| Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 13:34:10 +0100 (BST)
From: allex karyadi alex_kyd@yahoo.co.uk Alex Karyadi
Subject: FEEDBACK FROM AUSTRALIA
To: OYutarini@ialf.edu
Cc: kdalton@ialf.edu
Reply-To: alex_kyd@yahoo.co.uk
20 August 2010 - 4 September 2010, seven students of SMA Yos Sudarso Sokaraja, Banyumas including me as the 'guru pembimbing had an opportunity to stay in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. For the whole two weeks we attended classes at Aquinas College and also 'cultural visits' in the city of 'Surfers Paradise' What I saw and experienced were really amazing. The first 'crazy' thing for me and my students (right after landing at Gold Coast Airport) was that we were all 'spread up' to our host families who had been waiting at the Arrival Gate. We experienced so many 'unusual things' everywhere on the street, at school, at the beach, at supermarkets, at each family where we stay at etc.
CROSSING THE ROAD
In Indonesia, or at least in my hometown, Purwokerto, Banyumas, we usually wait for the cars to pass (let the cars pass first) and then we cross the street or if we are brave enough, we just 'take way' on the busy street with the hope that the cars will stop, but in Gold Coast, drivers will stop their cars and let people cross the street. It is not us who wait the cars to pass and then we cross the street but the cars stop and wait for us to cross the street. Drivers do respect to pedestrian or people who want to cross the street. TRAFFIC LIGHT AND HORN In Gold Coast, drivers will immediately stop their cars when the traffic light turns to 'yellow'. Though it is still 'safe enough' for the drivers to speed up before traffic light turns to 'red' but it seems that no drivers do that. Also I have never heard the sound of 'car horn' on the street. It is really amazing...even in a very big and busy city like Brisbane I didn't hear the sound of 'car horn'. I was lucky enough to be invited to explore Brisbane (together with 2 other teachers) and had dinner at Chinatown. Everything on the street (traffic) is in good order so there is no need for driver to press the horn button (membunyikan klakson). Mr. Anderson (the man who drove me around Brisbane) said that if you 'membunyikan klakson' everyone will look at you...
NO RICE - RARELY TEA
I got a little problem with my daily meal. The family whom I stay with never had rice. I stayed with a young family of two children at 6 Ama Ave, Runaway Bay. Tracy, the mother of two sweet children in the family is good at cooking (for dinner). But still her cooking is very Australian taste and 'strange' to my Indonesian tongue. She is not used to cooking rice. For breakfast, we only had cereal with milk, bread, sandwich with 'very strange jam' called 'vergimate' or something like that. That's crazy..I didn't used to eat all of that although I had to finally. Lunch always at school (at teachers' office). They drink coca cola, juice, milk, coffee but NOT TEA...even in the cold evening when we had party at some homestays (and party always means barbeque) we had coca cola or beer for drink (why not hot sweet tea on such cold evening, I questioned myself). Anyway, I enjoyed the new experience very much. Once I was invited to a dinner at 'Southport Workers Club' and you know I had to learn to use fork and knife (we had baked lamb, beef, potatoe and no rice)... and 'Cascade' (Australian beer of 2 percent alchohol) for drink...wow that was a great fun. Wherever we went for dinner at restaurants, there was no spoon but always fork and knife (except in Chinese restaurant).
MUSLIM STUDENTS AND RAMADHAN IN AUSTRALIA
I did appreciate Australian people - especially hostparents with whom my 'muslim students' stay. They supported my students to go on fasting during a-two-week stay in Australia on Ramadhan (August 2010). From the seven students who were selected to participate in 'Students' Exchange Programme to Queensland, two of them were muslims. They were Frizal Akhbar and Eko Aditya. They also went to 'Friday Praying' or Sholat Jum'at at a mosque in Gold Coast and the hostparents drove them to the mosque on Friday, 27 August & Friday, 03 September 2010. The hostparents treated the two boys like their own sons. I could feel this, really. This is truly 'Good Neighbours Make Good Friends'. The two families whom Frizal and Eko stay with were even interested to know more detail about 'fasting' on Ramadhan. I myself watched them talking about the fasting month and with the rules that should be followed. The hostparents helped them with their 'makan sahur' very very early in the morning. My students told me about this 'goodness' when we met at the college in the following morning. On the eight day of my stay in Gold Coast, Aquinas Principal invited Yos Sudarso teachers and two of my students as 'representatives', and one was Catholic student (Vickyani Thendrawati) and the other was Muslim student (Eko Aditya) to go to Brisbane and each of us had to speak in front of a kind of 'School Commitee'. We all had to deliver 'short speech' in front of people about building good relationship between Indonesian and Australian students. It was amazing that my students spoke in English (though not perfectly) in front of 'important persons' in Brisbane.
PLAYING 'ANGKLUNG' AT CITY COUNCIL There is a very very interesting and also 'frightening' story about bringing 'angklung' to Australia. It was a fifteen-minute nighmare at Gold Coast Airport BUT FINALLY EVERYTHING WAS ALL RIGHT. Before landing at the airport, the flight attendants gave us a kind of 'Arrival Card' with so many questions to answer. One of the questions is 'Are you bringing into Australia any kind of wood product, skin of animal...? etc.' There are about 15 questions and as our group of students didn't have any bad intention on our trip and didn't bring any 'barang barang berbahaya', so we all just answered NO to all questions.... But.....oh my God.. at the 'Customs Checking' the officers found 'angklung' music instrument (of course made of wood/bamboo) in each students' luggage...and a puppet (wayang) in my luggage. The officers were quite angry with my students and me. They asked my students whether they understood English (when answering questions on Arrival Card). Of course, my students got very very nervous and frightened and possibly didn't understand English (of persons being angry) at that 'very' moment. Realizing this situation, I took 'immediate' action by explaining to the officers seriously and said very sorry for our mistakes. I said that it is our first visit to Australia and that the 'wood product' is traditional music instruments and not 'barang berbahaya' or 'biology samples' which might contain 'disease' or something prohibited. To make sure that my explanation was true, the officers asked my students to play the angklung in front of them (and....this 'sudden performance' attracted other people at the airport) The officers gave smile to us and let us go with 'the wood product' and also 'the skin product' (wayang). They told us next time to be more carefull when answering written questions. Oh thank God...my English really worked well.
Anyway, I appreciated the officers at the airport. They did great job to protect their country from something which possibly harmful for people, plants, animals etc.(Oh yeah...two packages of our souvenirs from 'wood' were destroyed because there were some root or 'akar akar rumput' and seeds as ornaments....but that's okay..we realized that) My students played 'angklung' at an assemby meeting at Aquinas College. And even, on the other day, we visited and also performed/played angklung at the Gold Coast City Council..my students (wearing Indonesian school uniform,abu abu-putih) also got chance to introduce themselves in front of many 'Australian' people at the City Council. That was an unforgetable experience.
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