October 2 2015 is declared as the National Batik Day. Batik is internationally acclaimed heritage from Indonesia. To appreciate the special day, YSU international students contributed on the day by attending Batik Class. The class began at 9.00 a.m. until 12.00 a.m. on the Lecture Building 4, Faculty of Languages and Arts.

It started with the introduction and brief explanation of Batik through an interactive video. Mr. Ismadi led the class by explaining the steps as well as processes of making Batik. After that, students of the Darmasiswa and Developing Countries Partnership (DCP) were invited to practice making Batik. First, they made a pattern on the fabric surface of with a pencil. Some of them drew the unique and special motifs representing their own country. For instance, Nasree, a student from Thailand, drew a native floral pattern of his country.

The second stage is mencanting, where students used canting (a special pipe) filled with wax and applied a technique of wax-resist dyeing applied to whole cloth. They took the wax from a little heated stove. Then, they blew canting slowly so that the tip of the canting was not too wet. This process is quite difficult to do because it requires a specific skill and extra carefulness so that the patterns already drawn on the cloth are not damaged by the wet wax.

After drawing the Batik patterns, the next stage was tinting process. Students were allowed to choose what colors they would use to dye their Batik cloth. They were challanged to use colours already provided. Some were just dipping their fabric into one color, while the others prefered two or more colors, and then combined them. (Dwi Adityas)