Welcome to Italy

Knowing that fashion is mostly born in London, Paris, New York and Italy, I decided to learn Italian and I love everything about Italy. Pasta, pizza, gelato, coffee and you name it. I studied it for almost two years in Indonesia. Some of my classmates applied for the Italian language course scholarship at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, funded by the Italian Ministry. I was the one who failed. Feeling depressed and unmotivated for weeks was enough for me. I became more curious and found another scholarship. Then, in March 2015, I received an email from the Rotary Club of Perugia saying that I was one of the ten luckiest students in the world who had been awarded a scholarship by them and who were also studying Italian at the Università per Stranieri di Perugia. We came from Indonesia, Belgium, Morocco, Egypt, Ecuador, Argentina, Uzbekistan, Poland, Brazil and Vietnam. We had different levels of education and Italian language skills.

Welcoming Dinner of Rotary Club Perugia

My flatmates were from Argentina and Ecuador. They both spoke Spanish and interacted easily with each other, while I could only speak Italian or English with them. It's summer and 30 degrees Celsius. As there is no air conditioning in the room, we moved our beds to the ground floor to be closer to the window, as you can see there are 2 floors to our bedroom. When we first arrived, the concierge men gave us timetables that were managed by the Rotary Club of Perugia.

Rules for Student

Rules for Student

My Dorm

My Study Desk

Bedroom Layout

Girls' Bed

This is what people so-called “every cloud has a silver lining”

I was fully sponsored and went on a city tour once a week to get to know another Rotary club in central Italy, such as Todi and Spoleto. I met and exchanged ideas with Rotary members, most of whom were businessmen and executives. When the students had to give a speech in front of them about our motivation for this scholarship, we spoke in Italian, I talked about how much I wanted to do my Masters in Fashion and told them that in Indonesia I had a small online business (postponed for now), handmade clothes as my portfolio. As a thank you, I gave the 2015 Rotary Club President my handmade Padasanubari tie, made from traditional Indonesian fabric, and his wife a sleeveless blouse. They both wore my gift at the gala dinner with other Rotarians in Todi. I was touched and proud to see Italians wearing handmade Indonesian clothing. I gave a successful speech, and they gave me lots of merchandise and applauded me for my passion.

For the first time, I was most proud of myself and spoke out loud about how a girl from a South-East Asian country had a big dream and was living it. I had multicultural friends in my class. Most of them were from the United States because they were in summer school. The rest of my classmates were from Germany, Russia, France, Rome, Armenia, Cyprus, Greece and Korea. We forbade ourselves to speak English in class in order to improve our Italian. Lunch was our best time in the canteen to exchange some cultural information. I could say that the more you know about people's culture, the more you respect the differences and are open to the world.