What made this semester’s classmeeting stood out from the rest, is the presence of new form of competition corporating cultural performances, costumes, culinary, and bussiness running. Those two fresh form of competiitons are called “Cultural Fest” and “Cultinary”.
Cultinary was held earlier on the week of class meeting on the 12th of June. Cultinary is a program/event held by the SMA Pembangunan Jaya’s Student Council’s Department of Entrepreneurship. This program is a culinary and bussiness competition with a international cultural twist to it. In this competition, each classes would pick a few students to represent them by cooking a certain dishes – could be snacks, drinks and/or main courses from a certain country that their class were assigned to randomly. This time, the theme was asia – and the countries that were represented are China, Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and India. After creating the culinaries, the students then were asked to sell it on the hallway for the whole day in the most creative ways possible, and the sell was also a part of the competition’s judgment. Then, once the selling period is over, the cultinary judges will go around the classes’s food stalls and asks a few question about the dish’s heritage and taste a small portion of the foods that were sold earlier. A bunch of varieties of foods were sold on this day such as types of curries and bread and/or rice, matcha drink, hwachae, tanghulu, iced chocolate, kimbap, bubble tea/boba, and many more.
The next new event addition is Cultural Fest. This semester, Cultural Fest was held on the 19th of June. Cultural Fest is a program/event held by the SMA Pembangunan Jaya’s Student Council’s Department of Human Resource Development. In this program, the student compete in dressing up in each assigned country’s traditional costumes and performance accordingly. “The Cultural Fest was actually inspired by the SPJ program that used to be held regularly, namely “Culture Day”. With this Cultural Fest, it is hoped that the students will get to know cultures beyond Indonesian culture more deeply. So, they won’t just know the surface level, but also understand how to make traditional foods there, including what ingredients are used, why those ingredients are used, why the language in that country is like that, what the dances are like, why those things are considered distinctive to that country, and much more. Additionally, Cultural Fest is held to foster an open attitude towards diversity, so that friends at SMA PJ 2 will be more tolerant and appreciative of the differences in the world. Essentially, it’s so they won’t be “shocked” when they directly encounter those cultures.”, the Department’s chief, Althea ’25 stated. When asked about the event’s preparation here’s what Ravell ’25 the event’s PIC told us, “We’ve gathered several times to discuss the project, like which countries to feature, what activities to include in the competition, whether there will be performances, and so on”. Althea also added on the event’s experience, “During the implementation of this project, honestly, I gained a lot of new experiences. Because our theme this year was Asia, I learned that there are many countries I knew about before but didn’t realize they were in Asia. I also felt really happy seeing how enthusiastic my friends were in participating in the Cultural Fest. It was so fulfilling to witness how creative they were in presenting the cultures of the countries they chose. Sometimes, I still feel amazed when I see the cultures from other countries. Overall, it was really fun!”. Then, Ravell expressed his messages for the next Cultural Fest, “I hope the next Cultural Fest will be better than the last one, more impressive and fun. But Cultural Fest isn’t just about having fun, it’s also about gaining knowledge, especially about the cultures of other countries like traditional clothing, food, and even languages”.
By adding these educational and cultural incorporation into class meetings, it is certainly hoped for the student to be able to still learn and try new things while also having the most fun in SMA Pembangunan Jaya Sidoarjo, and thus – can’t wait to find out where we’re travelling next on the upcoming Culfest and Cultinary!
Editor in Chief : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Journalist : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Editor & Translator : Syakira Azzah K.S.
Documentation : Jasmine ‘25
English 
Indonesian
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