On July 22, Polyglot Indonesia Jakarta Chapter held its seventh Culture and Language meetup. During this session, we chose to showcase French language and culture simply because France celebrates its national day on July 14th, famously known as Bastille Day. Our francophone team chose the title "Le français pour voyager en solo: La France n'est pas que Paris" which translates to "French for solo traveler: France is not just Paris."

Why did we choose this theme? It’s because most people would be reluctant to do so since they think they might not be able to manage a solo trip to France, what with all the myths about language difficulties. In addition, usually people also would only put Paris in its itinerary. So, the objective of this meetup is to change their mind that it is possible to explore France and discover its other beautiful destinations.

In this meetup, we were very lucky to have Atout France ASEAN as a partner. Atout France is the official government agency whose mission is to promote French tourism and their office in ASEAN is in Jakarta under the French Embassy. We had Winna from Atout France ASEAN delivering a presentation which explains about the must-visit-places in France according to the season (winter, spring, summer, autumn). Each of our French language coordinator-contributor team members also had their own French-themed presentation delivered to our 78 meetup participants.

Editha delivered a presentation on basic French introduction. Angga shared solo traveler tips and tricks also about his own personal travel story. Our hyperpolyglot Vremita taught the participants on how to shop in France, be it in big, luxurious well-known boutiques or in flea markets. Upika explained about how to flirt à la française. Our two other coordinators, Sheila and Zaza, helped behind the scene and with the pre-meetup preparation.

Afterwards, our participants were tasked to create a dream travel itinerary to France according to a certain theme assigned to each language table. The themes were sport, cheese, arts, philosophers, history, etc. We closed the meetup with a fun quiz in which we tested our participants on how well they memorize the presentations. A huge thank you to everyone who participated in the meetup! Special thank you to Hoshino Tea Time for the wonderful venue! À la prochaine! (For the photo documentation, please check our Facebook fanpage album)