Hello and welcome to my country! Or, as we say here, "Selamat datang di Indonesia!" Some people are not quite sure where we are when I say where I'm from. We're a Southeast Asian country, and some of our closest neighboring countries are Singapore and Malaysia. We're right on top of Australia.

Our flag is simple and consists of two colors only; red which means courage, and white which means purity of intent.

As a country, we're still pretty young. We're going 69 years old this year, which means there has been pretty much only one to two generations so far that has enjoyed our independence. We declared our independence from the Netherlands back in August 17, 1945 (side note: that's the year my dad was born!). Aside from the Netherlands, the English and the Japanese also occupied us briefly. We were kind of a desired commodity, I guess. (Mainly because we're the source of some awesome spices they can't find in their own countries)

This is our awesome coat of arms/national emblem:


It's a Garuda, a mystical bird from Hindu and Buddhist mythology (yep, we have a mythical animal as our national symbol - cause we're cool). Interesting trivia: the number of its feathers (17 on each wing) represents our independence date. The tail feather number is 8, representing the month of independence, and there are 45 feathers on its neck to represent the year of independence. The shield represents our five principles of ideology, or Pancasila (in Sanskrit "pañca" means "five" and "sīla" means "principles"):

• The star means sacred divinity
  
• The chain means just and civilized humanity
  
• The tree means unity
  
• The buffalo head means democracy
  
• The rice and cotton means social justice
  

The scroll it's clutching shows our national motto, "Bhinneka Tunggal Ika". Derived from old Javanese language, it means "Unity in Diversity".

Here is what our land looks like! As you can see, we are composed of many, many islands (13,466 according to Wiki). That's kind of what makes us unique. It's also why we've got such a huge diversity. There are hundreds of native ethnic and linguistic groups, and each of our big islands have their own native dialect. I could travel to one of our other islands and they'd be speaking a different language entirely.

Of course, Indonesian is the national language, but there are so many others depending on where we come from, as well. (For example, my parents came from Java, and that's what they speak to each other - I've picked it up from listening to them since I was young but I can't really speak it, just understand what's being said. They also can speak Dutch since my grandparents lived during the Dutch occupation, but they never bothered to teach me, poo.)


We have 33 provinces and about 200+ million people, making us the world's fourth most populous country.

We're also sitting very close to the equator, which pretty much means it's ALWAYS SUMMER. Our temperature ranges between 20-30 C on a good day and can reach 35 C on a pretty sunny day. When I told this to my English friends, they were quite understandably horrified. Our weather isn't particularly... comfortable. There's a high humidity level as well. When it isn't sunny, it rains (we have to deal with flood a lot). That's about it. No four seasons, no spring or autumn, no snow. Ever. (It's very cruel and unfair.)

Our country is a republic with a presidential system. We have undergone some major reforms since the revolution that happened in 1998 following the 32 years long reign of our second president. That was a particularly difficult time as economic and political crises rose afterwards, but the change was necessary to achieve more democracy. In 2004 we had our first presidential election where the people directly elected the president and vice president. They can now only serve for a maximum of two consecutive five year terms.


Our capital city - which is also where I live - is Jakarta. It's a metropolitan city, and it's... literally full of people. We have traffic almost everywhere we go because everyone prefers to drive their own cars and only the lower to middle class use public transport. This is largely because we still don't have good public transport. We're currently building our underground rail system and perhaps a monorail as well. (Our country as a whole is still considered a developing/third world country.) Jakarta is pretty modern, I suppose, compared to any of our other cities, but if you want to see the real beauty of our country, you'll have to go somewhere else.

Wow! This is amazing!
  
Thank you for sharing!

No problem! If anyone has any questions or anything, I'd be happy to answer them too   

what kind of Holidays do you have there and are any of the shared with the US for example Chirstams, ect ect.

I must admit that I didn't know much about your country, and I find it quite interesting, and there are a lot of things that are the same as my country (no four seasons, only summer... I know what is like) Thank you for sharing all that!!!~

what is the university system like in Indonesia?

I am always interested in education in other countries.

sailor swifty wrote:

what kind of Holidays do you have there and are any of the shared with the US for example Chirstams, ect ect.

I've covered this a little in the culture section! We have sort of adopted Valentine's Day into our culture, but we're not big on Halloween. We sort of celebrate Chinese New Year. Christmas is one of the major holidays, but the biggest holiday is Eid al-Fitr, the Breaking of the Feast which marks the end of the Ramadan (fasting) month and an important Muslim holiday. Easter is recognized but not hugely celebrated. Our Mother's Day lands on December 22.

Aztnara wrote:

I must admit that I didn't know much about your country, and I find it quite interesting, and there are a lot of things that are the same as my country (no four seasons, only summer... I know what is like) Thank you for sharing all that!!!~

I'm glad you found it interesting! You're very welcome

HikariDemand wrote:

what is the university system like in Indonesia?

I am always interested in education in other countries.

I think it's pretty similar to how it is in most countries. We usually spend 3-4 years for a Bachelor's degree, about two years for Master's, and I'm not sure about Doctorate as I don't know many people who bother getting it. At the end of every level of study we have to do a thesis/dissertation, present it in front of a panel and answer their questions. The result of this (how well we show the knowledge of our material) determines whether or not we pass. I know some unis abroad don't have the Q&A session and it was a very stressful time for me when I was getting my Bachelor's degree.

Also instead of Bachelor, Master and Doctorate we call it S1, S2, and S3 (The S stands for "Sarjana" which means "Scholar").

I am also rather ignorant on your country and I'm curious as to how a Muslim holiday (the one you mentioned being the end of Ramadan) got popular when I would expect that many of your people would practice Buddhism or Hindu since Southeast Asian? Obviously due to Islam becoming a big religion, but i guess i just want to know when and how it spread. xD

The majority of people in my country is Muslim actually. The only place with a large Hindu population is in the island of Bali. You were right; back in the old days it was mainly Hindu and Buddhist, back when we had our ancient kingdoms. According to Wiki:

"Islam was introduced to Indonesia in the fourteenth century. Coming from Gujarat, India, Islam spread through the west coast of Sumatra and then developed to the east in Java. This period also saw kingdoms established but this time with Muslim influence. By the end of the fifteenth century, 20 Islam-based kingdoms had been established, reflecting the domination of Islam in Indonesia."

In the 2010 Indonesian census, 87.18% of Indonesians identified themselves as Muslim, 6.96% Protestant, 2.91% Catholic, 2.69% Hindu, 0.72% Buddhist, 0.05% Khong Hu Chu, 0.13% other, and 0.38% unstated or not asked.

Aaah ok, so it came about quite some time ago.I never knew Islam had spread to Southeast Asia like that.

Great presentation, Mercury. Indonesia also ranks among the world's top 10 most populous nations. The island of Java (or Jawa) itself boosts over 140 million people alone! It is also the 5th largest island in Indonesia and 13th largest in the world, divided into six provinces. Not only the Dutch played a role in colonialism, the Portuguese were present and they used to have a colony East Timor (Timor-Leste) until 1975 when Indonesia acquired the island (now an independent country).

Thanks! And it looks like you know more things about my country than most foreigners do ^^

Sailor Mercury wrote:

Thanks! And it looks like you know more things about my country than most foreigners do ^^

You're welcome.   Doesn't hurt to look up Indonesia online and learn a thing or two about your country.

To all who have visited and learned about my country, thank you so much!

Have a bumper for all your trouble

Oh wow, your country is super interesting!! I can't believe it's made up of so many islands, that must be super confusing with so many languages. I also didn't really know where Indonesia was geographically, I didn't realise you were so close to Australia. 

Also, my country's national animal is a mythical one (a unicorn) so I can relate to that. =p <3

I don't travel within the country much except to close places, so I've not had the pleasure to hear all the different dialects and languages unfortunately. And yup, most students here choose Australia as their study abroad destination cause it's so close. I was just a rebel and decided to go much farther.

Unicorn is cool! Well done xD