California Trip

I was there to participate in the Congress of Indonesian Diaspora. Indonesians, Indonesian descents, and other nationalities who are interested in Indonesia (mainly from the US but also from many other countries) gathered in Los Angeles, CA to discuss issues pertinent to these border crossers and to Indonesia in general. Some of the issues that interested me were dual citizenship, promoting Indonesia's soft power, pluralism and minority, as well as the role of scholars' communities in the development of Indonesians both home and abroad.

I was able to organize one session on interfaith/intrafaith dialogue and networking. From this session and another session on pluralism, it was clear that Indonesia has prominent interfaith advocates who have been working hard to create respectful dialogues across religious communities. I saw that these dialogues center on larger issues like peacekeeping and social justice. Unfortunately, marginalization of religious minorities has not been discussed widely. People who discussed attacks to and closure of churches always saw this issue solely as a violation of human right and law enforcement problem, which I agree completely! But still, religious communities have always been reluctant to dialogue about this. When there are conversations, they are always heated and the answer has always been something like, "But your religious communities also attack mine." A homework for future conversations.

Anyway, please enjoy a few pictures from my visit.

A picture with Anies Baswedan, president of Paramadina University in Indonesia, founder and chairman of Indonesia Mengajar

Demonstration outside of the Congress of Indonesian Diaspora, demanding the government to act on closures of churches GKI Yasmin and HKBP Filadelfia. One of the demonstrants stated that church members have been worshipping on the streets and in the gutters during the closure.

In the train

Come visit this wonderful Wok Combo restaurant in Chino Hills when you are in CA! Delish food.

Trees in CA are so unique: many palm trees, eucalyptus, banana trees.

Because my research is on church communities, here is the infamous Crystal Cathedral.
This church reflects significant periods (you can say trends if you like) in the modern church development and architecture, for example drive-in churches and megachurches

Yogurtland, one of my favorite treats.