Collaboration of Mandarin Institution Accomodates All Societies 

Collaboration of Mandarin Institution Accomodates All Societies

Reported by: Setiawan Liu

Jakarta, March 1, 2019/Indonesia Media – Global Creative Alliance (GCA) has taken further steps towards improving the two nations, namely Indonesia and China through education, specifically mandarin after China’s economic might surge during the last two decades. GCA’s program covers training session for volunteer mandarin teacher, Chinese speaking tour guide, etc. GCA is always willing to accommodate all societies regardless race, color, religion, creed, etc. “We have ever opened classes for NU (Nahdlatul Ulama, the largest  Muslim organization) and the members show enthusiasm in learning mandarin. Some join the class in GCA to prepare themselves for attending master program,” executive director of GCA, Zhang Li told Indonesia Media.

Not only NU, another organization such as INTI (Chinese Indonesian association), PSMTI (Indonesian Chinese Clan Social Association) also sent their members attending mandarin program. GCA has also worked together with two Indonesia ministries, namely tourism (Kemenpar) and education and culture (Kemdikbud). Since more Chinese tourists visit some places throughout Indonesia especially Bali, Manado, Kemenpar needs to provide professional Chinese speaking tour guides. “Even Chinese tourists in Bali use WeChat app for payment system when doing transactions. There is an urgency (to provide Chinese speaking tour guides). While Kemdikbud has another reason, that many Indonesian students go to China to study mandarin, tourism. Therefore the two ministries work together with GCA to open mandarin class for their office members.”

Zhang Li added that collaboration with the two ministries resulted in three-months classes which were started last June 2018. The participants of the class included mostly upper echelons of ministerial organizations, such as director and sectional head. Some native speakers have ever given lessons for them. “The class and office work often occur in parallel, some participants have no choice except they give up (attending class). But they are basically diligent and always pay attention for each lesson,” said Zhang Li

Age has never been a hindrance for them to improve his/her Mandarin. Therefore GCA intends to work together with INTI and ministries especially Kemenpar and Kemdikbud regularly. The latest seminar was held in INTI Kemayoran, Central Jakarta had been packed by enthusiastic learners of Mandarin. It is not at all surprising, they rushed to register to since certificate of attendance was provided. “When we opened the registrasi on, we had set the target number (of participants) by 200 people. But we finally decided to limit by 130 (people) in maximum,” said Zhang Li. (sl/IM)