PIDATO : BAHASA INGGRIS

“Traditional Food is a Big Deal”

By Timothy Koraag

Tinutuan or Manado Porridge

First thing you would be confused why i would be able to speak about Traditional Food cause it is not a Big Deal? Right? But that is the point why i would be able to speak about it. 

Okay,

Traditional food is a part of Culture.  Manado has a lot of Traditional Food but one of them that is most famous is Tinutuan. people in Manado have no idea how much advantage that we can gain from Traditional Food. They were ignoring it because it wasn’t a Big Deal. But the truth is They were wrong. It has a lot of advantages in every kind of Aspect. Every kind of aspect i mean like Financial Aspect, Cultural Aspect and Social Aspect.

First up, i would like to explain about Financial Aspect. I want to give you an example, At the other Country Hand Made Food or we can say  Traditional Food is way more expensive than  Junk Food but why in Indonesia it is the Opposite? Why is the question, why we cannot be like them?  but i’m not saying that i would like to change it because it is probably impossible for me. 

But i’m talking about it because People in Indonesia especially in Manado underestimate Traditional Food, and what about how they make it, or cook it? So we’re talking about the facilities, maybe the facilities do not have a high standard quality. The Manadonese custom is to make traditional food if there will be a Party and the people that Sell Traditional Food are just about 25 % so we can start from ourselves to sell Traditional Food and make our Economic Empowerment much stronger.

Second Up, Cultural Aspect. Traditional Food is a part of Culture, it is influential . right now about 40 % of Manado People don’t know how to cook Traditional Foods and maybe it is because they’re too lazy or don’t want to learn and including me i’ve never been taught by my parents how to cook it so i don’t know how to cook them. 

Right know you probably think i’m weird why i would like to speak about Traditional food but honestly i don’t even know how to cook it either but at least there are people that know how to cook it. my suggestion is for the government to make a Program about How to Make Traditional Food so The Culture would not be able to die. And if our culture dies it will affect our Tourism Activity. for example if i am The Tour Guide and while i am at restaurant with tourists and they ask me what is the ingredient or the composition ? and i don’t know what it is? It can be a Disaster! 

That can make me feel like such an embarassment and also embarassing my school, my department and my teacher because i am from Tourism Department and just because such a little thing ? make all of what i’ve learned useless. me as the Tour Guide the real purpose to be a Tour Guide is being the bridge between another country and my country. It can make Tourists not want to come here again because they’ve lost their passion to come here.  Can’t you even imagine it? What will be happen with our City? Yes, our city will be broken.

And the Last one is Social Aspect. This aspect could really have an advantage tho. We know right Now there’s a lot of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path and etc. we can use all of those as advantages too. For example i can inform or Introduce to my foreign friends on facebook  to traditional food so they can be interested to come here and tell to all their friends to come here and have a vacation. It can be useful. It can influence at the Financial Aspect that our Economic Empowerment will be stronger and influent at the Culture Aspect, our culture will be known all around the world and there will be so many people who would like to come here and make our economic empowerment stronger than ever.