Afterglow of 2018 ASEAN-Korea Youth Network Workshop: My Story

... No matter where we’re from

If we could sing one song

Dreams that are yours and mine

They will be realized...

67 participants, 13 different nationalities, one song.

I still clearly remember that moment in Closing Ceremony when all of us sing our heart out with the lyrics that exactly depict the diversity of our 10 days journey together as one. Packed with a super hectic schedule (even our lecturer are amazed with our full schedule) of lectures, site visits, cultural experiences, and group missions, I personally don’t feel exhausted because surrounded with a lot of positivity and happiness brought by my fellow friends in the workshop.

I was lucky enough to be selected by Indonesian Embassy in Seoul to represent my country along with my fellow from Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang, for 2018 ASEAN-Korea Youth Network Workshop held by ASEAN-Korea Centre under the theme of “ASEAN and Korean Youth as Drivers of Global Digitalization” in Seoul and Manila, 2 - 12 July 2018.

This invaluable experience was the highlight of my lifetime because it was my first international program experience (plus my first time abroad alone without my family) with great friends and great experiences. Let me start the story in chronological order

Day 1 (Monday, July 2nd 2018)

Me in Incheon Airport

After 7 hours flight from Jakarta (plus 90 minutes delay) with Asiana Airlines, me and Haira finally arrived in Incheon Airport at 11 am. Long queue in the immigration check and baggage claim took us another hour before we got to meet another participants who had waited for us in the last group of arrivals. Because of our delayed flight, CK (ASEAN-Korea Centre staff) told us in the bus that after arriving in the hotel, we need to rush and change to business attire, have a super-quick lunch, and heading to the opening ceremony directly.

An hour later, we arrived at Shilla Stay Guro, our first hotel, directly change our clothes and go upstairs to the restaurant for a super-quick lunch (I ate less than five minutes dude! Just imagine how rushed we are at that moment). Then we went directly to the bus on our way to the opening ceremony. Seoul, I am here for you!

Seoul National University!

Thirty minutes later, we were entering a gate and saw this huge area of campus called Seoul National University! I was so amazed on this super-wide campus with hills surrounding the area (they even said that there are another campus building on top of the hill!). Then we entered the SNUAC (Seoul National University Asia Center) building and attended the opening ceremony.

After several opening remarks, we started the program with lecture about ASEAN-Korea relationship and global trends in digitalization. Then, we have our first team-building mission! We were divided into groups and told that we would work with the same group for the rest of the program. We need to know each other, then pick our group leader and messenger, came with a group name and present a group cheer (this was the fun part). There’s also games where each group need to demonstrate a machine, then the other groups need to guess what kind of machine are presented on the stage.

Thrice!

I was in group #3 and called ourselves Thrice (named after Twice lol), and decided to demonstrate a hair dryer, and they could guess it in the second trial. After all groups were finished, we went directly to our dinner in the same room (the buffet is located outside the room), then headed back to our hotel and checked in.

Day 2 (Tuesday, July 3rd 2018)

We went to SNUAC again for another lecture right after our breakfast. The theme for second day is about digitalization in Korea, industry 4.0 and sharing economy in ASEAN, and education in digital era. An interesting experience for me is to have lunch in their cafetaria downstairs together with the students and felt the atmosphere of a modern campus (180 degrees different from my campus lol). They even have Halal corner for Muslims like me, with a special dish and cutlery in different color with the regular one.

As a part of third lecture of the day, we had another team mission of discussing a proposal for the future ASEAN Cyber University (ACU) in 2020. Our team came up with the idea of cross-university courses for minors and additional interests. After listening to the 30-second pitch from each group leader, we need to vote for best 3 proposals (excluding our own group). The result will be announced in the Closing Ceremony at the last day of the program.

Samsung huge headquarter!

Then, we went to Samsung D’Light in that chaebol’s huge headquarter! It’s an exhibition space full of Samsung’s most innovative technologies with a philosophy that revolves around us. I need to register myself and save the data in the bracelet with a sensor. After successfully register myself, I was surprised to see my face in the huge monitor above me! I learned that it worked like a “hall of fame” so we could see our face there.

See my face over there!

Then we followed the journey of emotion, sense, intuation, and imagination using Augmented Reality technology in the first floor. Upstairs, we could experience Samsung’s future vision on everyday life (living, shopping, learning) by watching the video in AR experience.

Me and Gangnam view

To conclude our day 2, we went to a seafood restaurant near the hotel and having our seafood fiesta dinner! I was very happy because they said it’s all safe for Muslim, which means I could whatever I want lol.

Day 3 (Wednesday, July 4th 2018)

It was the big day that I’ve waited for, a visit to Seoul city centre! My Korean roommate said we weren’t in Seoul until we visit the city centre and see the awesome view of skyscraper and the hecticness of the city. It took us an hour to arrived in Seoul City Hall! It’s an amusing experience to finally see and hear the heart of Seoul metropolitan centre. Feel it by yourself with these photos.

Seoul metropolitan view woah!

Another interesting view: the City Hall! It consists of two building: the old one and the new one. We got to know that they decided not to demolish the old one, and instead using it for their new Seoul Metropolitan Library. We were greeted by the staff and ushered to the meeting room in the 7th floor of the new building, then had a lecture about digitalization in Seoul where we learned about a lot of creative innovation by the Seoul Metropolitan Government using digitalization.

Then the most interesting part of the day: meet and greet with Seoul City Mayor, Mr. Park Won-soon! I was so amazed to see his charisma in person, with a fluent English and outstanding achievement, especially regarding his experience in building and leading this smart city. I even haven’t meet with my city mayor this close though hahaha.

Then we walked for five minutes to our lunch place for samgyetang (a whole-chicken soup), but unfortunately it’s not Halal so they gave me abalone soup (I really remembered this because I made the recap video that day). Since we have another hour before next activity, we decided to roam around the city square and take photos for sure!

An hour worth of photos

Then, we were back to the city hall, but we were going downstairs to visit TOPIS, main control center of Seoul’s transportation. Fun fact: they had 3 layers of bunker-like doors in front, so in case of any emergency situation, the mayor will go downstairs and monitor the situation there, so it acted like a safety bunker for them.

We gathered in this room with this huge TV screen (I guess the size is 100 inches) and informed by the staff about the outstanding function of TOPIS. In the middle of his explanation, he told us to see the left side, and suddenly the white curtain became transparent and it showed us the main control room of TOPIS!

Look at this!

He explained that the monitor is the heart of TOPIS, where everything is displayed and controlled by the system. He even showed us a live footage of a car accident happened, together with the live update on Twitter. I was also amazed on how TOPIS worked beyond monitoring accident; they have a real-time data on location of each city bus and the number of empty seat available! Another one is about CCTV that located in all corner of the whole city, that even we can zoomed in clearly and saw a bypasser’s face lol. But they said they don’t get that close because of privacy of its citizen, so in case of criminal cases happened and they need to catch a face, they will rely on CCTV footage controlled by the local district police.

Then we had a walking tour inside Seoul City Hall and Seoul Metropolitan Library called Tong-Tong Tour, led by a very old man (I guess he’s already in his 70s) but spoke understandable English and told us the story of the building. Then we move upstairs to third floor to have another lecture about sustainable urban development by WeGO.

We walked again for another 10 minutes for our dinner with Korean pancake and hotplate soup (I forgot the Korean terms for this food) as the star of the night! Then suddenly I realized that our next hotel is located just across the restaurant, and I felt very happy because finally we lived near the city centre lol.

Day 4 (Thursday, July 5th 2018)

We start our day with breakfast and check-out from Shilla Stay Guro. Then we moved to Digital Media City (DMC). Firstly I thought the place was located somewhere in the busy street of Seoul, but then...

Far exceeding my expectation!

It is a real city! I was pretty surprised seeing these huge skyscrapers everywhere around the corner, then I realized why it’s called Digital Media City; it hosts major Korean broadcasting network such as MBC, SBS, Jtbc, CJ E&M (Mnet and tvN), YTN, and many more! It takes an hour to get there, and it is located near World Cup Stadium. Then we stopped by MBC building (it’s pretty HUGE! I love this building for sure), taking group photos, and divided into three places; some will visit Digital Pavilion and DMC Promotion Gallery, some will visit YTN, and some will visit MBC WORLD (I envy them L)!

You know the reason why I love this building

Our group are selected to visit Digital Pavilion, which feels like Samsung D’Light L. After several hour, we gathered together and tell each other’s experience. Groups that visited YTN get to experience news studio for themselves (they are allowed to go inside and even played roles as news anchor), while MBC WORLD.......

Don’t ask me their experiences. Go check their website for more information T_T

Then we went to Bali Bistro for our lunch. And as expected... They serve Indonesian food.

WHY SHOULD I GO THIS FAR TO KOREA JUST TO TASTE MY COUNTRY’S FOOD?!?!

My seatmates (Halal friends a.k.a those who need Muslim-friendly food) were laughing at me when I told them about this. Yeah, it’s nasi goreng and mie goreng (fried rice and fried noodles) which I ate almost every day back in my hometown. Pretty fun, isn’t it? =D

VRight!

After getting full (and happy of finally fulfiling my craving for comfort food), we walked for 15 minutes to VRight, a VR-based theme park! We spent 3 hours there with fun games and loud voices from me shouting around in the alien shooting game lol. Happiness everywhere!

In the evening, we moved to our new hotel, aFirst Hotel Myeongdong (while the “real” Myeongdong was five minutes away lol), checked-in with a new roommate, and prepare for video competition and talent show! So we need to change to our own traditional attire, and suddenly the hotel lobby looked like a cultural carnival! We have 13 different nationalities, walking to the ASEAN-Korea Centre office with our traditional costumes, and I felt like this is parade 17-an (walking parade of students using traditional attire to celebrate Indonesia’s independence day) lol

Then, we arrived at the ASEAN Hall of AKC office, and we started by having chicken dinner!!! Finally, after several days of not eating chocken because of religion restriction, they finally provide us with Halal chicken yeay! We got a LOT of chicken that they waste almost half of them (poor them L), but I brought some of them back to the hotel and ate it in the midnight lol

We started the night by presenting the result of video competition from each group. We need to create a 2-minutes video about lessons learned from digitalized Korea. I couldn’t barely watch my own group’s video because I acted as a silly-but-savage Digiman (superhero of digitalization with kain sarung and aluminium foil LMFAO).

Unforgettable moment with my Indonesian compatriots

The night continues with the talent show performance by alphabetical order, which means we will performed third (after Brunei Darussalam and Cambodia). We decided to perform gemufamire (a contemporary dance using traditional song from East Indonesia) after rehearsing several times before, and fortunately we only have a minor mistake on the dance lol. It’s a pretty great experience to see unique cultural performance from 13 different countries!

Day 5 (Friday, July 6th 2018)

It’s cultural experience time (and the last day in Seoul L)! We walked to AKC office and worked with Korean traditional handicrafts (I don’t know how to describe this because it was complicated, but I’ll let you see the results)

I'm not good at handicraft so don't judge me at this lol

We had our Subway sandwich for our lunch in the ASEAN Hall, and moved to hanbok (Korean traditional attire) rental place, where we changed to hanbok and had our historical walking tour on the nearest palace (Gyeongbok-gung palace complex) and hear the story from our own group leader (he currently works there as tour guide for children, so no wonder he knows the story).

Beautiful view, isn't it?

Then we went back to the hotel, changed to traditional clothes, and walked to AKC office again for Closing Ceremony of Korea Program. At that moment I got a chance to deliver appreciation speech from ASEAN participants in front of representatives from 10 ASEAN members embassy in Seoul and executives of ASEAN-Korea Centre. What an honor! I was triggered emotionally by the end of the speech, because I realized that I’m nothing in front of these awesome students; but we’re here to learn, to make life-long friendship, and to gain more happiness!

I looked good, didn't I? =D

Photos with Mr. Redo, staff of Indonesian Embassy in Seoul (my interviewer for the national selection)

We conclude our Korea Program by farewell dinner in buffet restaurant at shopping mall nearby and late-night shopping in Myeongdong yeay!

My inner shopaholic sense showed up in this picture lol

Day 6 (Saturday, July 7th 2018)

An early start in the morning (I almost got left by the group because I woke up 30 minutes after the designated time lol), we went to Incheon Airport and depart to Manila! I’m so excited because finally I could go out of the “travelling triangle trap” of Malaysia-Singapore-Thailand lol.

Hello Manila!

Arrived in Ninoy Aquino International Airport, we were welcomed by one of the airport staff and placed a Filipino traditional beads around our necks. Then we were outside and ushered to the bus and I was surprised because we were surrounded by police car! So for the rest of the program, we will be protected by presidential guard (yes, you’ve heard it right, the one who works with Duterte), two police cars, with four policeman inside each bus. We felt like a VVIP guest here lol

The restaurant is on the left (behind me)

Then we had our lunch in Bonifacio Global City (the view around really reminded me of Seoul, to be honest L), then checked-in to Microtel UP Technohub with another new roommate, changed to business attire, and move to University of the Philippines Asian Center (UPAC) building. While the university is actually located across our hotel, but we need to take a U-Turn far away from the hotel and then turn left to enter the university.

After hearing some warm welcoming remarks, we went to our welcoming dinner venue. And out of my expectation... It’s a VIP-level welcoming dinner! Live traditional Filipino music, good buffet menu, and happiness are surrounding us inside the restaurant. (Thank you Tourism Promotion Board of the Philippines!). I went back to the hotel feeling full because they served us, Halal friends, with big portion of Malay foods (finally!)

Happiness were around us!

Day 7 (Sunday, July 8th 2018)

It’s “holiday” time! All of us visited Las Casas Filipinas de Acuzar, a heritage preservation site 3 hours away from the hectic Metro Manila (we could say goodbye to the traffic jam for a while).

We had a guided tour of Hotel de Oriente, bumpy traditional horse carriage ride, traditional Filipino snacks as our refreshments, completed with tasty lunch and dinner (Halal friends got a special Italian menu woo hoo!).

However, my favorite part is river cruise with traditional boat! Me and my group leader, Erjo, got a private boat together with journalists and our lovely guardian Ms. Monica (miss you now maam!). We got to hear the story of those houses told by the boat operator.

After the dinner, we finally try to ride jeepney (traditional Filipino public transportation) from the restaurant to the front office. We got to see the awesome night view of Las Casas (it’s more beautiful than the day!) as conclusion of our holiday. Another 3 hours of rest in the bus, before waking up in the hotel lobby and realized our group haven’t finished the policy proposal LOL (let’s pull an all-nighters!)

Day 8 (Monday, July 9th 2018)

We kicked off the day by attending three lectures about ASEAN, digitalization in ASEAN, and digitalization in the Philippines inside the UP Asian Center Auditorium. I was super interested about the second lecture because she worked as a consultant and the lecture is about everything I wanted to know about the future of youth as drivers of global digitalization (which is the theme of this year’s workshop).

After having lunch inside the UPAC Halls (another room in the same building), we moved to Rappler office. It was a very interesting session for me because I got to hear from the expert of an independent online media outlet that had made headlines for strongly stand against the current precidency of Duterte, while at the same time gaining more public interest (since they started with move.ph, a citizen-based online social movement). I could also relate about some of their major concerns, including battling fake news, since Rappler also operates in Indonesia. I also love the office!

Fun facts: It’s located in the third floor of a shopping mall and we need to take the emergency staircase instead of elevator to get there lol

I just love everything about their office

We wrapped up the day by having an all-halal buffet dinner in the hotel. Again, I went back to my room feeling full.

Day 9 (Tuesday, July 10th 2018)

It’s site visit day! No lecture at all (technically) LOL

We started our day with traffic jam (!!!) on our way to Acudeen Technologies office in Makati. We supposed to arrive there by 9.15, but an inevitable traffic jam twist had us arrived there at 10.30 (I felt sorry for this situation at Ms. Monica, our program officer, because she sitted next to me and kept getting calls because of our late arrival).

Acudeen is a fintech start-up focused on helping SMEs converting their receivables into cash by selling them into prospective investors. The office is quite small (it’s located in a condominium), so they hosted the lecture in Manila Elks Club (about 10 minutes by walk). While enjoying steak as our lunch, they provide us with insight of start-up trends and their business model. They also provide us a “blockchain game”; all person hold one coin, then everyone do rock-paper-scissor, if you win, take the coin from the loser. The game continues until we got the ultimate winner takes the whole coin and went home 70 pesos richer lol.

Then, we visited QBO Innovation Hub, a co-working space and community to support the Philippines’ start-ups ecosystem. We had a panel session about digitalization and entrepreneurship, digitalization and mobility, and also the concept of big data (I really love this topic!). I do think that this session is my favorite on the overall program because finally I get to hear the topic about start-ups!

QBO Innovation Hub

Then we move back to McKinley Hills and visited Korean Embassy in the Philippines! I got very excited because it was my first time ever to enter an embassy office (It’s not even located in Indonesia nor an Indonesian embassy, so I was there as unknown object lol). It gets more exciting because we have a very rare experience to have a dialogue with H.E. Ambassador Han Dong-man! He talked about how Korea and Philippines had a very good relationship, especially in tourism, because Filipino put Korea in #1 dream country to visit, and Korean are the biggest foreigner to visit the Philippines currently. I also had a chance to asked him directly about his perspective onthe future of ROK-Philippines relations.

Great talks by H.E. Ambassador Han Dong-man

After the talk concluded, while the rest of the group leave to the hotel, I will have another once-in-a-lifetime experience to represent ASEAN students to have an exclusive dinner with H.E. Han Dong-man, Ambassador of South Korea to the Philippines! Together with Victor (Choi Jae Hyung from Korea), we got this rare opportunity because of our bravery to deliver thank-you speech in Korea Program Closing Ceremony.

After waited inside the holding room for about 40 minutes, we were brought to the residences of Mr. Ambassador Han 20 minutes away from his office. Then suddenly the door opened and we saw this beautiful house that more or less look like Gyeongbok-gung Palace in Seoul (We were quite amazed with this!). Then we were welcomed by him into the house and got to know his staff in the Embassy while enjoying great drinks and light refreshments.

Then he asked us to join him in the dining room. It was quite awesome to see my name in the seating arrangement both inside and outside the room. The weird thing is that I’m the only person in the room that don’t speak any Korean at all; even Mr. Thang (Vietnamese counterpart from ASEAN-Korea Centre) could understand 50% of the overall conversation. Since they all speak in Korean, all that I could do is just nodding my head several times (sorry!) and asked the embassy staff beside me to translate what is the current topic that they talked about.

Set menu of the day.

The most memorable part? Fancy fine dining, for sure! It was my very first time to have this fancy type of food for my whole life! (Once again thank you AKC!). Seven different dishes are served by turns from appetizer to main course and dessert. Fortunately they could fulfil my request not to add any alcohol to my dish since my religion forbid me to do so. We were also given a chance to take photos inside that fancy house (sorry netizens, we are prohibitted to share those pictures online) and have an interesting talk with Mr. Han and his staff.

Pretty good memories, isn’t it?

Again, I went back to hotel feeling full, and realized that I need to rehearse for tomorrow’s policy proposal presentation.

Day 10 (Wednesday, July 11th 2018)

Last day of the whole program! L

After breakfast and hotel check-out, we are ready with our traditional attire and went to UPAC Auditorium for policy proposal presentation and closing ceremony. I got to be in stage at #3, but unfortunately we faced a technical difficulties so I stood up and present at #5. It wasn’t a good presentation for me because I didn’t rehearse properly until the very last minute L

I wear batik (Indonesian traditional type of clothes) for the presentation

Then, the worse part of the whole program; Closing Ceremony L The good part is, our group got 2nd place for the ASEAN Cyber University proposal project, and I got awarded as one of the most active participants yeay! We took plenty of photographs, exchanged our contacts, and vowed to keep in touch (Fortunately we have our own Facebook group so I could just say hi if I missed them)

I don’t get emotional in the ceremony, but finally mine is triggered when we said goodbyes in SM Mall of Asia. We moved there after having lunch in UPAC Halls, and I went to the airport earlier than the rest because of my flight departure schedule.

Final thoughts

I remembered one of my friends told me that everybody has their own moments. When the timing and the moment is right, it will happened to our favour and creating a lifelong sweet memories. I couldn’t stop thanking God for giving me this perfect moment to join this workshop, together with my fellow friends from ASEAN+3 countries to be drivers of global digitalization.

Thank you for ASEAN-Korea Centre for this unforgettable 10 days journey, Indonesian Embassy in Seoul for selecting me to attend this workshop, my supportive parents, and of course my 67 fellow participants. You guys have a special part inside my memories. :”)

July 1st, 2018: 12 hours prior to my flight to Seoul, I finally have my Korean visa in my hand. After three weeks full of uncertainty and hope, I could finally secure my spot in the workshop.

May 18th, 2018: 2 days before the registration deadline, I checked a note from a group in LINE (KakaoTalk’s equivalent), telling the opportunity to join this workshop, while at the same time I need to prepare for my scholarship selection interview. When I read the theme, “ASEAN and Korean Youth as Drivers of Global Digitalization”, I knew immediately that this could be my perfect moments.

July 17th, 2018: 5 days after the workshop ends but I still couldn’t move on from the excitement.

There is a voice within my mind

Singing the songs of distant times

Speaking the thoughts from lost horizons...

Ahh I miss you guys :')



Versi Bahasa Indonesia:
https://eggeek.id/2018/07/24/bagian-1-belajar-digitalisasi-dari-seoul-dan-manila/