Universitas Muhamadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) organized the second International Cultural Festival (ICF) on Thursday (24/3) at hall of Masjid K.H. Ahmad Dahlan of UMY. It was one of the event series of UMY’s 35 anniversary commemoration. The ICF presented cultural performances and food booth of 18 countries, namely South Korea, People’s Republic of China, Ukraine, Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia, Brazil, Nepal, Vietnam, Libya, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, Turkmenistan, Serbia, Italia, and France.

Officially opening the ICF, Rector of UMY, Prof. Bambang Cipto appreciated the ICF, and he expected that the event could become an annual event. “If it is possible, the participants of the ICF can escalate one participant or two participants each year. This event accommodate us to perform cultural exchange with other countries,” he stated.

A supervisor of Learning Express of Singapore Polytechnic, Mr. Norazhar Bin Mohamed Sepet was glad that the ICF could be conducted in this 2016. Students of Singapore Polytechnic joining Learning Express and International Community Service (KKN) could engage in the ICF 2016 by setting up a booth to present their product of their 14-day community service. “The students are delighted with dwelling in Jogja for 14 days and working with UMY. We wished that we could cooperate with UMY over and over again,” Mr. Norazhar expressed.

The ICF 2016 was open to students and public. The international participants of the ICF were international students and student exchange at UMY, University of Ahmad Dah;an (UAD), and University of Diponegoro (UNIDIP) Semarang. One of the committee of the ICF 2016, Fahrizal Ramdhan, S.IP. informed that, besides food booths of 18 countries, there were booths of some institutes like Institute Francais Indonesia (IFI), British Council, Lembaga Indonesia Spanyol, and Loka-Loka Bistro Prancis.

“Last year the cultural performance was presented by participants of student exchange from Suranaree University of Technology Thailand, but this year UMY invites 20 cultural tour students from Ton Duc Thang University, Vietnam to perform in the ICF 2016,” Fahrizal said. He also informed that each visitor of the ICF would get free four coupons four booths of four countries. There was also a voting coupon to choose the best booth which would obtain a reward.

The ICF 2016 was opened by Sunshine Voice of UMY singing ‘Gundul-Gundul Pacul’. The performances presented in the ICF 2016 were Saman dance from Aceh by students of UMY, Turkish dance by students of Sekolah Kesatuan Bangsa (an international school, cooperation between Indonesia and Turkey), Piring dance, and Vietnamese dance by students of Ton Duc University Vietnam, and others. There was also movie screening of Vietnamese culture by Ton Duc University, Vietnam.

The food booths were opened at 1 p.m. and ended at 3 p.m. The cultural performance, then, was continued by the performance by UMY’s students and students of Singapore Polytechnic undertaking International KKN. Before the event was over, the visitors were entertained by movie screening by the Embassy of Italia, games, and the announcement of the best booth of the ICF 2016.