Agustyar

Minggu, 18 Oktober 2020

Being a Muslim in China

September 10 2019 was the first time I landed in Qingdao, China. Without expectation, I just want to do my best to live here. I don’t know how’s live here because I never go to overseas before. As I knew, China is one of the competitive countries with hard worker people.

In China, I lived at the international dormitory (inside campus) located at Yushan Road, Shinan District, Qingdao, Shandong province. There are many international students from various countries like Thailand, Egypt, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, and Indonesia as well. This dormitory dominated by Asian countries.

How are lives as a Muslim in China?

Okay, let me breakdown into several aspects related to Muslims.

1. Food

When we talk about food, it’s always related to culture and habit. In China, We can found rice easily. As an Indonesian, it’s a positive point because We eat rice every day. How about halal food? Fortunately, our campus provides halal food on the 3rd floor of the restaurant. There are many halal foods at cheap prices. How’s taste? For me, the taste is good enough. I have tried several kinds of food here. My favorite menu is fried chicken + eggplant + rice. I never bored eating that food. The restaurant opens every day at 11.00 AM and 17.00 AM. Don’t come late otherwise, you will not get any food. Anyway, we can eat outside the campus and find a “Lanzhou Restaurant” but the price is not cheap compared to the price inside the campus.

Halal Restaurant in my Campus

2. Mosque

The important thing when you come to another country is to find where the mosque located. Fortunately, our city has a mosque located in Fushan which is 1 hour from my dormitory by bus. Every Friday and my Muslim friend go to the mosque by Bus (No. 307). For one trip by bus, we pay 1 yuan (IDR 2000). In China, we use transportation card or digital payment like WeChat pay and Alipay. Everything is cashless, amazing. Even the mosque provides payment barcodes if we want to donate. Another interesting thing is we can found a halal market and restaurant beside the mosque. In this market, we can buy instant food, snack, basic food ingredients, and many more. We also can eat meat here. Everything is halal.

Qingdao Mosque

at the backside of Qingdao Mosque

3. Social

As far as I live in China, I can do any activities related to Islam. Every people is busy with their business. The Muslim people in Qingdao city is also friendly with Muslims from overseas. Everyone has the freedom to do activities as long as they are still within the normal corridor and do not interfere.

Based on my experience, as a Muslim who lives in China, It’s convenient enough to be here. We can find halal food easily. We also can gather with another Muslim from several countries and from China as well. I don’t have any problems here. The most important thing is:

“give your respect to others, then you will be respected”

Sabtu, 25 Juli 2020

Coretanku 20.37

Go away

by Agus Tyar

I realized that no one can stay in our life forever. Everyone just docked for a while. The truth of life is about how long we can be together, and how after that?. Separation is an absolute thing. We can't avoid that. Come and go is a normal thing as well. People come with happiness, then go by leaving sadness. After that, everything will run normally, even though the heart still feels the hurt.

As time goes by, the wound in the heart will heal by itself. That sad moment was not forgotten, but the pain did not feel like the beginning.

Every time when we are alone, the sadness maybe come back. It happens because of no one in our hearts. Abandoned or left? both of them have the same feeling, hurt, yeah only hurt. when that situation happens, just go away. Go away from your reality, go away from your social media, go away from your routine. You just need the time to heal up.

I went far from home not to heal up

Jumat, 12 Juni 2020

Coretanku 18.24

Me against myself and try to be consistent

by Agus Tyar

Sometimes I thought I am a useless person, that's why I am lazy to do productive things. The "useless" mindset is what makes me often fail to start good habits consistently. Sometimes I also blame the situation where I was already unproductive and made me more difficult to move. Hundreds of times I tried to change to the new habits, but in the end, I failed again.

Today, June 12, 2020, I learned a valuable lesson from watching a video on Youtube. A video that slapped me for allowing myself to be in this state. Continue to be in the comfort zone, always giving up through the process of changing and always blaming circumstances. I hate what He said in the video because that is true. The hard slap brought me to stand back again at the start point for the umpteenth time.

Through this post, I am Tiar, 23 years old, will try as much as possible to start new things that make me more productive and change the mindset of "useless". I do not know this effort will be worked or will be to the list of my failures. I will try to start slowly until finally, it can be consistent. If I fail and I "GIVE UP", I deserve a slap physically and mentally. In the end, what I do is to counter myself and try to be consistent. good luck to me.