Love is Cinto

Philadelphia is a historical city, less than 2 hours drive from Bethlehem, PA. The first impression once I got there was it’s busier than our previous visited cities, more offices building, and more tourists cause I saw tourism bus often passed by. Before we leaving for Philadelphia, we went to the City Hall of Bethlehem and met a councilman called Mr. Will. He is originally come from Bethlehem and grew up in Bethlehem too. He was in his early 20s when elected to become a council man. Before elaborating further on our discussion, my fellows in Indonesia or country other than US might not sure what this council men do, who are they, etc. So let me explain based on my best knowledge. The City Hall is a public services office which has similar function as Regional Government Office in Indonesia. The offices consist of the Council Men which functioned as “house of representative in the city level” or in Indonesia we call it DPRD tingkat Kota Madya, Mayor who lead the city (Wali Kota), and...

Have you ever heard a Germany community live in US with no electricity? Yap! They are Amish. They live in a group which settled in several states in the US. If I were asked to describe how they live, simplicity will be my best answer. They refuse to go along with modernization and choose to preserve their culture and religious beliefs in a unique way. Why unique? They refuse to use modern devices in daily life Yup, they don’t use TV, computer which of course including internet. No phone. They don’t even drive cars or any “modern” vehicle. Interestingly, some of them consider riding a car, plane, or such as acceptable to travel in distance as long as they are just the passengers. Well, that depends on how strict or conservative someone is. Another thing to pointed out is that they use some modern tools to make their handy-craft when it is not possible to do it manually. However, it is for business purpose only and the electricity generated by themselves. Yes, they have their ...

We arrived at Detroit Airport at around 4 pm after experienced  some delay because of the storm. However, Alhamdulilllah we arrived  safely. Kharis, a person who work for SouthEast Asean Study Center in University of Michigan, picked us up and drove us to Courtyard where we stay nearby the north campuss. University of Michigan is a public university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We had a campuss tour guided by Kate. She is the head of SouthEast Asean Study Center who had been staying in Indonesia and became a lecturer in UGM from 2002 to 2004. Thus, she is really good at speaking Bahasa Indonesia. University of Michigan has a huge campuss with some classic-style libraries. Basically, their student diverse from many different races. They also have a pretty big number of Moslem students and they even have a student association for Moslems. Later on, I will elaborate our refreshing discussion with them. Ann Arbor itself is simply lovable. It’s a relatively small and peace...

Pondok Pesantren Tegalrejo, Magelang (NU) Mayor of Magelang

Today we started our day very early, 6 am in the morning. We directly went to the biggest Buddhist temple in Indonesia, Candi Borobudur, Magelang. I have been there many times, yet I still amazed on how beautiful the view from the top of the temple. Candi Borobudur was built in Syailendra Dynasti, Buddhism Mataram age. Before built this temple, they had built another temple not so far from Borobudur, that is Mendut temple. Later on, I’d explain how interesting our discussion was. Borobudur temple was included in 7 wonders in the world. It is surrounded by 3 big mountains: Mt. Merapi, Mt. Sumbing, and Mt. Sindoro. From there, we rode a horse-cart (dokar) through the nearby village. It was kinda uncovenient moment because our American partners (some or all, not sure) were animal lovers. Thus they could not bear to see the horse riding us back to the parking lot because the horse are phisically small.  I don’t want to debate on this matter. I personally think that before we judg...

“Radicalization and Deradicalization of Islamist Movement in Indonesia” was the theme for our lecture today with Pak Muhammad Najib Azca, the founder of Youth Studies Centre (YouSure) and the lecturer in Faculty of Political Sciences UGM. The presentation based on his book, After Jihad. Radicalization or deradicalization means become more/ less committed to radical. Radicalization may take in 3 levels: micro (personal), meso (group/network), and macro (society). He was also explaining that 3 things can be the reasoning of radicalization: moral shocks, cognitive opening, and radical action as an act of identity crysis. Furthermore, radicalism consists of 3 streams as below: -           Jihadi: focus on armed struggle, usually in order to form an Islamic state. This stream is the one that widely known as terrorist. -           Pious: focus on Islamic ethics and identity, more concern on their o...

Basically, today we had cultural activities all day long. First, we visited Kraton Yogyakarta and enjoy ed Karawitan there. I met this one Japanese granny, it helped me to releave my longing about Japanese thingy. We looked around inside the palace which consists of many rooms like pictures of Sultan, things that belong to him, and others.  The ruling Sultan and his royal family are still living in the white building inside the palace. Our guide said lights on the yard will only be turned on when the Sultan is home. Next, we had a lunch in Loving Hut, a vegan restaurant in nearby Malioboro. From there, we moved to have shopping at Mirota Batik. Mirota Batik is a shop where they sell many kind of Batik and Javanese souvenirs. It is located at Malioboro Street. My US friends, Shannon, Ellie, Theresa, and Angela, they bought many beatiful batiks in various forms ranging from pants, shirts, skirts, scarfs, etc. In simply words, they were overwhelmed with all Batik stuffs. Haha. ...

Starting the day at 8 am, we went to Singlar Village and met this one family named Pak Sakimin. He was one of the Merapi victim when it was erupted in October 2010. Basically, we discussed a lot about the disaster and post-disaster activities that actually happened in Singlar. He also showed us around the village that was, we can say, totally destroyed. Pak Sakimin told us like the whole story how it was happened and how the government and the other social organizations (NGOs) gave assistances in recovering the post-disaster condition. Next, we had a lunch in Raminten, a Javanese restaurant in Jalan Kaliurang. Later on, we continued to Ullen Sentalu. It's a Javanese Museum well known as Batik Museum in Yogyakarta. They have the coolest collections in there. Generally, as its name, they have pictures of Sultanate and Paku Alam along with the royal families in both cities, Yogyakarta and Surakarta. They have this one family tree which Paundra Kandra's name written on it too....

On the last day in Jakarta phase, the UI’s committee made it as a FUN Day. The first agenda was go cycling around UI yet since it was a voluntary activity, only 2 persons from USIPP who actually joined the cycling activity. At around 9 o’clock, we departed from Wisma makara to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII). It was bigger than what I remember. The last time I went there was around elementary school age. LOL. Basically, TMII is a miniatur of Indonesia. Love it. We took a skylift and crossed the Indonesia from the WESTest to the EASTest part oof indonesia literally :D They have a map of Indonesia made of lands in a pool. Ya kind of :3 So they made it like a real one but in 1:10.000.000 scale. We did all activities yesterday in TMII up to 4 pm continued to shop at the Margo City mall and the last one was farewell dinner at Sate Khas Senayan. The sate was sooooo good. The meat was really tender and the peanut sauce was really tasty. At the end of the dinner, Pak Jun gave us a sw...

Our first agenda today were visiting the Office of DKI Jakarta’s Governor. While waiting for meeting time, we visited Museum National popularly known as Museum Gajah which is located nearby the office. Though I have come to Jakarta many times, that was my first time to visit this museum. The story behind the name of Museum gajah is that, right in front of the building, they have an Elephant (Gajah) statue. The bronze statue itself was a gift from Thailand’s King when he was visited Indonesia in President Soekarno’s Era. We did not have much time, thus we were only seeing the first and second floor of the main building. The first floor consist of statue of Indonesia’s cultural figures made by stone such as Hindu’s Gods, etc. In the upstair, they have a gold museum which is relatively new. Museum Nasional After that, we went to the Governor office where the Vice Governor of Tourism and Culture, Mr. Sukerti Martono, greeted us. We had a nice lunch there and continued our visi...

Today we have pretty tight schedule. We visited some official offices such as the Ministry of Higher Education (DIKTI), Forum for Interfaith Discussion (Forum Kerukunan Umat Beragama-FKUB), Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), and the last but not least one was Muhammadiyah. The first visitation was to DIKTI where Mr. Purwanto, the Secretary of DIKTI welcomed us and kindly explained about the roles of DIKTI in order to ensure the achievement of the quality standard of higher education in all over Indonesia. Furthermore, to internationalize (to make the world acknowledge Indonesian’s univerties or education). they have several programs like a joint program with USA which called DIKTI Fullbright Scholarship Program, Sandwich Program which offers academic staff to experience student exchange program for 4 months), and SAMI (Academic Mobility) for PhD to visit overseas universities or to conduct a joint research. Next, we went to FKUB and were warmly welcomed by several figures from ea...