Written by: Razii Abraham – Institut Pertanian Bogor

This month, we had a very interesting challenge for the workshop, we were challenged to present Ted style talk. If PechaKucha was a group assignment (did you guys read Claristy’s write up on this?), TED^X Talks is the opposite of that, it’s a one-man-show challenge with XLFL taste obviously. You can imagine how nervous we were, especially myself. But in this opportunity, I’m not going to tell you about my TED^x Talks experience, I think somebody else will write it up later for you.

A few weeks ago, Tidar (our beloved mentor, if you guys have no idea who is him) emailed us about the idea of having a Culture Quest. The idea originally proposed by Rifaldi Noviansyah, my fellow from Jakarta Nusantara class. For your information, in Jakarta Nusantara class the students are more diverse than Jekwan who all are coming from Jabodetabek region. They are coming from Jakarta, Medan, Makassar, Pontianak, Aceh, Batam, and more. So, it was a great idea for having some local food exchange, even though I was confused what kind of food I need to bring up.

Grha XL, 17^th October, finally the Big Day came into reality. Before the workshop is begun, I saw that all of the students were busy doing the last-minute rehearsal for their best performances. The atmosphere was so cold and made tense. Everyone looked nervous and so serious. I even forgot the idea about Culture Quest. Until the half day had already passed, the ambience was not as tight as before, because it’s time for lunch. But before having lunch we managed a long table in the corridor to display our food and gave the name of place origin that labeled on each food.

After lunch time, we gathered in corridor to start the Culture Quest session. Of course before the food was running out into our stomachs—since I could see how enthusiast we were to taste the food—we did photo session first. Next, each representative was asked to conduct a short presentation about the food they brought, it might be its story behind the name of the food or else, anything. I got the first chance. Well, I had no idea what kind of food I should bring from Bogor at first. So, as Tidar asked me before to bring IndoRempah and KingChips, then I decided to bring those products. Actually, it is AgriSocio’s (my Bogor-based startup) products that we produced through empowering rural households. So instead of explaining about the food itself I did a little promotion of my social business.

Here are as far as I remember about the food and its place origin; from Sukabumi there was Mochi a cute sweet-snack; Makassar has Kerupuk Bawang which is said as a must-side-dish when you eat; then also Otak-otak for Batam; Aceh has deliciously Brownies Kopi, its coffee aroma is so strong, I love it so much; there’s Kue Satu from West Java then; that was also Amplang and Manisan Lidah Buaya from Pontianak, the candy is so delicious I ate about 3 or 4 pieces; next was Brownies Amanda from Bandung, it’s a really famous food I think you need no to go to Bandung to get it, I could even find it nearly from my campus; for the last but not least was Medan which have Bika Ambon, Kacang Ting-ting (I don’t know exactly what the name of it), Kacang Shirobuk, and Teri Kacang Medan. Do you know? In Medan, this mixed food of Teri and Kacang is more expensive than meat up to 30%.

Finally, I felt a bit regret for eating lunch too much, I was already full at that time so that I couldn’t taste all of the food. But, since there still food which were left on the table, we decided to do a Fun Quiz. I thought I might be won some food to bring back home. Yet unfortunately for me, the questions were mostly about Geographic, and I surely lacked in that area. I got nothing then. Over all, I was really glad to see all of us could laugh and had fun. Everybody looked happy and enjoyed the session as well as the food. Everyone had forgotten the workshop, task, assignment, and any hard thing else for a while. Beside it acted as the way we did cultural exchange, moreover, in my opinion this Culture Quest is the best Ice Breaking I ever had in XL Future Leaders.