Yesterday (Saturday) I did a presentation about cross-cultural understanding at a local university for their English club. The students were super-sweet (I prefer working with students more than professors and department heads, who can be kind of...jaded with the whole process of working with guest speakers), and each class did a presentation on some aspect of Indonesian culture, to teach me about their culture in return. I had to choose the winning class, and my favorite was a group that re-enacted and explained traditional games. These included marbles, "dakon," which is a game I've definitely seen in other cultures, and my favorite, snail races! I definitely enjoyed the students' reenactment of snail races, including all the yelling and cheering for their favorite snail (which was represented as a rock in this case).
Anyway, I digress. At the end of the seminar, the students called me up and gave me not one, not two, but THREE gifts for my whole 45-minute presentation. I was so honored!
Those are the gifts, still wrapped and on the floor of my room. I didn't take a picture of them after unwrapping them, sorry. The bag contained some little tchotchkes (fan, coin purse), the bigger package contained some batik fabric (Score! I can hopefully have a tailor make it into something) and the smaller wrapped package had two XL t-shirts (they know Americans run big) sporting phrases from their English Club, including one that I really love, saying "YOU WANNA BE BETTER THAN BEFORE UPDATE YOUR SKILLS NOW."
I totally agree.
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