International Office (IO) UNS succeed holding annual event UNS Cultural Night on Wednesday (May 14th). Participated by 180 foreign students from 30 countries among others Cambodia, Myanmar, Turkmenistan, Madagascar, Ukraine, South Korea, and others, the event went merry. The event took place in auditorium hall as the previous event. With the committee taking theme “Longing for Home: Home is not a Place, but it’s a Feeling”, the foreign students were expected to express their feeling about their homeland.However, to be home is not about being in a place, but it is about feeling. The foreign students confessed that they are home when they are in Solo because they have been one with the society.
Since the number of foreign students had been getting increase, the committees applied new concepts. Not being like in 2008 which the event was only eating together form and having social time with other foreign students, this year’s event was packed more interesting. The event was formed with three main form; a stage act, cuisine festival, and fashion show. Those foreign students were given options to choose whether they wanted to join all of main form or just one. Some of them fetched only one, but some others picked to take the three. There were two main form contested; culinary festival and fashion show.
Fourteen stage acts were performed in a form of dances, singing, and theatre. The event also prepared 20 booths of cuisine from Serbia, East Timor, Thailand, Malaysia, Hungary, and others, and the winners in sequence were Turkmenistan, Libya, andCambodia. Fashion Show joined by fourteen countries gave result of winners from East Timor for male category and Thailand for female one.
On Mey 4th, the committee promoted the event on Car Free Day and was successful to sell 100 tickets.YudiSastroredjo, one of the coordinators, said that it reached 1000 more audiences consisting 200 invited audiences, 250 persons in grand stand, and 500 ones in the common hall. “We invited 200 persons through making a rule one invitation card for two people. We also provide 750 tickets after seeing the huge responses.”
There was one incident like last year, in the closing a dancer approached the rector, Prof. Dr. RavikKarsidi M. S., and asked him to join the dance on the stage. A sound of kelontong—kind of traditional toy—rumbled throughout the hall for responding that. Before entering the venue, the audiences were given kelontong to enliven the location instead of using hands to clap. [Dodo red.uns.ac.id]