Indonesia Portal Blog

Last sunday, we visited a small celebration of the PPI (Persatuan Pelajar Indonesia - some indonesian student organisation) in Cologne. The cause of this celebration was the indonesian independence day (well a bit too late, but whatever).

This kind of celebrations always proceed in a similair way. First, the national anthem will be sung (extremly patriotic, of course), after a radio played the cratchy recording of sukarnos independence adress a small speech will follow, held by some official (consul, diplomat etc.).

Finally it was time for some fun.

The rest of the day is consisting of eating indonesian food of all kind, playing, singing, dancing and whatever else is entertaining. Also this celebration was passed in the same way.

After we filled our stomaches with the delicious food (Saté, Kare Ayam, Nasi Campur etc.), we could marvel at some regional dances from Java and Bali.

The first dance presented the wayang figure Gatotkaca, who was fighting in a war, but he also thought about his loved one. The dance told of the fight and the sadness of Gatotkaca.

The second dance was sundanese and performed by two women.

The third dance was a typical balinese dance.

After the dances, the time was up for some games. First, just the children played, but after a while also some adults took part the games.

One of the funniest games was the krupuk-eating-contest. The krupuk (rice cakes) were hung on a string and the children had to eat them as fast as they could. Later, the adults tried their Krupuk-gulping abilities.

Also Vania, the co-author of this blog was part of this game, but she failed lousy (did we practise for nothing the last few month ?!).

Between the games some music was performed. The definition of the music could be charming-dilettantish and somewhat unrehearsed, but it still was fun.

Now, the spotlights were on myself in the costume contest, where woman, man and children presented traditional costumes of the different regions of Indonesia and in the man contest, I won the second place!

But stop! Before someone of the fashion industry wants to engage me as a model, the negative point of this incident should also be told. I reached second place of two male participants. But, anyway, I received a silver cup, also my stage walk was amused all spectators.

All in all a nice party, sadly we had to went home, before the dangdut dances started (too bad we missed it).

Till next year, we will train even more Krupuk-gulping. Also I will focus on my model carreer, so we can get the gold cup next year!

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 9:16 pm and is filed under On tour. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.