Professional Documents
Culture Documents
I have been learning English since I was in elementary school, it was up and down and sometimes I
have motivated to learnt English language sometimes I was on my neglected time with my English
lesson. It was very difficult to learn something that we do not know the purpose. So the story
continued with my English lesson until I was in early 20’s age. So, one of my aunty married with man
from Dutch, we have been lost contact for about long time, and one day they contacted my families
they wanted to come and visit us. At that time, I was living in Jogjakarta, so my aunty phoned my
grandmother. So, they decided to went home to celebrate their wedding anniversary with all of our
big families. The story began to change my perspective to highly committed to learn English was when
my families asked me to become their chaperone while they were in Indonesia. I really forgot the
exact date but it was in early 2015, might be at, February or march, I fetched them at Adi Sucipto
airport. I don’t know why my families asked me to company them while they were in Indonesia, but I
Think it was faith to changed my life until now. So, lets continue. I fetched them might be in the
evening using my blue old grand corolla car, that car has a lot of memories for me, I have sold that car
because I was a bit broke at that time. Lets go back to the stories, we met and we driven together to
their hotel. On the way to their hotel, me and my uncle were having the best conversation ever for
me using my limitless English skills, I was terrifying at that time, my English was very bad, but don’t
miss judge I still learn and improve my English until now. I didn’t have any confident at the beginning
of our meeting, I was very scared to talk and just being silenced for about 5 minutes on the first of our
meeting. He started to open our conversation with saying “How are you bowo?” And I just said good
and continued to silent again. As I know it was my very first time to talked with foreigner and having
a close conversation like that. At that time I thought I capable to understood what he talked about.
But the scariest thing was I made a mistake with my vocabulary or my grammar. He talked about their
flight to Indonesia I roughly understood what he said, but I couldn’t even think what I could say to
replied to this conversation, so I just said yes and No. My aunty was very cheeky at that time she was
busy phoning our families and make joke of me being frozen in front of her husband. All of the sudden,
my uncle told me not to be afraid to made mistakes in using English language, He said that it is not my
first language and all of the foreigners would understand if I made mistakes with my English language.
He told me that I should try to throw something to this conversation, so I started to ask him with my
destroyer grammar and he laughed, I assumed that I made a mistake and he didn’t understand what
I asked him. And our conversation goes on for about 60 minutes I rarely used my English but at that
conversation he told a story that I won’t forget until now is how big the world is, how if I can master
my English, it will beneficial for me in the future. Our conversation was stopped because we already
arrived at their hotel, and in the next days I have more confident to have conversations with him. After
that moment a lot of his families came to Jogjakarta and they asked me to take care of them while
they were in Jogjakarta, and the greatest things is they gave me some coins to fill my pocket after I
took care of them. The lesson from that evening night experience was don’t be afraid to talked to
foreigner and always improve my language skills so that I can have a bigger community and It will help
me in the future. And It is, now I become one of the luckiest teacher to teach in an International school,
from my Language I can earn monthly check to make my family life. Thanks to my uncle and that
moment that change my perspective and life.
2. In this opportunity I would like to share my memories about my father, My father’s name is
Soewarno but everyone called him Kelik. In Javanese culture in my perspective someone who called
kelik is like boy’s. He passed away in February this year because of covid, he has a lot of comorbid such
as heart diseases, diabetic, and high blood pressure. My first memory that I remember from him was
when I was in elementary school he used to take me to the barbershop every Saturday each month.
This specific barbershop was in Proyek in Bekasi, that was my favourite barbershop not because their
skills to cut my hair but it was because after they cut my hair they will give me a bottle of fresh tea. I
don’t know why but it was very relaxing and fun to do after I got a haircut I drink a cold fresh and
sweet tea, sometimes my dad had a haircut in there too, and gave me his freshtea so that I can drink
2 bottle of freshtea, if I got 2 bottle of freashtea we will lie to my mom and said I just only drank 1
bottle, but the funniest thing was every lie we gave to her about this on the next day I got coughing
and she will realize it, so lets go back after we did hair cut usually I asked him to bought me Iwan Fals
cassette, every time I asked Iwan Fals cassette he always bought it for me because he likes Iwan fals
too. We played the music inside our old tape on the way back home and sometimes we sang together.
My second memorable moment with him was when we were on the road to Jogjakarta, around 1992
until 1998 every year we went back to my parents home city for Eid ul Fitri, we went mudik with my
fathers family or my moms family depends the situation, we used our old Kijang 1991 car, without air
conditioner at that time because it was very expensive to have a car with an AC. It was always very
hot weather and it was fasting day, we didn’t have toll road before so that we always spent 12 hours
until the longest time was until 36 hours because of the traffic, the memorable moment at that time
was having a rest in front of the small store on the like mountain road and ate hot savoury delicious
spicy popmie, the smoke when we opened the cup was a legend and the smell from it was like we
were in heaven. We always listened to Iwan fals music and drank a cup of a hot tea. The memory is
unforgettable until now.
I have a lot of memories with him, If I mention it all in this recording it will take a day to listen to it, so
I think I will share the third memory with him was when he taught me about his Job, he was an
Architect and always draw building or house, The proudest feeling that I have is he was one of the
team who made MPR building. He taught me to draw house and taught me how to use AutoCAD to
draw a house, I remember that I can create our house using that program, he was very happy and
proud of me, 10 years old boys can use AutoCAD to draw our house, he printed it and share it among
his college, so when ever I came to his office, they knew me because of that. I missed him a lot right
now because of this recording, even though we have some argument but under my consciousness he
taught me a lot.
3. On my perspective and experience I would rather life in a countryside rather than in the big city,
Lets discuss the reasons, lets check with the weather first, in the country side there still a lot of trees
and plants not just like in a big city, there are a lot of building and we couldn’t see trees or plants in a
big city, this cause impacting the weather, In a country side we still can feel fresh air, clean water and
a lot of birds. In the big city we just can see a lot of cars that contaminate the air and the river that
have a lot of trash there. The next reason is about the neighbourhood, many people in a big city is
busy with their own life that sometimes they are forget about people around their house or in their
neighbourhood, they have mindset to take care of them self and their family at their house, sometimes
they forget that neighbourhood is important to help us if we are in the situation, in the village or
country side the togetherness around their neighbour is very high, so that they can help each other
and act like they are a big family in their neighbourhood. The next component to think about to life in
a country side is the people inside the country side usually is nice and polite person, I am not talking
that person in a big city all of them is not nice and polite, it is really depend with the person personality,
but if we are in the country side, a lot of people have that personality and they already know each
other in a long time, not just like in the big city, usually the people there they come and go, and they
have a lot of variety background and culture, so that its impacting people behaviour in the big city. In
a big city like Jakarta and city around it, traffic become a big issue, many people going to work and
going home from work at the almost same time make the traffic bad, and the amount of people that
lives and using the traffic either using public transportation or private transportation is very high not
like in the country side, the amount of people is not high and the using of traffic is variety, they usually
working not far away from their house, like in the farm or opening some small store. But the
contradictive from all of it is if we life in the big city, it has a lot of opportunity to make bigger money
than in a countryside, so refer back to the personal choices of where they want to life, but in my
perspective I rather life in the countryside.
4. On this days, coronavirus has been impacting many aspects of life, including education and people
that involved in education. In my perspective opinion if we discuss about how coronavirus impacting
the students, it is making a big impact for the students, it is different outcomes for the golden age to
study not physically near their teacher but also they cannot improve their social skills and life, studying
in front of gadget is different with if students studying in the class environment, the students who
study at home can have lack of motivation to study and can make them frustrated because of the
environment is not supporting their study life. For the teacher, in my perspective as a teacher, it is
already a big issue to give our students the same objective and success criteria from studying online
and studying face to face with the teacher. It is very difficult to see students with their understanding
about the topic and it is hard too to deliver the topic if we are in the online environment, I assume a
lot of teachers in everywhere is struggling with delivering the topic and maintaining students level of
their understanding high. For the parents it is interesting situation, in one condition they can be close
with their kids but in the other hand the situation is parents need to be online with their work and at
the same time parents need to help their kids with their school work, because their kids is at home
too. This situation make it really hard to parents because level of their patience is not as big as their
kids teacher. That’s all my opinion about coronavirus that impacting the world.