Saturday, April 18, 2015

Middle Eastern & Asian Cultural Week '15

Ciao readers!

As written above, I'd like to share with you our latest event at UWCAd.

As a biennial event organized at UWC Adriatic, our majestic and intriguing Middle Eastern and Asian (MEA) Cultural Week took place last month starting from 23 'till 29 March. Woohoo! Everyone who regionally comes from Middle East and Asia or is culturally engaged to MEA was welcome to take part as the organizers of the week while the rest of the students took part as the participants. 

Here is the trailer of our week adopting the theme of epic rap battles!


Lasting for 7 days, this cultural week was filled by numerous events, shows, workshops and movie projections. Some of these are as follows:

Henna Workshop:
Yes, while we saw the Middle Eastern and South Asian girls sharing the importance and origins of henna, we got our hands painted beautifully with it!

Special thanks to my Palestinian fellow, Nataly, who did this intricate drawing on my hand!
Rice Dumplings Workshop:
This is the making session of dumpling using glutinous rice flour and red bean that is usually eaten during the Lantern Festival in China. Reputedly, its round shape symbolizes union and in Chinese the name is actually a homophone for union. 

Kibbutz Focus:
It's a talk of an Israeli community that is based largely on agriculture and upholds similar values to UWC's. 

The Story of Coffee:
A talk about the journey of coffee from its origin and its spread through the Ottoman Empire as well as its consumption through the ages. In this workshop, a first hand experience to taste Turkish coffee was also offered!

Arabic Magical Night:
A mystical evening filled with the famous folklore-telling and poetry-reading by the Arabs in UWCAd.

Arab Springs:
A talk of and discussion about the revolutionary event that has come to be known as the Arab Spring, from the very beginning to the present time.

Mainland China and Hong Kong:
In recent years, especially after the handover of Hong Kong to China, there have been many conflicts between mainland Chinese and Hongkongers. This event serves to give the space for other students to understand the points of view of the students from both sides.

Roti Canai and Teh Tarik:
Culinary workshop by the Malaysians about the making of Roti Canai and Teh Tarik that quite exaggeratively needs special physical preparation.

Karaoke:
Yes, this Japanese-originated entertainment allows everyone to sing amateurishly with the minus one musical accompaniment. 

While the movies we projected were namely Waltz with Bashir (Israeli movie), Oldeboi (Korean movie), 3 Idiots (Indian movie), A Separation (Iranian movie), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Hong Kong movie) and Laskar Pelangi. Yes, the last one is Indonesian movie that I proposed to show. It is an inspiring movie, set in 1970s, based on the true story of how 10 students and their 2 inspirational teachers in one of Indonesia's rural islands strive for education and struggle with the poverty. Their journeys aim second-to-none just to keep the hopes alive for the future of the tin mining island of Belitong, where children like them were considered to have no bright future.

Here is a little more about it:


On Saturday, 28 March we had the final show of our week that we had rehearsed for two weeks! In this show, I and my Malaysian fellows organized a collaborated dance of Tari Jaipong (Indonesian dance) and Malaysian Bamboo Dance. Unfortunately, I haven't got the video of it in my hand so i'll upload it later. 

On the last day of week, it was sorta pinnacle of the whole series of events. Yash, we had a Taster Session where the organizers from each country or region cooked their delish local delicacies to be tasted by all members of the college. 

Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice), Mie Godhog (Soup Noodle), and Pisang Coklat (ChocoBanana)
Well, yes. I chose to cook simple dishes as they are more practical to be made.

Holi, ancient Hindu religious festival of colors that now has become outspread and celebrated in almost every corner of the world in the spring followed afterwards to bring the joy as well as to close this cultural week. 

Painted red to fit right in! 

with the homies!!! #ignoremygrumpyface
United Asians
 A selfie with my Malaysian fellow, Marina, right after the show ended.
Well, as Asians, we love to take millions of selfie. So here we go!
and here the crews come! bad quality photo, high quality memories

'till next post, 

XOXO

Sunday, April 5, 2015

Adriatic Model United Nations Conference '15

Ciao, readers!

Publishing a kinda late post, I'd like to share one of our latest annual events in UWC Adriatic which was organized and held on 20 'till 21 March 2015 by all members of AdMUN which serves as one of the creative activities here. The event itself was named as stated above, Adriatic Model United Nations Conference '15 (AdMUN Conference '15). Sounds cool, huh?

I was chosen as the delegate of Saudi Arabia in UNEP Council that stands for United Nations Environment Programme. In two days of conference, we discussed the sustainable approaches of regulating the exploration of petrol and its circulation among the exporting and importing countries, the UN's financial investment in promoting the renewable energies and the mandatory educational contribution that nations shall provide to promote and start up the use of renewable energy, such as geothermal, hydroelectric, and solar energy.

So here are some pictures capturing the moment!

Suguru (Japan), Ariel (Timor Leste), Tahmeed (Bangladesh), Jolene (Singapore), petite me, and Agim (Kosovo)

Representing Saudi Arabia was not at all easy as it takes a major role as one of the biggest oil exporting countries
Despite the fact that it was very challenging to speak in a formal forum and stand up in the shoes of another nation's delegate, MUN is indeed a very enjoyable way to deeply get to know other countries' current issues and world's current environmental crisis as well as to figure out the best resolution that must be made to make world as better place to live in.