A Season of Borders Dissolved — Music, Tea & Milestones in Jakarta
- Hevi Maria
- Aug 4
- 7 min read
From a fusion of souls on an IFI stage, to the warmth of a kingdom celebrating 80 years, and the quiet elegance of Ceylon's finest brew — a personal reflection on Jakarta's diplomatic calendar.
Francophonie · IFI Jakarta
Jordan Independence Day
International Tea Day 2026
There are seasons in a city's cultural life that feel quietly remarkable — not for any single event, but for the constellation of moments that cluster together, each one distinct in origin yet unified by a common thread. For me, that thread this year has been an unmistakable sense that the world's cultures do not merely coexist in Jakarta. They converse.
Over the past several months, I have had the privilege of attending three invitations that, taken together, have reshaped how I think about diplomacy, music, and the simple act of sharing a cup of tea.
Chapter One
Suara Jiwa — A Fusion Beyond Borders
Institut français d'Indonésie (IFI) Jakarta · November 7, 2025
Honestly? I almost didn't make it that evening.
It was a friend who nudged me — "You should come, it sounds interesting" — the kind of casual, almost throwaway invite that you say yes to without thinking too much about it. The event was a concert at IFI Thamrin Jakarta, hosted by Institut Français d'Indonésie. The title was SUARAJIWA: A Fusion Beyond Borders. I didn't know much about it. I just showed up.
And I'm so glad I did.
The moment I stepped into the auditorium, there was already something in the air — that particular kind of quiet that settles over a room when people sense they're about to witness something they can't quite name yet. I felt it too, even before the first note.
What unfolded on that stage was unlike anything I had seen in Jakarta before.
SuaraJiwa is a collaboration between eight musicians — three French electronic artists and five Indonesian traditional musicians — who had spent ten days together in residency at IFI Jakarta, not rehearsing existing songs, but building six entirely new compositions from scratch. Together. In the same room. Starting from nothing.
SuaraJiwa means the sound of the soul. Our idea was to build a shared musical universe, enriched by our respective cultures and our ways of making music together.
The six pieces — Suara Jali, Magie-magie, Baobab, Arapan, Zarafas, and Sama-sama — didn't feel like experiments. They didn't feel like anyone was trying to prove a point. They felt like real conversations happening in real time, between people who were genuinely curious about each other. The electronic beats didn't overpower the kendang and gamelan — they leaned in, listened. And the traditional instruments didn't just hold their ground — they answered back.
That, for me, was the quiet revelation of the whole evening.
The project was initiated by French musician Olivier Bertholet, who first visited Indonesia in October 2024 and found himself struck by something unexpected: how deeply electronic music composition and gamelan actually resemble each other in structure. That one observation became the seed of everything SuaraJiwa grew into.
🇫🇷 French Electronic Musicians Olivier Bertholet · Pascal Pancrazi · Laurent Gueirard
🇮🇩 Indonesian Traditional Musicians Mahindra Askandar · Chaerul · Embung Surya Muhammad · Aji Widyadhana Pangestu · Sumitra Adi Kusuma
The concert was also part of something larger — a celebration of 75 years of diplomatic relations between France and Indonesia. But what I loved most was that it didn't feel like a ceremony. There were no speeches that night that moved me more than the music did. It honoured that milestone the way it deserved to be honoured: with sound, with presence, with artists who had actually taken the time to listen to each other.
I walked out of IFI Thamrin that night thinking about a lot of things — but mostly this: the most meaningful cultural bridges aren't built by institutions or agreements. They're built by people willing to sit in a room together and figure out what they have in common, one note at a time.
My friend invited me to a concert. I came home with something that felt a lot bigger than that.
Chapter Two
The Closing of Francophonie — Where Language Becomes Home
Institut français d'Indonésie (IFI) Jakarta · April 24, 2026
For anyone unfamiliar with Francophonie — and I'll admit I only began to truly understand it that evening — it isn't simply a celebration of the French language. It's something quieter and more layered than that. It's the acknowledgment of a global community: nearly 400 million people across 93 nations, from West Africa to the Caribbean, from Southeast Asia to the Pacific, who share a linguistic heritage but carry entirely different histories, foods, songs, and ways of being in the world. French is the thread. But the tapestry is theirs.
The French language, like music, does not belong to one people. It belongs to all those who have chosen to inhabit it — and in Jakarta, that sense of belonging was warmly, beautifully palpable.
Walking into IFI that evening, I was struck by a feeling of continuity — because I had stood in this same building months earlier for the SuaraJiwa concert, and something of that night was still present. The same spirit of genuine openness. The same sense that culture here is not something to be performed at a distance, but shared up close.
What stayed with me most wasn't any single moment from the evening — it was the accumulation of them. Conversations in French between people from countries I had never thought of as neighbors. Music that carried accents I couldn't place but somehow recognized. The quiet warmth of being in a room where belonging didn't require explanation.
My friend had described Francophonie to me once as "the feeling of finding your language somewhere you didn't expect it." Standing in that hall on the closing night, I think I finally understood what she meant — even though French isn't my language at all.
Maybe that's the whole point.
Chapter Three
A Cup of Ceylon — 159 Years of Heritage in a Single Sip
Embassy of Sri Lanka, Sri Lanka Residence, Menteng · May 21, 2026
This one, I didn't go to alone.
I brought a colleague — a Restaurant Manager whose understanding of food and hospitality runs deep — because some invitations feel better shared with someone who will appreciate every layer of them. And this one had layers.
The Embassy of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka had extended an invitation to an exclusive Ceylon Tea Tasting Session at the Sri Lanka Residence in Menteng, in celebration of International Tea Day 2026. It was hosted by H.E. Sashikala Premawardhane, Ambassador-designate of Sri Lanka to Indonesia — and from the moment we arrived, the afternoon carried a quality that's genuinely rare at formal events: it felt considered. Warm, unhurried, and genuinely thoughtful.
I'll be honest — I knew Ceylon Tea by reputation, the way most people do. But I didn't know its full story until that afternoon. Grown in the misty highlands of Sri Lanka with a level of artisanal care that has been refined, protected, and passed down across generations. The Lion Logo — Ceylon Tea's global mark of purity and single-origin authenticity — isn't just branding. It's a guarantee backed by more than a century of uncompromising standards.
Ceylon Tea is built on uncompromising purity, artisanal quality, and authentic single-origin status — the world's finest, backed by 159 years of tea heritage and tradition.
The session itself unfolded gently, the way a good afternoon should. A welcome address by the Ambassador. A short film on Ceylon Tea's journey. A presentation on its varieties and character. And then — the tasting itself, which gave way naturally into conversation and connection with the other guests, in the kind of setting that makes people lower their shoulders and actually talk to each other.
My colleague and I kept exchanging quiet looks across the table — the kind that mean this is really good without needing to say it out loud.
There is something about tea that slows a room down. It demands a certain quality of presence
— you can't rush it, and so you don't rush anything around it either. Cup in hand, I found myself thinking about the journey of what I was drinking. From the highlands of Sri Lanka, across oceans, to this quiet, gracious Sri Lanka Residence in Menteng. Carried carefully. Offered openly.
That, I think, is what the best cultural diplomacy always does. It doesn't announce itself with ceremony. It simply places something precious in your hands — and waits, with patience, for the conversation to begin.
Chapter Four
80 Years of Jordan — A Kingdom's Milestone, Celebrated in Jakarta
Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan · Jakarta, June 9, 2026
When the invitation arrived from the Embassy of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, I confess the occasion felt weighty in a way that was different from the cultural evenings at IFI. This was not a concert or a closing ceremony — it was a national milestone. Jordan was marking 80 years of independence, and its Embassy in Jakarta had chosen to celebrate it with Indonesian officials, foreign ambassadors, and the diplomatic community gathered under one roof.
The reception was elegant in the way that formal diplomatic gatherings can be when they carry genuine warmth behind the protocol. Ambassador Sudqi Atallah Al-Omoush spoke with evident pride about Jordan's journey — one he framed not in triumphalist terms, but with an acknowledgement of sacrifice and the enduring weight of Hashemite leadership across eight decades of nationhood.
"Jordan's journey of independence, unity, and prosperity — honoring the sacrifices of the Jordanian people and the legacy of Hashemite leadership throughout history." — H.E. Ambassador Sudqi Atallah Al-Omoush
What struck me most about the evening was the breadth of Indonesia–Jordan cooperation it quietly illuminated. The two nations have been expanding their ties across higher education, culture, healthcare, infrastructure, energy, and logistics — six sectors that touch the core of both countries' development agendas. The presence of Indonesia's Health Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin at the reception was a telling detail: bilateral friendship, in its most functional form, shows up in the room.
There is something deeply moving about watching a nation celebrate its independence in a foreign capital — the flags side by side, the national dishes shared across the table, the quiet pride of a people represented far from home. Jordan at 80 carried that pride well. And for those of us fortunate enough to be in the room, it was a reminder that diplomacy, at its best, is simply the art of making the other feel seen.
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