Cultural Heritage

"Youth these days don't seem to care about what's happening at the moment with their culture, which is a bit worrying due to the safety of their country's cultural heritage."


"All they care about is their own self. Maybe this is the effect of modern technology, who knows?"

While i was sipping my ice chocolate in Starbucks yesterday, i overheard a conversation between 2 middle-aged women, sitting right next to me.

I remain calm and decided to continue to listen to their conversation which was pretty amusing because i always enjoy listening to others' opinion.

Long story short, the two women blamed us teenagers for the lack of interest and attention about Indonesian cultural heritage.

As a youth, i gladly disagree with the statement above. I am a proud Indonesian, and i don't think me and the other (well, in my school) youngsters don't care about our culture. We definitely appreciate them and cherish them in our lives.

I admit that very few teenagers still care about our culture. Especially with the improvement of modern technology, some may choose to spend their time with their ipods, rather than playing traditional games like "Lompat Tali"or "Galasin". To be honest, I still play "Galasin" with my friends, which is a little bit unmature for my age, but i think that's okay. Because technically we're saving the Indonesian heritage.

Our cultural heritage has ethnic, beautiful, valuable, sacred, and creative written all over it. And of course us youths are very proud about it too. Maybe, society doesn't seem to understand the way that us teenagers, appreciate them and cherish them. Because there are lots of different ways to show that you truly care about it. Lots of teenagers in Jakarta go to traditional dance classes like Tari Pendet and mostly, Tari Saman. And some also take part in a youth organization called 'Indonesian Youth Conference',etc. And at school, we wear batik every friday, which shows our love for Indonesian's cultural heritage.

We also talk about things concerning our country at school, even though not as often as we talk about other stuffs. But we still do, and that shows our interest at this thing.

When the two women above said that modern technology also affects our interest on Indonesian's cultural heritage, they probably don't know what we're doing on the internet. We use the internet to search about our country's cultural heritage, ...even right now i'm posting about it on my web!

2 Years ago, me and my friends, we tweeted about "Visit Indonesia 2010", even though it didn't trend worldwide. Our goal at the time was we want the world to see what a beautiful country Indonesia is.

So those things above prove that us youths, we do care, we do help, we do cherish, and we do appreciate the Indonesian's cultural heritage.

Social Network

"Social Network Sites". Nowadays, those 3 words (or often shortened to 'Social Network' or 'Social Networking') aren't weird or seem strange for us to hear. Of course, social networking is one of the most popular thing that has changed our lives, apart from the internet.

A social network site is a web based service that allows users to create profiles, see the list of available users, as well as to invite or accept a friend to join the site. The definition or meaning from the word itself already shows us a quite large representation about the social network itself.

Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr are just a few examples of a social networking site. Being and staying online on twitter, facebook, and tumblr are very normal or ordinary for us teenagers to do. We socialize, have a little chat, or maybe just to kill time to reduce your boredom. 

Being on a social networking is very addictive. Even when i type all of these words, i still can't control my need to check what's happening on my tumblr. 

That thing above is one of the main reasons i'm writing this essay. "Is Facebook or any other social networks taking away the fun from playing in the real life?"

As an early teenager on my adolescent life, i would gladly disagree. Why? Because yes, maybe we don't have that much time our parents or ancestors used to have years ago but now, things have changed and they're the exact different.-- Well not really--  slightly. 

Well- yes we do spend hours here on facebook or twitter, but without the help of these social networking we won't be able to talk to our friends as easy as we do now. Let's say parents, they could search and add their old high school friends on facebook, right? And twitter, it helps you to know the latest update about "what's happening at the moment". Right?

With the existence of the social network site, we could meet people all over the world without meeting them in person- which means that took us a cheaper cost than calling them via homephones/phones, and or we could get to know different people from anywhere in the world. In a more simpler way, it leads us to a better 'change'. And not to mention how quick the internet is.

A lot of adults here in my country banned their kids to sign up on twitter or facebook. I'm going to be honest here, i'm one of them kids. I used to have accounts on twitter and facebook, but my parents said that it's not that good for me and i should play outside more often, despite the fact that i need a social life too. So therefore, i deactivated my accounts and well things don't really change either.

Although the use of the social network is often misused by villains or bad people, still- i think a social networking site is good for us teenagers but depends on how you react and whether you use them for good or bad.

I may not be the smartest of all about these things, but i can say that i'm pretty sure about what i'm writing. But, again, i think it's really a matter of perspective or depends on how you see them.