Culture In Action, commonly abbreviated as CIA, is one of the CCU-LM Department’s work programs. It aims to help members of SAFEL develop their knowledge of cross-cultural understanding and experience various foreign cultures interactively. CIA is also often called “Mini FesBud” or “Mini Cultural Festival” because it focuses on a specific culture of one country.
CIA 2022 brought up “Elysium: An Odyssey Towards Joyous Revelry” as its main theme. Our goal was to take the participants to a new imaginary world where two or more cultures can be combined, which is represented by Japanese culture. However, this year, the topic of the event focused on art projects because our guest speaker was an artist. We invited a Japanese artist, Jun Kitazawa, to share with us about his native culture, which is conveyed in his art projects.
CIA 2022 was held online, as it was last year, using the Zoom Meetings platform. However, the participants’ enthusiasm was incredible. Our quantity target for the participants of CIA 2022 was 50 participants, but on the last day of registration, we had 80 people registered! The event took place on Sunday, October 9, 2022, at 8.30 a.m. based on Western Indonesian time. Furthermore, this event was delivered in two languages, English and Indonesian, by the Master of Ceremony. Since we only had one MC this year, only one traditional costume was used, which was a yukata from Japan.
The opening remarks by the MC were the first item on the agenda for CIA 2022, followed by welcoming speeches from the Chairman of the CIA 2022 Committee and the Head of SAFEL. After that, we had a presentation about Japanese culture by Jun Kitazawa, which was conveyed in his art projects. The most exciting part of his presentation was that so many cultural aspects from several countries were combined in his art projects. For example, he did a project where people could see the similarities between Indonesian rickshaw becak and Japanese rintaku as cultural products from two different countries. After Jun Kitazawa’s presentation, we had a Question and Answer session where participants could ask Jun Kitazawa questions about Japanese culture and his art projects.
After learning about Japanese culture, we took a group picture with Jun Kitazawa and continued by playing games! The game was led by the MC, Azki, via Quizziz. The game session lasted for about 10 minutes and was won by Afifah Ulayya as the first winner and Rani Amalina as the runner-up. Congratulations!
As CIA 2022 ended, we hoped that our cross-cultural understanding would be even stronger than before. In the future, our fun time together learning about different cultures in Culture In Action will always be a good memory. Sayonara, mata ashita! “Embracing diversity is one adventure after another, opening new paths of discovery that connect understanding to caring, listening, and sharing with others who are different than ourselves.” –April Holland
