„SERBIA UP-CLOSE“ IMPRESSIONS OF THE INDONESIAN STUDENTS OF THE BALGRADE UNIVERSITY

Marking the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Association of Serbian-Indonesian Friendship “Nusantara”, Belgrade City Library in cooperation with “Nusantara” Association organized on Friday, 5 July 2013, the presentation “Serbian close”, where the six Indonesian students presented their experience of academic life in our country.

In recent years, the Government of the Republic of Serbia within the project „World in Serbia“ has been awarding the scholarships to the students from Asian, Africa and Latin American countries – members of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Students Asni Furaida, Sabriana Jayaputri, Benny Enrico Napitupulu, Adi Bramasto, Lambok Simbolon and Willyam Noveri are currently studying in Serbia. After the first eight months of learning Serbian, they started their studies at selected universities. These students – classes 2010 and 2011 – are studying at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Faculty of Security Studies and the Faculty of Agriculture.

Multimedia presentation at the Library was the story of powerful impressions of young Indonesians who found themselves studying 10,000 kilometres away from their homeland in a totally different cultural environment.

The presentation included a film which was filmed and directed by students themselves. It was, at times, a humorous story of how they cope with language, food and the people here, of their student life, and how much the life in Serbia is different from the life in Indonesia.

Guests were able to learn how foreigners find it difficult to learn Serbian cases, but also why an Indonesian Muslim got interested in Serbian folklore and learned “Moravac”. Also, this was an opportunity for young Indonesians to recall how they first heard of the Serbian rock and roll music and loved “Parni valjak”, “Piloti” “Crvena Jabuka”, how some of them found their love and become fans of “Red Star” and “Partizan”.

The students noted that, although Indonesia and Serbia are geographically far apart, there are many similarities in mentality and culture. Indonesia is known as the land of smiling people, and Serbia, in their opinion, is the land of hospitable people. Thus, Indonesian Students in Serbia feel like they are at home.

This was also an opportunity to promote the Association of Indonesian students in Serbia “KERIS” whose president is a student Asni Furaida.

The presentation of Indonesian students arouse a great deal of media interest, as evidenced by the reports in “Politika”, “Blic”, “Press”, International Radio Serbia, Tanjug news agency, Radio “S”, Radio Belgrade 1, Belgrade Radio 2, and Radio Belgrade 202.

On behalf of the Association of Serbian-Indonesian Friendship “Nusantara” the guests were greeted by its chairman Mr Aleksandar Rakovic. The conversation continued with a cocktail party in the gallery of the Library.