Garuda in My Heart, Ringgit in My Pocket

Precisely on July 26, 2018 UNNES Economic Education students consisting of 54 International Undergraduate Program students have conducted a Field Work Visit at the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Malaysia. In the event we were greeted by Mr. Agung Cahaya Sumirat who served in the Function of Information and Social Culture. Many information we got from the visit from the history of the Indonesian Embassy. Mr Cahaya explained us about diplomatic relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia which was established since independent Malaysia in 1957 and is now led by an ambassador who is a successful entrepreneur, Rusdi Kirana. He is the CEO of Lion Air Group, during his tenure as ambassador, he has a vision to ensure the education of the children of Indonesia who live in Malaysia and to provide excellent service to the people of Indonesia, the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia operates 24 hours service to ensure completion of problems that occur on Indonesian community in Malaysia. It is the only foreign Embassy with 24-hour service. In Malaysia not only that, especially for Indonesian workers who facing problems become unemployed they will be given free education in the form of skills such as cooking Indonesian cuisine that the products will be traded there.

We are also welcomed by the chairman of PPI (Persatuan Pelajar Indonesia) Malaysia, in which case we are interested to talk about how the life of a student in the neighboring country. Theconversation topic is very interesting for us because we are currently studying for an educator to get a college degree, of course we have a dream to pursue higher at Magister degree especially for the chance to study at foreign country with scholarships. The basic thing that we asked the 23-year-old man who was pursuing his doctoral degree at the National University of Malaysia more familiarly called Mas Doni was what we needs to reach our dreams. The main thing we need to do is how we get information about scholarships that we want to get it ourselves. For that it needs to be shouted and many relations from now to keep searching for such information and keep monitoring about the requirements needed because as the saying goes “many ways to Rome” in this case many scholarships we can access such as LPDP, kemedikbud, and many more.

As university student with scholarship, Mas Doni is not only focus of lectures, he is a member of the General Election Supervisory Board of the Republic of Indonesia located in Malaysia.He prepare for all Indonesian citizens living in Malaysia to participate in a democracy party. Beside that,as what Mas Doni’s said, for students who are too comfortable in Malaysia may be familiar with the slogan “Garuda in my heart, Ringgit in My Pocket”. The motto has the meaning that they will remain a faithful and loving Indonesian homeland but feel not ready to return to Indonesia because they have to start their career from zero again especially in terms of work.They assume that to return Indonesia they do not necessarily get the guaranteed life insurance that they get in Malaysia.

In addition, one of the Indonesian youth who became staff at the Indonesian Embassy in Malaysia that is Mas Duki. He also explained some things, such as education system that is destined for the citizens of Indonesia who live in Malaysia.The Kuala Lumpur International School implements the curriculum 2013 system in their learning process.

The relationship between Indonesia and Malaysia is very good, as a cohesive brother who has some similarities. The Embassy trying to establish a harmonious relationship by protecting the Indonesian people who are in Malaysia as well as possible. In terms of education, welfare and security of Indonesian citizens in this country are in accordance with the vision of the Mr. Rusdi Kirana. We hope that the services provided by the Embassy of Kuala Lumpur will be even better in the future.

 

(Fitria, Silvia, Cendekia, Dinda, adisti, dan Rahmatika/ IUPians 2016)