experience to get an insight of Indonesian University, however European standards are a little bit different. But this was part of getting know of way of thinking Indonesia, the systems, the teachers, and it was specially interesting to watch how different nationalities adjusting to Indonesian culture. Everybody has ups and downs, heating and loving Indonesia in the same time. Asian nations can adjust more, I think one of the biggest difficulties for Europeans is that Indonesian does not know of the meaning and existence of confrontation. For example if you ask something they never ever will say –I do not know. For example: - Where is this street, do you know? – Yes, Yes,… So where is it? … - Yes, Yes,… They just say yes for everything, and than making trouble of course. Well, there are plenty of other difficulties, like accept the life standards, the waste all around, the mandi, interesting habits and so on. But you need to get rid of all the “bad” stuff and start to enjoy living like Indonesians. The sentence everywhere is true – If you are in Rome, act like Rome people. Maybe I wrote now not just good things, seems maybe negative, but the rats, cockroaches, dhyeria, high fever, get lost on the street, spending days on buses, crazy drivers,crazy traffic all around, all annoying things, that can happen, are all part of the experience. If you face challenges, you are going to appreciate more the results. The diversity of things beside your own culture on the beginning makes you dizzy, that is the cultural shock, that is absolutely normal. But than you will find your favorite dish from the one thousand different one, you will find the smiling ibu on your street who is inviting you to her house, you will buy a motor bike and enjoy the freedom of riding. Or you will watch a sunset from Lembang, having a coffee in Puculot, and explore all the hidden secrets of your city. You will get know amazing people with amazing stories, you will see deeper the mixture of strong believe of ghost and healers, and Muslim religion. And many many amazing, interesting thing, which is explorable just through living in a country. So after all, we all fall in love with Indonesia, some of us got Indonesian boyfriend, girlfriend, some of us would like to stay in Indonesia forever, or a little
DARMASISWA SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM Academic Year of 2012/2013
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