Bule Invansion <part 1>

Last semester break, i joined a program of an organization in my university that took 2 months. What program? It was actually an internship program for exchange participants (which all of them are foreign students, so obviously i didn't join as the exchanger) to teach in some local schools. But as their insternship still going on, here we are as the local people who join this program, become their buddies; some sort of their friends to get along with. We mostly spent our time to visit tourism places in the city or just spent our time to hangout in the mall and had a dinner.

So that was my first time to interact directly and spent a lot more time with foreigners. To be honest, that was such a pleasure and incredibly awesome experience to get a closer look of their lives as an individual. I have some sort of motto.. that when i haven't gone abroad yet, i should feel at least the experience of a real interaction and communication with those foreigners who literally living in other countries i would visit someday. So joined that program was already accomplishing my one-side motto (the other side where i have to go abroad is still in progress). A great realisation so far...

What did i get from this program? Many. For sure, i got a lot of new friends. I've just enlarged my networking with them. So that someday when i visit their country, at least i'm not going to be a new generation of Dora the Explorer who always get lost in the middle of nowhere. No, i don't even want to have a monkey by my side as my buddy. Then, no doubt i also i learnt a lot of new things about foreigner. This experience is giving me a closer look of their behaviors back in their country, their culture that contrary with mine, their true habits, what they likes and dislikes. So i've just improved my personal life aspiration.

Enough with the opening, now i'm gonna tell you about what the title of this post really mention it: Bule Invansion.
Bule... hmm this is actually consider as a sort of racist way to call someone. Because here in Indonesia, we tend to call foreigner "Bule" that refers to (from what i see) people of Caucasian. Yep, Caucasian race whose all of the people are white skin, tall body, color eyes, color hairs, sharp nose. "Bule" should be a nick name for all foreigners, but in fact, no Koreans, Vietnamesse, or Cambodians that being called "Bule" here. Indonesian people also has their own mind-set that "Bule" is a superior kind of individual who always been that rich, good looking, and have all the plus side that contrary with Indonesia's local people. So no doubt if there are lot of cases where the local people treat foreigners as the way they want them to- such as selling local souvenirs with high prices, giving them a wrong direction so that those foreigners looking for help and in the end it requires them to pay extra more, or threaten them with robbing issue. No offense, but this is a real situation we're about to face in some countries that the local people feel very insecure with the "invansion" of other people from another race (or say this as an effect of colonialism).

Well, first thing that i always keep in my mind is all the people are equal. Equals in every aspect of our live, including race. No matter from what race we came from, we are born in the same world under the same sky, right? So by joining this program, i prove myself and also other people that we can just treat foreigner as a normal individual, without being fear or insecure from their presence. In fact, i learnt a lot from them as i said above.

But....
I'll hold this now. I will continue in the next post, considering i write too much already. Ha! So don't leave this page, keep scrolling up! (Coz the next post are above)

Cheers! :)

                                                              (WoR)