CIA 2021: “Explore The Beauty of France In Autumn”

“Understanding languages and cultures builds bridges.”

–Suzy Kassem

Culture In Action, or commonly abbreviated as CIA, is one of CCU-LM Department’s work programs. It aims to help members of SAFEL developing their Cross Cultural Understanding knowledge and experiencing colorful foreign cultures closely. CIA is also often called as “Mini FesBud” or “Mini Cultural Festival” because it focuses on a culture from one country.

CIA 2021 brought up “France in Autumn” as its main theme and “Explore The Beauty of France In Autumn” as the tagline. Our goal is to take the participants closer to the enchanting autumn atmosphere and give them some insights about French culture. We invited a guest speaker from France, Viviane Carnelutti, to share with us about her native culture.

Unlike the previous years, CIA 2021 was held online because of the ongoing pandemic. However, the participants’ enthusiasm was marvellous. Our quantity target for the participants of CIA 2021 was 45 participants, but on the last day of the registration, we had 65 people registered!

The event was held through the Zoom meeting platform on Saturday, 9th October 2021 at 12.30 pm based on Western Indonesian time and at 07.30 am based on Paris time. The event was delivered in two languages, in English and in Indonesian, by both of the Master of Ceremonies. Well, there’s a unique thing about the MC’s costumes. One MC wore a traditional French dress and the other MC wore a Javanese traditional clothes which are called surjan.

The first agenda was the opening by the MC, then followed by some remarks from the chief of committee of CIA 2021, the head of SAFEL, and the advisor of SAFEL. After that, we had a presentation about French culture in autumn by Viviane. What’s interesting is that we didn’t just listen to the presentation, but we had a “Question-and-Answer” or “Q&A” session, so any participants could ask Viviane directly anything about French culture. And not only that, we also had an interactive session with Viviane. The kind of activity we had was a Kahoot game about French culture and a Mushroom Game. No, you didn’t misread it! It’s exactly a game about mushrooms. So, all participants had to guess if certain types of mushroom are poisonous or not and how French people usually cook them. The winner of this Kahoot game got a prize from the committees.

However, the excitement didn’t end there. We also had an ice breaking session after that. The name of the game was “LaGugel”. The participants were required to guess the song title and also the singer from the lyrics played by Google voice. The one who had a right to answer was the first one who typed “ME” in the chat box. Then, the MC would invite that first person to open the microphone and answer it.

With the ice breaking and the photo session after that, the agenda of CIA 2021 was ended. We really hope that the “Culture In Action” will always give us a bridge of understanding towards foreign languages and cultures. As Robert Alan once said, “Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity.”

By : Aurellia Anayadisa Wibowo & Nilamsari Wanodyatami K.