AdIns Podcast Lantai Tiga: The Programmers Who Play at Nan-yin Festival Across Asia

Usually, a programmer is often associated with modern technology and IT-related work and habits. On the Podcast Lantai Tiga by AdIns, we invited  Wandy Suwandi, one of the AdIns full-stack developers who play the traditional Nan-yin musical instrument as a hobby. 

Nan-yin is ancient traditional music that originated from Fujian, China. At that time, Nan-yin was only played in royal palaces but now often performed at events like New Years’, weddings, and so on. This music consists of 4 main instruments: Pipa is a four strings lute instrument. Sanxian, which is also a three strings instrument. Dong-xiao is a vertical bamboo flute instrument. Er-xian is a two strings vertical fiddle instrument. 

Wandy has had this hobby since 2012, it began with an invitation from a friend from the Oriental Indonesia Foundation in North Jakarta to learn Nan-yin music in this cultural community. And this community happened to be in the same location where he attended regular services every Sunday. In this place, Wandy learned to play the Er-xian instrument for the first time, and then he also played the Dong-xiao musical instrument. So far, he has participated in various events International with his friends from the Oriental Indonesia Foundation. Of course, this is an impressive achievement. 

In fact, Nan-yin is more popular with the elderly. In Indonesia, the younger generation has begun interested in this music in these recent years. This has prompted this community to promote Nan-yin so that young people are interested in preserving this culture. Therefore, when Wandy and his friends joined, they took this opportunity to show their talents in international events. Not only that, they welcomed and also impressed that young people from Indonesia were interested in this music. Since this culture originated from China, this added to a favorable impression so that it opened more opportunities for them to perform in various events overseas. 

As a programmer who has a lot of work and often works overtime, they must know how to divide their time between the main job and hobbies. Before Wandy attends rehearsals or performs at an event, he will ask permission from his boss and try to finish the work that day as much as he can. If he can’t or has to work overtime, he will use a recorded song and listen to it repeatedly for practice. Moreover, the distance between the workplace and the training place is quite far. 

Wandy has participated in the Quanzhou International Nan-yin Symposium in Quanzhou, Taiwan. This event aimed to preserve this culture and was attended by other countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and others. Besides performing, they also visited cultural communities to share knowledge and experiences and collaborate to play Nan-yin’s music together. Even at an important event, they were given an opportunity to perform at the closing ceremony, which was the highlight of the event, and played one of the most popular songs among Nan-yin’s music fans, Mei Hua Cao. In the end, to reach this point, Wandy’s struggle was not easy, all of these require diligence and consistency to keep practicing so that his abilities continue to improve. 

Hopefully this story from our AdIners can inspire us all. For more complete story, please check this video https://youtu.be/QjqM6QQ14r4