Nice to meet you!

My name is Helena and I will be your guide through this column, “Salam Kenal INDONESIA”.

First of all, let me introduce my self. I am a native Indonesian. I was born in Jakarta and used to live there until 2017, I graduated my Master’s degree on marketing and business management at a business school there too.

Here in this column, I will be introducing you to the beauty of Indonesia!

We will be talking about the current Indonesia together with some local writer that will be helping me getting through the local culture, the latest trend, the economy, interesting place to visit, and off course, great foods!!

In Bahasa Indonesia (the official language of the country), ‘salam’ means ‘greeting’ and ‘kenal’ means ‘to know’. With that said, the column title ‘Salam Kenal’ equals to ‘Nice to meet you’ in English. It is how Indonesian greets when we meet for the first time.

I would like to give a simple explanation about Indonesia, to say “Salam Kenal” to those readers who are not familiar with the country.

Indonesia located in the Southeast Asia. As some of the islands are passed by the equator line, the climate is almost entirely tropical. The capital city of Indonesia is Jakarta.

Because of the tropical climate, the humidity is rather high and it’s hot almost all year long.

With the population of 162 million people, Indonesia is the world’s 4^th most populous country. It is the 14^th largest country in the world in terms of land, and the 7^th in terms of land and sea combined.

Speaking of which, I got asked so many time about this so, this is the moment of truth:

Yes, Bali Island is –actually- in Indonesia! It is located right next to the Java island where Jakarta is.

I hope this gave you some idea of what kind of country Indonesia is.

Of course, there is a lot more about Indonesia, this is just the start!

From now on, we will be talking about the most exciting news around the country.

I hope you will enjoy reading this column♪