Know More About Indonesia through Bari’an

Malang — To express gratitude to God, Indonesian always hold a traditional ceremonial event every year, a day before the commemoration of Indonesian Independence, namely Bari’an. This Saturday, 17 August 2019, UM iCamp Participants were invited to attend Bari’an which was held at the Office of International Affairs Universitas Negeri Malang (OIA UM) hall.

The agenda was to introduce Indonesian culture in celebrating Indonesian Independence Day through a traditional way. In the Bari’an, the Office of International Affairs had provided 15 tumpengs to be eaten together.

Before enjoying the tumpeng, there was a short sharing session with the participants. “Living around 8 months in Indonesia makes me experience and learn different cultures. Indonesian people are enthusiastic. The students, the lecturers, rectors, campus is very good. There are so many lakes and foods. I really love the food,” Shah Faisal (Pakistan) said.

To open the event, the director of OIA UM gave a warm greeting for the Bari’an. She gave an explanation about what bari’an and tumpeng is and asked the participants to guess why tumpeng should be in cone shaped. She said that the cone shape represents the relation between human and God. She explained that in Javanese culture believe in God is very prominent. The mountain shaped also represents that Indonesia has many mountains. The mountain represents a very big power of Indonesian while human beings are not that powerful. Bari’an means praying to God. We pray in any religion way, but still embrace the Javanese culture, the local aspects. Religion and culture assimilates.

Before we started to cut the tumpeng, we had a moment of silence to respect our freedom, friendship, the future of generation, the future of the world. Long Life Indonesia! Dirgahayu Indonesia!

The director of OIA presented the piece of tumpeng to the program director of UM iCamp 2019. All the groups followed what they did. To eat the tumpen, they all used their hands, including the participants. All the participants just learned some cultures of Indonesia: traditional way of celebrating Indonesian Independemce Day (bari’an) tumpeng, and eating tumpeng by using hands.