Didin's Introductory Essay

The Future of Indonesian Cultures

by Khulafaur Rosyidin, 12320088, Dk

It cannot be denied that the presence of globalization in our country brings many positive things in terms of economic aspects and technological aspects. Globalization has been a way of the opening of international market which facilitates goods accesses from other countries. It subsequently becomes an endorser of the increasing of economy in our country. Technologically, globalization helps people to do a lot of activities practically and quickly. People are getting easier to have long distance communication, to get more information, knowledge, and science. On the other hand, globalization really erodes the existence of cultures in our country as numerous cultures have been entering our country mostly through mass media. Consequently, the Indonesian cultures will be dying away by force of many cultures which are carried by globalization.

The globalization really alters Indonesians’ style in wearing clothes. Javanese formerly wore Kebaya to be their daily clothes but they currently prefer to wear T-shirt as form of western products. Kebaya is now only used in particular events, as traditional ceremony and Javanese wedding party. Following the world’s newest fashion is also as if a must in our country. Those who do not follow the fashion feel that they are old-fashioned. The phenomenon of K-Pop Boy and Girl Band becomes the trending topic of fashion for teenagers lately in our country. Not only the citizens but also the villagers follow the Korean fashion now. It reveals that globalization has changed the Indonesians’ style in more radiused clothes. When the people hardly ever wear their original Indonesian clothes and prefer to wear other nation’s clothes, we are going to see nobody wearing Indonesian genuine clothes anymore in the future.    

Besides clothing, globalization also influences Indonesian languages. Nowadays, people are prouder of speaking other languages than their own local languages. They assume that speaking their own languages, such as, Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, are not cool anymore. They will look cooler if they can speak other languages, such as, English. For the reason that English is the international language, they think it is more prestigious to speak English than their own local languages. Another impact toward language, globalization affects Bahasa, many people mix up Bahasa with English in their daily speaking. For instance, ‘Sorry’, jaringan ‘trouble’, pinjam ‘headset’nya dong!, ‘download’ lagu, ‘so what’ gitu loch, etc. When the people begin to leave their own local language, what is going to happen to the language is extinction. Meanwhile, language is the soul of a culture, meaning that if the language vanishes, so does the culture. Likewise, when Indonesian speak Bahasa by mixing up, it will break the authenticity of Bahasa itself.

Indonesian morality is also one of the elements of the culture which is eroded by globalization. As one of the eastern countries which has really tough eastern culture, Indonesian did not acquaint with the term “free sex”. However, presently, the term is no longer strange in our ears since that western culture has infected Indonesians, especially the teenagers. Free sex is really contrary to the Indonesian culture. When there are many people do it, of course, it breaks the social norm and value that has been planted within Indonesian culture. The Eastern and the Western are different, especially in viewing the morality.

In the globalization epoch, indeed, it is quite difficult to hold down the existence of our own culture inasmuch as a lot of cultures enter through most mass media. The awareness of people in conserving their own culture, consisting of local clothing, language, and morality has to be enhanced right now because those are the identities of our nation, Indonesian. It should be as what mahatma Ghandi said “A nation’s culture resides in the hearts and in the soul of its people.”

Wildan's Introductory Essay

Can Mariah Beat Celine?

The first time I listened to Celine Dion, I instantly fell in love with her beautiful voice. It was when I was a kid and my brother showed me a performance of Celine Dion singing “A New Day Has Come” on TV. She was singing as if she had been talking. Several years passed, I unintentionally listened to a song entitled “Hero” and I was wondering who the singer was. I thought it was Celine Dion but then I figured out that it was Mariah Carey. As what I felt about Celine, I was instantly crazy about Mariah, too. Since then, I argued with myself about who was better between them. After years of listening to their music and comparing their vocal skills, I can now say that Mariah Carey is better than Celine Dion at some reasons.

 First of all, Mariah’s vocal range is much wider than that of Celine. Mariah’s lowest note is G#2 that she showed in an interview. Celine’s lowest note is B2. Moving to the highest note, Mariah’s highest ever note is G#7 that she sang in the improvisation part of “Emotions” song at Video Music Award in 1991 while Celine’s highest note is E6 that she exclaimed in a show at TV5. It can be calculated that Mariah’s vocal range is 5 octaves while Celine’s is 3 octaves and 5 notes. It means that Mariah has a wider vocal range.

Listening to their timbres, Mariah can produce voices better than what Celine can do. Mariah’s lower notes sound stronger compared to Celine’s. According to www.divadevotee.com, a website that discusses about vocal skills of well-known singers all over the world, the lower range of Mariah is heavy. It sounds like a man voice. Meanwhile, Celine’s lower range sounds quite weak and slightly raspy. Also, Celine’s midrange is thick, whereas Mariah’s midrange can be either thick or slight. Besides, Mariah can make her midrange sound airy as if whispering. When singing in upper range, Mariah’s belting voice sounds pure and bright yet Celine’s sounds nasal and quite whizzing. Moreover, Mariah can utilize whistle voice, the vocal technique used to hit very high notes and it is the rarest vocal skill mastered only by a few singers in the world, yet Celine has nothing to do with it.

Furthermore, improvisation is something which Mariah always amazingly does when singing and Celine, by contrast, sings with less improvisation. Mariah’s live performance can sound far different from her studio version. For instance, the performance of “Hero” during her Daydream World Tour totally differs from the studio version. She beautified the song with many high notes which cannot be found in the studio version. On the other hand, Celine’s live performance sounds nearly the same as the studio version. The best thing about Mariah is that she can hit a high note and elastically jump to another high note to create an improvisation while Celine tends to sing lifelessly because of less improvisation.

After comparing those aspects, Mariah can be considered better than Celine. Mariah beats Celine in terms of vocal range, vocal production and improvisation. People now or in the future may often compare any singers to Mariah and make her a standard of a good female singer.

Harun's Introductory Essay

Thesis Statement:

Online games are not only just for fun but also for enhancing some language skills.

Topic Sentence 1: The use of common language expressions.

- Correct pronunciations

- Appropriate intonations

Topic Sentence 2: The use of dictions.

- Vocabularies

- Appropriate word choices

Concluding Sentence:

Do not just look by how fun the online games could be, but look how much you can learn a language from there as well.

LANGUAGE IS NEEDED, EVEN IN ONLINE GAMES

            “Don’t heat it! That is my target!” said my friend to the other players who wanted to “hit” the monster in that online game. Of course, they did not understand and hit it anyway. When he told me about this, I laughed instead of calming him down. “You have to look at your pronunciations,” I said. It is indeed true that playing online games is one of many ways to have fun. However, players have to understand the language that will be used in that game, including the use of common language expressions like pronunciations and intonations and the use of dictions like vocabularies and word choices. Therefore, online games are not only just for fun but also for enhancing some language skills.

            Let us take an example in the use of common language expressions. Knowing how to pronounce a word is essential in communication. Wrong pronunciation could become a misinterpretation and eventually could become a disadvantage. Intonations and stresses also have a crucial part in communication. Be sure to have a proper “tone” in every communication you encounter. For example, if you ask your friend to “destroy the ship[ʃhip] and protect the sheep[ʃhi:p]”, and you pronounce it the opposite way, that would cause your friend to fail to do what you have asked. Another example is when you lead other players to hunt a monster, but the monster is too strong to be attacked frontally and you told them to hide by saying “hide?” instead of saying “hide!”, it will cause a misinterpretation. Your friend will think that it is an advice and not an order, and they and, of course, you will fail to hunt the monster.

            Another example is in the use of dictions. Vocabularies holds a crucial part in a communication among players. If you do not have any words to say something that you want to express or you do not understand the meaning from other players’ explanation, it will be a disadvantage for you. Moreover, choosing the appropriate words for the appropriate situations is also crucial. You will be misinterpreted if you do not use the right word in the right situations. For example, if you want to ask for a direction to some game maps but you do not understand what are “north”, “south”, “west”, and “east”, you will get lost eventually even though you have asked many times. Furthermore, you cannot say, “can you show me the directions of this map?” if you want other players to guide you there. You should use the phrase “way to this map” instead of “directions of this map”.

            So, do not just look by how fun the online games could be, but look how much you can learn a language from there as well. With this, players will understand the proper way of using language as well as have their fun in gaming. It might be possible that there will be a lecturer of language or even other subjects in an online game in the future.