Oktoberfest in Medan

On Friday, October 31, I went to an Oktoberfest.  It was a bit strange.  Why?  Oktoberfest is a German cultural festival.  I am in Indonesia.  The people hosting the party and many of the guests were graduates of German universities.  However, a representative for the German Embassy did come from Jakarta. So did many people from Medan’s small expat community (maybe 20-30 Westerners). It was also strange because of the ways that it combined aspects of Indonesian and German culture.  As an “international event”, most of the speaking was done in English and translated into German, often leaving Indonesian out of the loop.   In my mind, it would have made more sense to leave English out and have the event be bilingual Indonesian-German.  As an Indonesian event, there were the required three speeches, two from the hosts and one from the German representative, which was in English.  As an event local to Medan, the Embassy representative was given a Batak ulus embroidered with her name and the name of the event.  It was presented with a small dance (see video).  As a “German” event, there was the official tapping of the beer cask with the pouring of the first round of beer.  After the honored guests only had received their beer, a German drinking song was sung and the guests were all toasted.  Afterwards the emcee invited us all to go have dinner and to enjoy the beer, but not to enjoy the beer too much.   She warned us not to enjoy the beer too much about 8 times in less than two hours, which also spoke to the fact that we were still in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim country.

 

 Please excuse the misplaced title screen at the beginning.