And The Story Beginned

The story begins on Wednesday, January 18, 2011.

After having done with my academic guardianship matters , I along with Mute and Santus went to Bandung Super Mall. We planned on taking the Primajasa bus BSM-BSH with the schedule at 3:30. With the estimated travel time required was 4 hours approximately we would arrive at the airport at around 8 o'clock PM. We make an appointment with the people from POSCO and Habitat at KFC. We had to pick up the arrival of Korean volunteers who would arrive at 10 AM.

I, Santus and Mute arrived around at 8 PM. While waiting for the people from Habitat who still were on the way, we had dinner at KFC. At 9:30 PM the people from Habitat and POSCO came. Some of were Miss Leah and Miss Hera from Habitat Indonesia, Mr. Yong from the POSCO's CSR and Mr. Jin from Habitat Korea (Anjoy,, He's such a gorgeous guy). There wass also Eddy, (ex) UI students receiving scholarships from POSCO.

The participants from Indonesia put into different groups. Eddy went into group 2. Santus went into groups 6. Mute went into group 7. I went into group 8. Pffffhhh hopefully I'd get a nice group.

After several minutes of small talk, we finally welcomed the arrival of around 100 Korean volunteers. 100 volunters?!?

Yup .. (more than) 100 volunteers. I didn't think the amount of they would be so many. At first I thought there would only be 20 or 30 Korean volunters.Looking at the around 100 Korean people directed me into a great shock. HWOW ... HWOW ... They look very similar to each other. They are so typical: black and straight hair, white skin, narrow eyes, tall and athletic body (for the guys), slim body (for girls).

From the airport we were all transported by bus to the inn in Bogor. I'm with friends from other Indonesian werere in a bus with a staff of POSCO. In the bus we met with one of the staff named Mr. Choi. Because his English is very bad, sometimes he asked Mr. Chan to be a translator between us.

One of the things we learned from Mr. Choi wass about the number and order number in Korea.

Korean language group has 2 pieces of vocabulary, the first is the native Korean language and the second is a Korean-Chinese (formerly Korean used to use Chinese writing because Korea did not have its writing itself). So for numbers there are also 2 languages, one is the original Korean language and one is Korean-China. Both group can not be used carelessly, for example to say what time it is, how many, age, etc. are usually followed by native Korean numbers and for how many pages, the sequence of numbers, year, month, day, etc. using the Korean-China numbers.

Native Korean numbers:
1 = hana
2 = dul
3 = set
4 = net
5 = tasot
6 = yosot
7 = ilgob
8 = yeodol
9 = ahob
10 = Yeol
11 = yoel hana
20 = seumul
30 = Soeren
40 = maheun
41 = maheun hana
50 = swin
60 = yesun
70 = ilheun
80 = yeodeun
90 = aheun


Derivatives of china numbers

1 = il
2 = i
3 = sam
4 = sa
5 = o
6 = yuk
7 = Chil
8 = pal
9 = gu
10 = sib
11 = sib il
20 = i sib
30 = sam sib
40 = sa sib
50 = o sib
60 = yuk sib
70 = sib Chil
80 = sib pal
90 = gu sib

when it's up to 100 all numbers become equal. There is no authentic form of Korea or any derivative China

100 = baek
1000 = chon
10,000 = man
100,000 = sib man
1 million = baek man
10 million = chon man
100 million = oek

For additional information, for currencies, in Korea they use Won. Won ranges between 10-13 rupiahs.

We had late dinner right after arriving at our hotel. I haven't wondered anymore why Korean girls have slim body because I saw they were eating very little. HWAH ... if they can lean on it, I certainly can. The spirit of the diet program have flared again.

Finished eating, all Koreans bring their plates and glasses into the sink area. My Indonesian friends and I started to follow what they do. Whereas in normal days, we will allow the dishes and glasses are lying on the table because there will be waiters who would take care of them.

The night was getting late. After a super late dinner, we rested in our own rooms. Santus and Mute are in one room (room 108). I got a room to my own self (room 107). Because I was so reluctant of sleeping alone, I went bed in room 108, slept together with Santus and Mute.

Pfffhhh,,,
Hopefully, tomorrow and beyond would be a series on fun days.

EV: Preliminary

At the middle of hectic chasing Mr. Bigman to give me permission to take comprehensive exams, Mutya -my junior- offered me to participate in a voluntary program that would take place in the village of Babakan Madang, Sentul, Bogor. Voluntary program titled "Global Village" was a collaboration between the departments of social responsibility (CSR) POSCO -international steel-manufacturing company based in South Korea- and Habitat for Humanity Indonesia (non-profit institutions engaged in social and humanitarian).

Actually, the Indonesian students who were invited to participate in the program were POSCO scholarship receivers. But because only 3 of them who confirmed to participate, the POSCO provided an opportunity for that 3 persons that each could invite up to 5 friends to join in this program. Therefore Mutya took Santus and me (by chance the three of us are in same major/department in university and and also live in one boarding house) for follow-up program that will run for from 18 January to 28 January.

At first I was hesitant to join the Global Village (GV) program because the duration was too long. I feared that my final project would be abandoned. In addition, the thing that made me hesitate was the absence of a clear rundown for the program. Once thought lest it only mode for human trafficking. It could be we would be sent to Korea as maids. [Oh No ... What such a silly thought it was?!?]

After some persuasion I agreed to join the program partially, only for 5 days. But once Santus and Mutya red the whole rundown I immediately told them that I will follow this program in full. Why?!? Because in the last five days there would be fun events at The Jungle Water Park, Sea World and Grand Indonesia. [Fun, fun, fun.. Free vacations :)]

Another thing that made us even more excited about this program was because we would work together with several volunteers from the Korean. HWOW .. HWOW ... I directly pictured handsome faces of Won Bin and Kim Hyung Jun. Some of my male friends like Ghani and Kak Yogi even asked me to kidnap a girl who looks like Shin Min Ah (actress rolling as Gu Mi Ho in the drama "My Girlfriend is Nine Tailed Fox)".

GV program was truly providing a valuable and unforgettable experience in my life. There are new things I learned (in particular) about the Korean people. That ten days really made me a lot of self introspection especially in terms of socializing with other people. Ten days was not long enough to be able to make a good cross-country friendship. But with the sincerity I believed that it would not be an impossible thing to be realized.

To share my experience interacting with 120 of the Koreans that I met at GV, I'll pour it through the writing on this blog with label Global Village Habitat for Humanity Indonesia-POSCO 2011 . Hopefully what I write will be useful to readers.

Well ... CHECK THEM OUT!

-Ari-