Things are different: My experiences in re-adjusting into my culture
By: Faishal Zakaria
Soon after I finished my academic program in the US, I was eager to prepare everything to go back to my home country, Indonesia. It seemed that I longed to see everyone after I had been away for about two years. I had attained my academic and personal dreams; completing a master degree in the US. Besides bringing my academic success home, I was also expecting to share my knowledge, experiences, and viewpoints with everybody upon my return. In this sense, I believe that my experiences learning and living in the US have changed my viewpoints and, therefore, I expect that I will be able to contribute my knowledge, though to a small extent, to the development of my very own community in my home country.
Upon my arrival, however, I realized that things were not as easy as I thought they would be. I started to feel “shocked” when I looked around my surroundings soon after I went out of my country’s biggest airport although I used to be familiar with the surroundings before I went to the US. For a quick example, I was very sorry to see many people smoked in public places (and ever worse, in air conditioned rooms) and they did not seem to care about others around them. I, however, think that much of this action was due to people’s ignorance. Raising people awareness and stricter law enforcement seem to be helpful in helping reduce this problem.
It has been our tradition to have a road trip for every break after school time. Last year, we visited Niagara Falls in New York, White House and Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C, Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport Virginia, and Hersey Chocolate factory in Pennsylvania. This summer break, our destination was Grand Canyon and Yellowstone.
Anyway, I like to visit unique and famous places in the U.S. with my friends because those places gave us more insight and knowledge about America.
The Great Land and Amazing landmarks
To me, America is the land of greatness. There are so many amazing landmarks and incredible monuments here in the U.S. Two of the amazing places are Grand Canyon and Yellowstone. We arrived at Grand Canyon around Aug 14, 11am MST. We could not wait to see the amazing Grand Canyon when we arrived there. After less than 3 minutes walking from the parking lot, the outstanding and unbelievable view of a deep valley between cliffs welcomes us with unspeakable expression. We were speechless and amused by the great view in front of us. According to the scientific explanation, the great depth of the Grand Canyon and the height of its strata can be attributed to 5,000 to 10,000 feet (1500 to 3000 m) of uplift of the Colorado Plateau, starting about 65 million years ago. Everything we saw at Grand Canyon was just amazing. Unfortunately, we only had half of the day to spend at Grand Canyon. We then proceeded our trip to Yellowstone through Las Vegas.
On our way to Las Vegas, we made a stop at the famous Hoover Dam. The Dam is located on the border between the U.S. states of Arizona and Nevada. It was the world's largest electric power producing facility and the world's largest concrete structure in 1935. After resting at Hoover Dam for half an hour, we continued the trip to Las Vegas for overnight.
The International Conference and Cultural Event on Aceh that was held by Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa and International Acehnesse graduate students was finally resulted to the signing of agreement to collaborate in educational exchange between local universities in Aceh and University of Hawaii at Manoa. Prior to the signing of the MoU, intensive seminar and graduate student papers were presented for two consecutive days. The cultural performances from the Aceh local University of Ar-Raniry Islamic State Institute and Balinese dance from one of Indonesian student at UHM made the conference more entertaining.
Among the presenters at the conference, there were three Acehnesse Fulbright scholars who are still studying in the U.S. and two other Acehnesse Fulbright alumni that also attended the conference; Muhammad Irham (Fulbright scholar at Texas A&M University), Teuku Andika Rama Putra (Fulbright scholar at Colorado School of Mines) and myself as the representative from Arkansas (University of Arkansas at Little Rock). The other two Fulbright alumni were Saiful Mahdi (Fulbright alumni from University of Vermont) and Fajran Zein (Fulbright alumni from Indiana University). Below are brief note of activities during the conference.
t 21 – 23, 2008