My name is Lintang and I was an exchange student in YES Program in the year of 2011-12. I was hosted in Minnesota. Being an exchange student was a great experience to learn a foreign language and new culture. Having new great friends, having a very nice hostfamily made it easier for me to adjust with their culture. I was hosted in a farming community. I never thought before that America has rural areas as well. But I had great moments in understanding the new culture. Some of my US friends asked me about Indonesia, and they thought Indonesia is a country that's located in Africa, and I just laughed about that while explaining to them that Indonesia is located in Southeast Asia. They asked me a lot of questions which seemed silly but it was really fun to answer those questions, because it’s part of sharing our cultures.

When I got home to Indonesia, a lot of my friends asked me a lot of questions about America: how’s life there? Is it different than Indonesia? What are teenagers in America like? Do teenagers always party? How’s Islam in America? Did you pray when you were in America? Is there any mosque? Those question are really interesting to me. But the most interesting question that I really like are about Islam in America and what my life was like as a moslem in America.

At an event “Iftar together” in the alumni association of Islamic Junior High School Model Brebes, on August 15, 2012, I made a presentation entititled “Share about America”. The presentation was attended by students and alumni. I talked about my life as a Moslem living in non-Moslem communities. Indeed, before my departure to America I myself had many thoughts and questions such as, how will I pray? How will I fast (for Ramadan)? And other matters relating to the  implementation of the activities of my religion. They were excited by what I told them about life in America as a Muslim.

As a Muslim in America, I’d say it wasn’t a big problem in terms of implementing Islamic activities.  Basically Americans are very tolerant with others. They really appreciate the presence of different religions. According to them, all people are entitled to their own religion and beliefs, respectively.

Like when I was in America, I stayed with a Christian family, but they really appreciated me as a Muslim, they even reminded me to run my worship. This is a very clear example, that Americans are very tolerant of other faiths. They do not look down on other religions. Indeed there are some Americans who are negative minded about Islam, but it is only a minority of those who brought up the issues in the media that talk about the chaos moslem countries. The majority of the people in America were more open minded towards Muslims, understanding that Muslims are not like what they see reported in the media.

At the event, many of the students were asking “how was fasting in America?” “I replied that fasting in America was the same as in Indonesia just kind of longer than here, because of the time difference. Then they also asked “how about the Friday prayers in America?” “Are there any mosques in America”? “I replied: for the mosque there were still very few compared to Indonesia, maybe only in the big cities there, so for Friday prayer it was kind of difficult, but Islam is flexible, so it can be replaced with prayer as usual.

The presentation helped them understand that not everyone in America hates Islam, Americans understand that Muslims are the same as people of other faiths who live for the sake of doing good deeds for others. The presentation also made them know that by studying abroad as exchange students, many benefits can be gained, such as added knowledge about the world, understanding the culture of others and bridging peace between faiths and countries.

Photo: Lintang conducting his "life in America" presentation