Acquainting Chinese culture to students and society, International Relation Student Corps of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (KOMAHI UMY) conducted Mandarin Day on Thursday (17/12) in A.R. B. Floor 5 at UMY. The theme was “Exploring Chinese Culture to Open the Window of the World”. The event aimed at introducing Mandarin as an official language of Chinese. Moreover, Mandarin is one of the international languages nowadays.
KOMAHI invited several speakers from IONS International Education, Miss Queen and Mr. Sean. Furthermore, the Head of the China Language Education Coordination Board of DIY, Jimmy Sutanto, also attended. In the seminar and talk show, the speakers shared knowledge regarding Chinese Culture and Mandarin.
Besides the seminar and talk show, KOMAHI performed other interesting agendas like cooking demo, Barongshai dance, and watching a video of traditional music. “The introduction is not only cooking demo, Barongshai dance, and watching a video of traditional music, but also we provides stands of Chinese food, Chinese clothes, and kanji,” he stated.
Chinese Culture has been well-known since a long time ago, but many people still got difficulties learning the Chinese language and writing. Nevertheless, it was immediately neglected by Miss Queen. “Chinese writing is not difficult if we have governed the basic techniques,” he expounded.
Jimmy Sutanto mentioned that many Indonesian considered that Chinese was introvert, but it was no longer true since Chinese attempted to mingle with Indonesia. “For instance, they actively join social activities or assist government provide aid when a disaster happens, particularly in Yogyakarta,” he told.
Social activities affected the availability of scholarships for Indonesian students to continue their study there. For example, China scholarships achieved encouragement from the government of Yogyakarta. “Many websites about study in China now provides scholarships such as Taiwan fellowship and scholarship, and SIAS University,” Miss Queen explained.
Being able to pursue education in China, there are several requirements as taking test of Hanyu Shuiping Kaoishi (HSK). “This test aims at acknowledging your language ability. The HSK test is an international level test so that it must be accurate assessment. The HSK test is cooperation between Indonesia and China,” continued Miss Queen.
Yessy Aniesha Liendriani, the Chief, expected that KOMAHI and IONS International Education could collaborate again in another seminar. Hence, students would gain beneficial knowledge to be implemented immediately.
