- Photo: The Jakarta Post/ANN
JAKARTA: Pekan Festival Handai Indonesia (FHI) 2024, an Indonesian language contest for foreign nationals, has wrapped up with 21 winners of different categories announced at the pinnacle of the event in Bali on Saturday (Aug 31).
The week-long event took place at The Patra Bali Resort and Villas in Bali, from Aug 25 to Aug 31.
The 2024 FHI, themed “Celebrating Friendship” featured seven competitions that tested participants’ skills in using the Indonesian language in various forms of arts and literacy.
The competitions covered speech, storytelling, reciting poetry, singing, creating and reciting pantun (rhyme), news reporting and letter writing.
Every competition was designed to allow participants to show off their skill in using Indonesian and their capability to understand and appreciate the language.
FHI 2024 involved 549 participants from 78 countries and was held in stages: an elimination round, through which the participants sent their work and contested online, and a final round, in which the participants took part in the competition in Bali.
Following the verification and assessment of their works by a panel of judges made up of experts in the Indonesian language, literature, arts and culture, 105 participants from 44 countries have been assessed in the final round of which 21 contestants won the different categories.
The annual FHI was organised by the Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry through the Language Strengthening and Empowerment Center (Pustanda) of the Language Development and Cultivation Agency (Badan Bahasa).
Badan Bahasa chairman Aminudin Aziz was upbeat about the great enthusiasm shown by the global community to join FHI 2024 as evidenced by the participation of 78 countries from the target of 50 countries.
He mentioned the active role that the Foreign Ministry played to help promote FHI overseas.
“The decision to officially acknowledge Indonesian as an official language of the UNESCO General Conference in 2023 also had a positive impact and was another contributor,” he said.
He added that the participants’ great interest in Indonesian had shown that the government’s efforts to popularise the language globally through developing a programme to teach Indonesian to foreigners, called Bahasa Indonesia for Foreign Speakers (BIPA) had run effectively.
According to him, participants from 43 countries in the final round have shown incredible skill in using Indonesian as displayed when they gave speeches and read poetry, among other things.
“We should maintain friendship with them,” he said.
FHI served as a medium that brought global citizens closer to Indonesia as they could see Indonesia directly, interact with Indonesians, taste local food and appreciate the country’s culture, represented by Bali, he said.
On top of the competitions, the participants joined cultural activities designed to enrich their experience during their stay in Indonesia.
All of the participants visited Taman Budaya Garuda Wisnu Kencana (GWK) on Aug 29 to provide them with an in-depth introduction to Indonesian cultural heritage.
The participants also partook in a yoga class and various lomba Agustusan (competitions typically held to celebrate Indonesia’s Independence Day) held within the hotel area on Aug 30.
About FHI
According to Badan Bahasa, FHI is an appreciative activity that involves competitions and is intended for foreign citizens able to use the Indonesian language and understand Indonesian civilisation, society and culture.
It aims to provide foreigners with an opportunity and platform to show off their skill and creativity in speaking and writing in Indonesian.
The first edition of FHI was held in 2020, with the entire process, from the delivery of works to award presentation, conducted virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Similar events were held virtually in 2021 and 2022.
In FHI 2023, the works contested were delivered online, with the awards presented to the winners in Jakarta.
FHI 2020 was participated in by 167 people from 30 countries, FHI 2021 by 140 people from 36 countries, FHI 2022 by 130 people from 33 countries and FHI 2023 by 146 people from 29 countries.
The participation of people from diverse countries reflects the international community’s great interest in the Indonesian language.
The FHI is not a mere competition, but a platform for strengthening relationships between nations through language.
The teaching of Indonesian in various countries started long before it received the elevated status of an international language, as mandated in Law No 24, 2009, according to Dony Setiawan, a linguist at Badan Bahasa.
According to Dony, BIPA was formulated in government regulation No. 57/2014 to promote Indonesian as an international language.
The regulation was then followed up in a systematic and sustainable manner by developing a program facilitating the teaching of BIPA.
Badan Bahasa recorded 173,864 foreign speakers from 54 countries learning Indonesian for the 2015-2023 period.
The figure is only a small part of the total number of foreign citizens that learn the language, as many others also learn the language independently or through other channels, either in Indonesia or beyond. - The Jakarta Post/ANN
[This article is in partnership with Education, Culture, Research and Technology Ministry]
