The Cultural Day is a program created by DOPE (Department of Professional Exchange) and DORE (Department of Research Exchange) from MSCIA UB which includes an annual event and is carried out offline, but this year Cultural Day is held on Sunday, August 20, 2022, as an offline event, this event aims to learn about cultural exchange and learn about its benefits as well as to motivate participants to take part in the IFMSA exchange program.

This year we decided to take our incoming to a museum and batik workshop for Cultural Day. We visited Museum Panji in Tumpang, Malang Regency. In Museum Panji, the incoming were introduced to the history of Indonesia and its culture.  Not only did the incoming get to know the brief history of Indonesian history before independence but they also got to know the museum's origin. There are various kinds of wayang and Qur’an, also a diorama of war.

After that, the Incoming and Indonesian students have lunch together with the Indonesian cuisine in the museum. Even though they like the cuisine, many incoming have struggled with the spiciness level. They were curious about religion, culture, and the people of Indonesia. They also share their experience in Indonesia where they got to wake up by the early calling of the prayer. After we have an amazing lunch and a sharing session with the incoming, we head back to Malang City to continue our journey. The last stop was Antique Batik Malang where the incoming got to know how to make batik. The incoming took part excitedly and at the end of the event, we also presented the best batik among the participants. 

We also have a night party agenda, it is called “Cultural Night”. In this agenda, the incoming must present their food and their cultural performance based on their origin. For the Indonesian students, we also present our culture and cuisine to the incoming. In this session, there are a total of 8 countries with Indonesia included to show their culture and cuisine. The first country to perform their culture is Hungary to perform Hungarian songs. It was an amazing performance because they are dancing along to the song and the pace of the dancing keeps going faster and faster. The next performance was from Poland with their Polonez dance. It was such a simple dance but it was so fun to do because they asked the Indonesian students to come and join them. They said this dance was usually performed when they graduated after elementary school, hence the simple formation of the dance.  The next performance was from Italy with their singing. Before they sing a song they teach us about a unique hand gesture that Italian people usually use. It was fun to learn because as Indonesian students, we usually only watch the hand gestures from a movie or a tv show, and now we can understand some of them. After that they sing a popular song that everybody knows, that is “Bella Ciao”. The next performance was from Siberia. He tells a story about the origin of Dracula. It was fun to hear him telling a story about the origin of Dracula. The last performance was from Indonesia. They sing ampar ampar pisang, apuse, and gundul gundul pacul. After that, we move to the next session, which is a food presentation. In this session, every country must presentation about their food and put it on a food table.

The series of events which started at 12.00 GMT+7 finally arrived at the “Farewell Party”  to appreciate the participants who came to this event, we held awards including Best Participant, Best Dressed, Best Batik, and Best Campaign.  We also invite all participants to give messages and impressions of the Cultural Day event.  The event was closed with documentation and our gratitude for the participants who had attended. We hope that this event could be held again next year.  All sessions in the Cultural Day event make us realize that the world we have is very large, there are natural beauty, culture, and even the uniqueness of each country that will never run out.  Through this event, we hope that the participants can be more grateful, appreciate the wealth of their respective countries, and more importantly maintain it so that in the future we can still enjoy this diversity. Unity in diversity for a better society.

SCORE
Standing Committee on Research Exchange
SCOPE
Standing Committee on Professional Exchange
CIMSA
Empowering Medical Students
Improving Nation's Health