The First Workshop of the New Semester

This week has been quite busy for new students. It has been the first official school week and Asia Exchange students have had all of their first lections during last couple of days. Because there was a public holiday on Tuesday, students have also lessons today on Thursday although normally there's only a workshop or an excursion on Thursday. This time the workshop was held already yesterday afternoon.

The workshop was about palm leave ornaments which are used both in ceremonies and as an decoration. I've written about them already earlier in this blog hence the palm leave ornament workshop was the first workshop of the previous semester also. That's why I'm not going repeat everything I've already said but I can conclude this time's workshop by saying that everyone seemed to have fun and everything went pretty well :) Palm leave ornaments are just one example of the spesific local culture here and students are going to learn a lot more about that culture.

Traditional Healing Workshop

As I wrote about the sicknesses in Bali last week, it's good to write now about the traditional healing workshop that we had last Thursday. There really is a strong culture of a traditional healing in Bali. Many Balinese still think that normal doctors can't heal all the illnesses and that's why they still may prefer going to a traditional healer's place instead of visiting a doctor.

Asia Exchange students had a rare opportunity to learn a lot about this culture which is really interesting and completely different compared to for example the European healing culture. All of the information that was told in that workshop was completely new to me. The culture of traditional healing includes the belief that every person has own aura and seeing that aura is an important part of healing. I got an opportunity to go standing in the front of the class so that others could observe my aura, quite interesting experience. With the traditional healing you should be able to heal both physic and mental problems.

The workshop started with the lecture of a local healer who spoke about the theory about traditional healing. After the lecture the students got a chance to try to practice the right way to see things (that ability is needed if you want to heal someone). After that they practiced seeing an aura and even breathing in a right way. Finally a couple of lucky students got an opportunity to get healed from their headaches. At least there wasn't any results instantly but the healers told that for the first times it may take a day before the healing affects - maybe the headache has gone during the weekend :) Who knows.

Of course this all may sound really silly if you're thinking this only in the aspect of western medical treatment but at least I think it's much more interesting to respect this tradition. This has nothing to do with cheating people or making them pay for nonsense: this is a real tradition and many Balinese people are still believing in it. So, once again our students had a great chance to get an information about a special area of Balinese culture that normally tourists doesn't have a chance to know.

And here's a couple of pictures from the workshop:

Videos and Pictures

This blog post will focus on videos and pictures :) Firstly there's two student interviews. In the first video Saara tells about her experiences after the semester was half way over. In the second one Johan tells about his feelings about the workshops.




And then pictures. This time they're from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok so this have been taken almost two months ago but I hope they're still interesting to someone :) Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures from Phuket, sorry about that.

Bangkok

Kuala Lumpur

Manuscript Workshop

The last couple of weeks have been different compared to the normal ones (last week there was the Islamic New Year, before that was the exam week and before that the mid term break). That's why there haven't been neither workshops nor excursions almost for one month. Luckily today the students finally had again chance to learn something new about the local culture when the workshop about Balinese manuscript was held in Denpasar campus. Besides of Asia Exchange students there were also a lot of local students attending to that workshop so our students once again had a great chance to get to know better with them.

Nowadays the Latin script is used in Bali as it is in many parts of the world so you don't have to study new alphabeths when you arrive here. This makes Indonesian language classes a lot easier because students don't have to spend the first students with learning the alphabethics. Still it's important to know that there has been and actually still is an own alphabet in the island of Bali. It's used when writing Balinese, which is different language than Indonesian. Actually almost every significant island in Indonesian has its own language but Indonesian is the language that practically everybody understands.

Some centuries ago the Balinese script was really used in Bali to produce text but nowadays the Latin script has replaced it practically entirely. Still Balinese script is taught in the local school and especially in the religional texts you may still see the Balinese script. So it's really important for our students, who are studying the local culture here, to know more about the local manuscript. During the workshop students also had a great chance to actually try to write something with the Balinese alphabet. The local students were helping exchange students as much as they could. Unfortunately the manuscript is pretty difficult and even writing your own name with that is pretty good performance. Still I think this lesson and workshop was light and good way to end this school week :)

The last couple of blog posts have been only about the studying here in Bali so I promise that next week there's going to be more lighter material about the overall life in Bali :)

Holiday Week!

Yeah, it's holiday time! This week was the last before the midbreak that's taking place next week. As I already mentioned in the earlier post, this school week was a little bit different compared to normal school weeks since there was no school on Monday or Tuesday because of Idul Adha. Hence the school week began on Wednesday and continued until Friday. Normally there's no school on Fridays in Bali.

During a normal school week there's only either a workshop or an excursion on Thursday but this time the workshop was held on Thursday afternoon after the classes had taken place. So it goes without saying that this week was a little bit more intense than a normal school week, but it was still pretty okay :)

After the midbreak there's going to be the midtest so understandably this week's lessions focused on the things that should be remembered in the test. Unfortunately once again I didn't have time (I've been really busy since coming back to Bali because of all kinds of practical arrangements) to take part of any other classes than just the ones that were focused on Indonesian language.

I couldn't skip those ones because I haven't been in Indonesian classes for three weeks so my (pretty poor) Indonesian language skill were already rusted. It was good choice to go to those classes because now I remember at least a little bit more Indonesian. I also learned few new words, like 'sekarang' (now). The only problem is that I don't remember any other time words (like tomorrow, weekdays etc.) so if I have to arrange a meeting in Indonesian, I have to have the meeting immedetiately.

But yeah, during this school week there was something even more fun than my shitty Indonesian skills. I'm of course speaking about the workshop that took place on Thursday afternoon. The workshops are always fun because they're focused on Indonesian and especially Balinese culture (there have already been a workshop of Balinese ornaments and Balinese clothing) but this time it was extra hilarious because the workshop was about traditional Balinese dancing :D So all guys and girls had to practise and learn a little bit Balinese dancing which may look a little bit silly. I have to respect all of the students that participated the class because they at least tried the basic moves.

Here's few pictures from the workshop. After the pictures there's also one video that I made with Heidi from Norway after our trip to Bali Art Centre last week. Heidi has been in the same place already few years ago so she had some pretty interesting points about the place. That's that this time! Have a nice weekend wherever you are! This weekend I'm probably going to visit southern Bali (Nusa Dua). And because next week is the holiday week, I'm going to write more about travelling in Indonesia then.

 

The third week in Bali

Hi guys!

It feels like it was just yesterday when I arrived in Bali but actually I've been living in the paradise island almost for a month! And after I've said that, it's good to note that I'm leaving Bali for over two weeks only days after I've learned to think my villa as my new home. Still I can't be bitter at all because next two weeks are going to be at least as interesting than my first weeks in Bali have been.

You see: I'm visiting Bangkok, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur because there's Asia Exchange's exchange students in all those locations. So for the next two and a half weeks this blog actually isn't going to about the student life in Bali because it's a little bit difficult to write about it when I'm not here. As compensation I try to write few short updates about the student life in Bangkok, Phuket and Kuala Lumpur during next weeks :) After that I'm flying back to Bali and then I'm reporting only about the student life in Bali until the autumn semester ends in December.

But the end of semester is not an actual topic yet. There's still lots of great experiences ahead both in the university and outside of it. One of them is coming already on this Sunday: Snoop Lion himself is playing in Seminyak in the beach party! I'm really excited about going to Bangkok but I'm still a little bit sad about the fact that I'm sitting on the plane when Snoop Dogg would be playing really near to my place. I hope many of you (who are now in Bali) are going to see that show :)

That's all about the future: I'm also supposed to write something about this week in the university. The beginning of the week (from Monday till Wednesday) was already pretty normal. It's a kind of funny to see how quickly everyone has adopted to the everyday life in Balinese university which has to be at least a little bit different than own school in the home country. Although I have to say from my own experience that the lessons I've been able to attend have been really similar compared to the Finnish university's lessons. Especially the Business law lesson reminded me really much of the Finnish ones. Bahasa Indonesia lessons on the other hand are pretty much shame than any other language lessons. I've enjoyed the Bahasa lessons a lot because it's so rewarding to learn more and more every time. Now I can already communicate with people in the restaurants and stores in Indonesian :) Or at least I can try to do that.

The most interesting moment of this school week was on Thursday, when Asia Exchange's students had their first workshop. For the most of the school weeks our students are going to have either a workshop or an excursion on Thursdays. Most of the workshops and excursions are about local culture but some may also deal business etc. I think the workshops and the excursions are really interesting part of the studies because there's no way you could otherwise get so good chance to get to know new things about local culture. In the first workshop the students made some nice palm leave ornaments with the help of the local students. The ornaments are used in Bali for example for decoration.

So that's everything about this week in Bali! ...Or actually not completely everything because there was of course more than just studying also in this week. Especially on Thursday there were some good full moon beach parties to complete this school week. And now it's a weekend again! Tomorrow I'm going to see the northern Bali before I leave this island for two weeks. What plans do you have for the weekend? Are you going to Snoop Lion's show?

There's some pictures from Udayana University's campus area in Jimbaran and some from Thursday's workshop: