Starting from Zero in Indonesia

Hoping to experience a foreign culture not as a tourist passing through but as a resident using my knowledge of video production to contribute to a local community, I applied to participate as a volunteer in an international assistance program run by the Japanese government. After winning acceptance to the program, I soon found myself off on a two-year assignment to teach television program production at Indonesia’s national Multi Media Training Center.

Knowing nothing of Indonesia’s culture or language, living there meant starting from zero. So I began learning Indonesian, plunged into studies of gamelan music and other Javanese cultural traditions, and managed to gain enough understanding to give me a foothold in winning the trust of the community in which I would live for two years.

In the days leading up to my departure for Indonesia, the island of Bali was hit by a terrorist bomb attack. That incident, plus my own experience of having been in New York City when the World Trade Center was attacked and destroyed, added a tinge of apprehension to the excitement of starting my two-year assignment. Nothing, however, was going to dissuade me from making the most of this chance to live in a country that was culturally, religiously, and politically unfamiliar to me and, therefore, an equally great opportunity to broaden my international sensibility.

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