October: Celebration of 40th Anniversary of Indonesia-South Korea Cooperation

Opening ceremony of Harmoni Kebersamaan Korea-Indonesia Festival
Photo credit: Resty Armenia (taken at Balai Kartini, South Jakarta)

October can be regarded as a month of cooperation between Indonesia and South Korea. To be specific, this month 40 years ago, Indonesia and South Korea agreed to sign cooperation agreement. To celebrate this matter, the Korean Cultural Center (KCC) in Indonesia organized an event titled “Harmoni Kebersamaan Korea-Indonesia Festival” (“harmony of togetherness Indonesia-Korea festival”). To go all out, this event lasted almost a full month, which is from 3 to 31 October 2014.

The festival was held in cooperation with the Korean Embassy to Indonesia, Korea Tourism Organization (KTP), and the Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy (before turned into Ministry of Tourism).

There were wide variety of cultural events such as K-Food, K-Travel, art shows, exhibitions and film festivals enlivened the event. Not to mention, K-Animation and K-Book which also presented Pororo, Robocar Poly, exhibitions of Korean books and documentaries.

Press conference of Harmoni Kebersamaan Korea-Indonesia Festival
Photo credit: Resty Armenia (taken at Lotte Shopping Avenue, South Jakarta) 

"This is a cultural event of Korea and Indonesia that strengthens the relationship between both countries," said Korean Ambassador to Indonesia Cho Taiyoung at a press conference at Lotte Shopping Avenue, South Jakarta, Friday, 03 October 2014.

Non-verbal performance of The Painter: Hero
Photo credit: Resty Armenia (taken at Balai Kartini, South Jakarta) 

On the event’s opening ceremony, there was a non-verbal performance by 'The Painter: Hero' with the combination of their marvelous painting skill and delightful acting skill, as well as a playback of pictures and music, also performances of the winners of Indonesian Art Contest 2014, in Balai Kartini at 19:00 pm local time.

At the main stage of Lotte Shopping Avenue, Korean fusion 'Queen' showed off the beauty of Korean traditional music. The same stage was also home for few groups performing K-Pop cover dances. And on 8 to 31 October, KCC showcased 'Media Art Exhibition', the artwork of Korean letters, Hangul, in a modern fashion.

At the end of the month, KCC organized the Korea-Indonesia Film Festival in various cities such as Jakarta, Bandung, Tangerang, Bekasi and Batam. Eleven Korean movies and four Indonesian movies were played during the week, from 23 to 28 October. Visitors could literally enjoy the movies for free. All they needed to do was queue and take the ticket on the nearest theater.

The 11 Korean films that were screened, namely: Confession (2014), Miss Granny (2014), Roaring Currents (2014), A Werewolf Boy (2012), No Tears for the Dead (2013), Mr. Go (2012), Secretly, Greatly (2013), Snowpiercer (2013), Pororo: The Racing Adventure (2013), The Spy (2013), and The Target (2014). In addition, there were four Indonesian films that screened, namely The Dancer, Habibie & Ainun, 5 cm, and 9 Summers 10 Autumn.

Blitzmegaplex was the home to screen these movies. There were five Blitzmegaplex theaters that hosted; Pacific Place Jakarta, Teras Kota Tangerang, Bekasi Cyber Park, Miko Mall Bandung, dan Kepri Mall Batam.

Opening ceremony of Korea Indonesia Film Festival
Photo credit: Resty Armenia (taken at Blitzmegaplex Grand Indonesia, Central Jakarta)

Korean Ambassador to Indonesia Cho Taiyoung, South Korean actor Lee Kwangsoo, and Indonesian actress Prisia Nasution on the opening ceremony of Korea Indonesia Film Festival
Photo credit: Resty Armenia (taken at Blitzmegaplex Grand Indonesia, Central Jakarta) 

On October 23, South Korean actor and one of the personnel of famous variety show Running Man, Lee Kwangsoo, attended the opening ceremony of the festival in Blitzmegaplex Grand Indonesia, Central Jakarta. He acted in one of the movies that played in the festival, Confession (2014). It was an opportunity for his fans to see that “giraffe” in person. He smiled and waved to his lucky fans a lot.

"This festival is a harmony of togetherness among the people of Indonesia and South Korea. We would like to introduce Indonesian culture to the Korean community here," said the head of the Korean Cultural Centre, Rezky Seokgi Kim, at the press conference of the festival.

Potential Impacts of ASEAN Community 2015 To The ASEAN Youth

Asean Economic Community 2015

ASEAN Leaders have pledged a commitment to build ASEAN Economic Community 2015 that is aimed to fasten the development of Southeast Asian countries. It’s an important huge step for ASEAN countries that, mostly, are still developing. However, there is one point that needs to be underlined for an archipelago nation like Indonesia, an equitable development. There is no use of penetrating into global market system if there only some parts of this archipelago are developed while other parts remained under-developed.

On the ASEAN Economic Community blue print, it’s stated four main goals; to build one market and production basis in ASEAN, to improve the economic competitiveness among ASEAN countries, to reduce the economic gap among members, and to fasten ASEAN economic integration to the global economic. To achieve those main goals stated above, ASEAN countries will facilitate the free flow of goods, services, investment, capital and labor in ASEAN area.

In the other hand, ASEAN countries have significant amounts of youth population. Youth is the history narration of world’s glories. What is a nation without youth, without the youth contributing, without conscious youth who love their country? There would be no history of Indonesia, there would be no French Revolution, and there would be no struggle to uphold the truth.

Through the existence of ASEAN Economic Community 2015, there will be impacts that are potentially happened during the process of achieving the main goals related to younger generation. First, the competition of youth and students to get involved into the process of achieving the main goals of ASEAN Economic Community 2015 in national and international levels will be increasing. It is also related to the fact that ASEAN countries’ ranks (except Singapore) on Global Competitiveness Index are not high enough in the past five years. Second, since ASEAN countries will later facilitate the free flow of labors, there will potentially be a lot of ASEAN young people working in another country within the Southeast Asia area, which also means the competitiveness to find a good job is no more in national level. Therefore, the participation of youth in the productive workforce and the fresh-values indeed needs to be improved as a way of preparing ourselves for the global market.

In the education sector, more and more universities in Southeast Asia have been inching up to the best 100 universities in the world, such as National University of Singapore, which, along with University of Gadjah Mada and Chulalongkorn University, has the best education quality assurance system among ASEAN universities. Hopefully these universities can be the examples and will lead other universities to improve their quality, and hence more ASEAN students could compete in the world level. During The 12th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, the Leaders also agreed to prepare ASEAN youth for regional leadership and to increase the competitiveness of the peoples of Southeast Asia through education. All these things are made to get ASEAN youth well prepared and get used to “global market atmosphere”.

In the future, ASEAN youth will take the responsibility of the development of their own nation without pulling out their own identity through their own culture since, stick to the fact, ASEAN countries have abundant cultures and resources that have to be kept for the sake of the next generation. If all the points mentioned are executed by ASEAN youth, leading the world in couple more years is no more impossible for ASEAN countries.