Selasa, 19 Juni 2012

My Multicultural Experience = Essay yang pernah memenangi The Jakarta Post Essay Writing Contest

Essay atau bahasa Indonesianya bisa dibilang karangan bebas. Essay ini pernah saya lombakan untuk The Jakarta Post Essay Writing Contest dan alhamdulillah essay ini masuk kedalam top 30 nasional


MY MULTICULTURAL EXPERIENCE

I agree with diversity, I agree with this statement because diversity means multicultural. I live in Indonesia, country with the largest multicultural things all over the world. I proud of being Indonesian, but many of Indonesian people doesn’t know a lot about this multicultural thing in this country.

Since I was born in Java until now I can speak Javanese fluently and I don’t know why I can be that. I think I can speak like that because of my parents are Javanese too. And when I’m  still a very little baby my parents brought me too Sumatra, the exact place is Riau. Riau peoples are dominated by Melayu and Minang. Because I ever live in Riau so I can speak bahasa minang but not very fluent, just a bit. Minang traditional foods are identically with very hot or spicy flavor, this is inversely proportional with Javanese traditional food that identically with sweet flavor. And because my tongue is Javanese tongue so I prefer to eat sweet foods or a bit spicy foods than a very spicy foods.

Minang and Java had a lot of differences, I had an experience when I wanted to buy a foods in one of the Minang restaurants, I said to the waiter “I want to buy a rice but don’t give ‘sambal’ “ in minang ‘sambal’ mean side dishes but in java ‘sambal’ mean chili. This is the very differences tradition of language that usually use in both cultural. There are still many differences about this two tribes, but I don’t know how to explain it more. And when I’m in the 8th grade, I move to Balikpapan, East Kalimantan. This is it, a city with a minority peoples of the original tribe. Many people or majority, peoples in Balikpapan are immigrants from Sulawesi and Java. Balikpapan had a very different tradition in language from Java or Minang. Usually, Balikpapan people add a “kah” word in every last words of questions. When first time I hear it my friend said that I want to laugh because it sound funny, but because I respect the multicultural different, I cancel to laugh at that “kah” word.

In other words, the social part of it is don’t laugh at another person because of the different in every single cultural and don’t ever vilify another tribes. What if we vilify another tribes and that another tribes feel angry with our tribe, because of that it can be fight or war between this two tribes. Respect the other tribes are very important in multicultural living.

Now, I live in the expatriate neighborhood. I can catch the different of our country with other country is, the expatriate when it is already around 6 p.m. its called dinner. But, in our country dinner is around 7 until 8 p.m. I think the most important things in behavior on the multicultural environment is respecting the others. Without it, I think people will dislike us. I had a bad experience when I was at school in Riau, my friends laugh at me because of if I speak bahasa, it will come with Javanese accent. This Javanese accent called “medok” (usually Indonesian people said that). But times by times goes by and I grow up until like now, this Javanese accent is permanently disappear. I don’t know why it can be disappear, but I think its because I more often to speak with bahasa than speak with Javanese language.
In conclusion the main idea of this multicultural live is respect, respecting others can make this world peace, without war and I’m very proud of being Indonesian people that ever had a multicultural experiences in 3 different places.

Ahadhim Dary Ismaya
SMAN 1 Balikpapan

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