Asian people will directly affect their perceptions of the US and what the US means to this region. The opposite is also true: my relationships with Indonesian and Malaysian people has enhanced my grasp of Southeast Asia and will inform my view of individuals and nations in this region.
People-to-people diplomacy fosters ties between nations from the bottom up. Young people in Indonesia and Malaysia may never visit my country, but certainly they will remember when an American came to their school and taught them for a year. They will grow up and become the men and women that shape the future of their respective countries. Their interactions and opinions of me, as a representative of the US, will have a profound effect on how public policy is formed in regard to my country.
It is through cultural diplomacy, the grassroots organic process of exchange between individuals of different nations, that we share ideas, information and art, and achieve the feeling of a shared human experience. The creation of these powerful people-to-people connections over time is what forges long-running and sustainable relationships between nations. — thejakartapost.com
* The writer is a 2014 US Fulbright scholar based in Batu Pahat, Johor, Malaysia.
** This is the personal opinion of the writers or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.
