Seren Taun ; The Gratefulness Form to God.

      

Tari Buyung

         Every year, Kuningan, West Java holds an sacred ceremonial event called Seren Taun which has attracted people attentions from outside the city or even outside the country. Seren Taun is a gratitude expression for the ups and downs experiences especially in agricultural yield during the year. It is also an annual cultural heritage from Sundanese culture and is usually held on 22th Month Rayagung or as people know as a Sundanese calendar. Seren Taun itself is hosted by Tri Panca Tunggal community (it usually consists of elders who still adhered a religious believe in that area). It aims to unify all the people from the youngest to the oldest and also to preserve the local arts in that area.

       One of the participant, Appolonaris Aditya, said that he has joined the event since he was a little and it makes him proud to be a Sundanese. He said that each ceremony in Seren Taun itself has meanings. It begins with Ngajayak or welcoming the paddy on 18th Month Rayagung. The number 18 in Sundanese called dalapan welas is from the word welas. It means God’s love which never ends for all people. The main ceremony is crushing the paddy with a not so big wooden stick on 22th Month Rayagung. The number 22 itself has meanings; it reflects 20 human characters which are unified as a life structure. Meanwhile, the number 2 reflects the day-night life and ups-downs. Because the people in Kuningan, West Java believe that the paddy is the symbol of the prosperity, it makes the paddy as the main object in Seren Taun Ceremony.

Appolonaris Aditya (right)

     

      This event lets the people to learn about the history of the Seren Taun itself from the performances. It presents Damar Sewu (a picture of human life process), Tari Buyung (reflecting the Sundanese people in taking the water), Pesta Dadung (an effort to avoid the negativity and to balance the human life), Ngamemerokeun (symbolizing the union between male and female paddy). It also presents Tarawangsa (originally a Mataram art heritage), Pwah Aci (a respect expession to Dewi Sri as the Life Saver in agrarian areas), and one of the most likeable and chill-able perfomance, Seribu Kentongan (a thousand participants bringing kentongan awi or bamboo). After all the performances are done, all the participants and people there can enjoy the free traditional food which has been prepared by the local people there as well. One of the must have free meal at this event is Nasi Sabogana. Sabogana means simplicity yet valuable. It contains rice looking like the yellow rice but messier and vegetables. While people are enjoying the food, they can also mingle each other.

     

     Seeing from the cultural side, Seren Taun ceremony has run for years in Kuningan, West Java. This event really can make us proud as Indonesian people. It possibly happens because every year this event can attract the attention from domestic or even foreign tourists who are curious about this beautiful and sacred ceremony. 

Violita Christy Agista

Full day school is not ready to be applied in Indonesia

Our New Minister’s major plan ; major controversy.

Indonesian’s Education and Culture Minister, Muhajir Effendy, recently introduces his major plan. He wants to extend the teaching-learning process in school or as people know with the full day school policy. He does that in order to make Indonesian students become well educated and also make their parents less stressful (Mutohar, 2016). The policy makes a controversy between the politicians and also the public. There are so much pros and contras dealing with the minister’s major plan and most of people agreed to against the policy. In this case, schools in Indonesia are not ready for the full day school policy.

The first thing is, school’s facilities and infrastructures in Indonesia are still inadequate. There are still many schools whose building is unsuitable for teaching-learning activities (Donny, 2016). The ceilings are broken, they do not have a computer lab or even internet connection, and they do not have a complete library. The students are quite uncomfortable just to sit a whole day. They need to have clean bathrooms, and also a healthy canteen, because they have to spend 9 until 10 hours at school. Not all schools across Indonesia can facilitate students’ needs. Even, some schools in Indonesia have to share and divide the schools’ hours with another school because they do not even have a building to do the teaching-learning activities. Then, applying the full day school policy seems hard to be realized.

Also, the new policy is not in harmony with the existing educational traditional curriculum and methodology in Indonesia. The purposes of full day school policy are to build students’ character, and let the students to have time for improving their psychological health such as, exercising or even do the teaching-learning activities at a clean garden. However, many people believe that students have accustomed with Indonesia’s rigid curriculum and methodology. The teachers and the students tend to be more focused on preparing final examination which is not in a harmony with the new policy. Indonesia still applies the policy which makes the final examination is the determinant of educational success. Then, it makes students do not consider about developing their skill. It also makes the students accustomed to have an individual competition. As we know, it would be better if students train to work together and build collaboration.

Dealing with the new policy, most schools in Indonesia cannot afford another large budget. Schools have to provide more infrastructures to support the purpose of the full day school policy or even they have to re-build the building. The schools have to do that because the full day school policy focuses on building students’ character in a good and adequate environment. Also, with the additional hours, schools have to add more salary to the teachers, because they have to work more than usual. However, not all schools across Indonesia can afford a large budget as it needed. There are still a lot of schools which need much help. Even, some schools can afford to pay the teacher as well. This is why the new policy cannot be applied in Indonesia.

The major plan that the new Education and Culture Minister has is still cannot be applied in Indonesia. Those arguments above show that Indonesia is still not ready for a major change especially in the education system; even the purpose of the new policy is to make Indonesian students become well educated. Eventually, the government also still cannot fulfill the needs of the schools equally across Indonesia. Then, before the government decided to apply the new policy, they have to maximize the facilities to support the full day school policy.

REFERENCES

Donny, M. (2016, August 10)

                Full day school program, is not ready to applied. Red Rice Bali News. Retrieved October 4, 2016, from http://www.redricebalinews.com/index.php/read/2016/08/10/201608100001/Full-Day-School-Program-Is-Not-Ready-to-Applied.html

Mutohar, A. (2016, August 23).

            Why full-day school will not work in Indonesia? The Jakarta Post. Retrieved September 29, 2016, from http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2016/08/23/why-full-day-school-will-not-work-in-indonesia.html

Summary

         Blog or weblog is a software that allows people to share their ideas with their own words. The users can type whatever they want and just click the button, the entries will instanlly published. The number of users itself raised drastically because of the quickness and the ease of publishing. There are some type of blogs which help the users in some purposes. The tutor blog is a blog that serves for learners. It help learners to do a reading practice, to find another english websites, and more. The learner blog is a blog that run individually by the learners or a small group of learners. It encourages learners to do a writing practice and also to explore more about how to interest the readers by themselves. The class blog is a weblog that involve entire class. It helps learners to do the discussion outside the class.What learners should do next is find the weblog software.There are several choices, some are free and the pay one. Learners should do some research to find the best software that suit them well. I hope that by showing the three types of weblogs and the software can help and support your blogging project.

Cirebon

        
picture is taken from http://4.bp.blogspot.com/

                            Cirebon is a right place to stay for people who love to explore ancient places. First, Cirebon has a strong culture, especially in Moslem culture.  There are a lot of religious places. Also, people visit the places every Hari Raya. Such as, Keraton Kasepuhan and Keraton Kanoman. Keraton Kasepuhan and Keraton Kanoman are palaces where the Sultans live. There are still having ancient stuff which placed in small museums. Next, there is also an ancient building named Gua Sunyaragi. It built by a Prince named Arya Carbon for a meditate place. It really has a beautiful scenery. Thus, some people usually come to Gua Sunyaragi to do a photoshoot. Furthermore, Cirebon also well known with the Batik Mega Mendung. There is a  place called Batik Trusmi which sell the Batik Mega Mendung and some of Cirebon ‘s souvenirs. The last thing is Cirebon also has authentic food such as, Nasi Jamblang, Empal Gentong, and Docang. Nasi Jamblang Mang Dul sells the best and not to pricey Nasi Jamblang in Cirebon. We also can find the most famous and tastiest Empal Gentong in Empal Gentong H. Apud. For Docang, Docang Ibu Kapsa is the best place to eat Docang.

Keraton Kasepuhan

 http://assets-a2.kompasiana.com/statics/files/14145375622057337012.jpg?t=o&v=760

Keraton Kanoman

http://telusuri.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/keraton-kanoman.jpg

Gua Sunyaragi

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFgcUvx59JcjnOvSI6AlvJeIPcLH0g1LTm2ERL3CjTMTSD3xhFoA390NI8ALWHMt5esnX6Klm9U2cnvaDd1KsK2ZEDtbIO_EQwXnkvZD813aWMu7Z9MBBUzhoU4HuW2chTuLGcd4YFFwU/s1600/Gua+Sunyaragi.jpg

Nasi Jamblang

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJHtSL798R6_QrxuMdYF7pqDypice3WHmica87wPF4HtGsYKnWBARLIlPWM3Zazy1CwfR27hUTmTl-3Mb284SgQLwbRaRnL0TimKhFRZ6w-EnM0V6XkoVfdjSaeOWwwQGa7DWQpTeyUPm3/s1600/Resep+Sega+Jamblang+Khas+Cirebon.jpg

Empal Gentong

http://selerasa.com/images/daging/empal-gentong.jpg

Docang

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaekLt6QZzPoN6O_9p8iLuJX9I5IxYiWoy7G-4HUBUHhZRdyWwGCMrXFpczLUCxgeSczsvM_LyY5jaYGYjsChaauqVOnSt1ODZAYRIjSTLm8DkWTZirgv5iMxlKAO2ejzKWZUIlWL34XgN/s1600/Resep+Docang+Khas+Cirebon.jpg

Greetings :)

      This blogger's name is Violita, but she often called Vio. She was born in Kuningan, West Java and grew up in Cirebon for 18 years. She finished her senior high school in Saint Mary 1 Cirebon. Then, she decided to continue her study in Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana and take an English major. She really likes arts especially photography. She begun to like photography since she was in 5th grade, when she saw her father while using his camera. She thought that being a photographer is really amazing because she could help other people to capture other people's moments that could not be repeated.

        This writer has been experiencing some challenges in writing especially when she was writing her assignments. The challenge that happened a lot when she write is using the right grammar, because when she write, she usually does not realize that she used the wrong grammar. Also, her weakness is she can not really use the proper words and also her writings are too boring because she could not play with her words beautifully.

          In the future, she really wants to be a professional writer, because she really enjoys when she is writing especially writing a fiction story. Of course, she wants to improve her grammar first before being a real writer.