The Thistle - An E-Newsletter of Scotch College, Perth, Western Australia

Indonesian Tour 2018

Each Indonesian tour has ended up being a unique experience, even compared to such previous tours. This year's tour was no exception for Year 12 students Joshua Dyson (Ferguson), Thomas Nicholls (Shearer), Kieran Shine (Alexander), Richard van Uffelen (St Andrews), and Year 11 student James Jenour (Brisbane), as well as Dr Jonathan Tay and Mr Wilfred Liauw, who accompanied them on the journey.

Indonesia airport

Students spent the first week of the tour in the university city of Yogyakarta, where they participated in an intensive Indonesian language course at the Sanata Dharma University. They also had the opportunity to experience some of Indonesia's cultural and natural gems, including a Jeep tour at the foot of Mount Merapi, Indonesia's most active volcano, a visit to a permaculture farm, trying out silversmithing, and climbing up Borobudur Temple, a wonder of the ancient world. At the end of the week, students did an examination and gave a presentation in Indonesian on a current issue topic, in which they all did well. One of the highlights of our stay in Yogyakarta was the opportunity to meet and interact with many Indonesian people, which gave our students the rare, indispensable, and much needed real-life context for their Indonesian studies. At the closing ceremony, Kieran, Thomas, and Joshua presented the university with a pipe and drums performance.

temple indonesia Ind trad costume

At the end of the first week we flew to the busy megalopolis of Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, to visit with our sister school, Al-Izhar. During our time in the city, our boys stayed with students from the school, some of whom we had met when they came to Scotch College last year. Our students participated in their school life, which included taking part in classes. They also had extracurricular activities after school such as making batik and traditional kites. In exchange, our students taught their new friends from Al-Izhar the games of cricket and handball. Our time with the students and teachers of Al-Izhar was not only a chance for our students to engage with life in Indonesia but also gave them an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to establish relationships with new friends from another culture.

Each week and activity during the Indonesian tour afforded participants with a different experience, but all of them have served not only to improve their language skills and cultural understanding but have helped broaden their horizons both as a person and as a world citizen.

Dr Jonathan Tay
Modern Languages Teacher