Dear Diary, we put our tourist mugs on today, and steeped ourselves into a nice strong brew of Indonesian culture.
After a quick brainstorming session on biomimicry designs, we shuttled off to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (“Mini Indonesia Park”) which offers a microcosm of the various tribes and traditions across the entire archipelago.
We kicked off the afternoon with a hearty lunch at a traditional Indonesian cafe, before renting tandem bikes ($3.50/hour) which enables one to breeze through the park (and experience first-hand the beauty of Indonesian traffic) with your good friends.
Besides the distinctive and enthralling architecture, the park also has many adrenaline-pumping attractions such as laser tag, which Team SUTD unfortunately lost to a pair of Jakarta kids.
Many found the bronze mural showcasing the key moments of Indonesia’s history very impactful, especially the “Soempah Pemoeda” (Youth Pledge) of 1928 — a declaration made on 28 October 1928 by young Indonesian nationalists in the Second Youth Congress, which proclaimed three ideals; one motherland, one nation and one language.
Before today’s visit, many perceived modern Indonesia’s unified culture and language as an unwavering given, but the visit to Taman Mini Indonesia Indah was truly an eye-opener and especially very relevant to our own context back in Singapore. It accentuates the difficulty and constant effort needed to maintaining pluralism; and the fruits of this tedious labour when done unerringly 🙂
