Celebrating Mother’s Day, After Class Talk #7. To celebrate Mother’s Day in Indonesia which held on December 22, the International Office of Telkom University conducted another After Class Talk December Series episode 7 under the theme “Celebrating Mother’s Day: Women – Encouragement and the Front Guard in the New Normal Era”. This activity is also the closing activity of After Class Talk series in 2020.

This event presented three international student as speakers who are Telkom University students and graduates. The students were Rakotomanga Tsiry Harison from Madagascar, Nussara Sriamad from Thailand and Mohammad Fahim from Afghanistan. Tsiry, who is a Magister student, told how he celebrated Mother’s Day in Madagascar. In Madagascar, the date of Mother’s Day is the last Sunday of May each year. If the Sunday falls on the day of Pentecost, the Mother’s Day date is postponed to the 1st Sunday in June. During this day, the family  go to church in the morning and later coming home to celebrate it together with the whole family. During the pandemic, woman usually stay at home do some housework if they are not going to work. Things doesn’t change that much , but the only difference is that they have more support from the kids and the youngster since they stay at home. In Madagascar, women are associated with a term “Fanaka malemy” which is translated as a Soft furniture. It means that they are the first  decoration in the house and without them home does not feel the same.

Meanwhile, Nussara who is also a Magister student at Telkom University told that August is when they celebrate Mother’s Day in Thailand. Unlike in Indonesia, in Thailand is synonymous with the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Sirikit. Therefore, it is a big occasion in Thailand and falls on the 12th of August every year. Preparations for the celebration start around the month of July. A whole nation is busily preparing to celebrate the event by hanging street lights, portraits of Her Majesty at homes and work places, decking them with garlands and hanging multi-colored lights around the portraits as well as raising the national flags in respect of the occasion. This day is not only limited to the birthday celebration of the Queen, Thai people also take this day as an opportunity to thank their dear mothers for their unconditional love. Mother’s day morning in Thailand starts by giving alms to the monks. Following the Thai tradition, kids kneel down before their mother to show their love and gratitude. They present her with white jasmine flowers or garlands.  In return, mothers shower their blessings on the kids. On this day, white jasmine flowers are a common sight in Thailand as they are the symbol of maternal love.

Celebrating Mother’s Day in Afghanistan

Like other speakers, Fahim also told that International Mother’s Day is also celebrated by Afghans as well as by other peoples of the world with various ceremonies as well as individually. Some people celebrate this day by giving bouquets of flowers, clothes, perfume, and the like to their mothers. There are also people who are in a bad financial situation and do hard work, but they still try to give gifts to their mothers on this day. In Afghan society, which is largely considered a religious community, many families say that mothers are highly respected and satisfied in all matters.

Lasting for seven episodes, the After Class in 2020 is expected to be a forum for cultural exchange between international students and Indonesian students as well as enhancing a lot of knowledge and information for participants who take part in this activity. Although 6 out of 7 episodes were carried out online due to the pandemic situation, it did not reduce the participants’ interest to always participate in this activity in each episode. This was proven by the number of participants who reached 400 out of the total participants who registered during 2020. There will be other interesting topics to discuss in the After Class Talk Series next year. So, stay tune and see you on the next Talk! Happy New Year and Happy Holiday.(IO)***