06/16/2026
To inspire students just beginning their Summer International Travel Grant experiences, we’re posting a throwback to last summer!
SITG Dispatch from Jogja, Indonesia (2025)
Selamat Pagi! I’m Toby Chan (Class of 2026), studying economics and psychology at UChicago. Thanks to the FLAG grant, I spent my summer in the city of Yogyakarta picking up Indonesian. I was interested in learning Indonesian out of an interest in South East Asia, and was drawn to the concept of Gotong Royong and the communal emphasis of Javanese culture.
Living with a host family was a really meaningful experience that I got to be a part of. For two months, I lived with Bapak Prijo and Ibu Dian in Kotagede, an old neighborhood of Jogja (as the city is affectionately nicknamed). Bapak Prijo, who used to work in the cultural office in Jogja, is a big wayang (leather puppet) aficionado. And Ibu Dian, who’s quite active in her gamelan group, recently organized a record-breaking event featuring the most people wearing kebayas (traditional outfits) at one time on the steps of Prambanan (Hindu temple and world heritage site). I also had a host sister, Aurora, from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, who was on an exchange program for her masters.
Jogja is kind of like the Boston of Indonesia. It’s the center of Javanese culture, as well as a huge college town. As a result, it has a particular mixture of history and a unique youth culture. My day mostly consisted of taking Indonesian classes from my gurus at Wisma Bahasa. After that, I would have noodles and pick up a susu jahe (ginger milk) from my favorite bakmie joint—Bakmie Mbah Gito’s. Then I would meet up with friends, foreign and local, and wander different parts of town. Typical sidequests include watching a wayang puppet show from dusk till dawn, doing the Masangin—a ritual of walking blindfolded through two large banyan trees in the southern square, joining senam—morning neighborhood exercises, and doing community service by painting roads and erecting flags in preparation for Indonesian independence day.
It’s been bagus sekali (very nice) having this degree of immersion while practicing my Indonesian skills, and again and again I’ve been overwhelmed by the hospitality and kindness that people have shown me on this opposite side of the world (the antipode of much of the United States is in the Indian Ocean below Indonesia!). Thank you so much to everyone I met in Jogja and the FLAG grant for making this possible.
Read Toby’s full SITG dispatch on our website: https://study-abroad.uchicago.edu/student-voices/sitg-dispatch-jogja-indonesia
