On Being Chinese

This year's lunar New Year, I took a step back to the heritage that made me. We spent the last night of the Tiger year strolling down the road with some friends to welcome the Wooden Rabbit year. And so was my journey towards the past of Chinese in Indonesia and of me being Chinese - from which I know you wouldn't believe.

Yes, if you asked me, I did grew up having prejudices with non-Chinese Indonesian. I guess it was just something that was passed on through generations. In the old times, this Chinatown called Glodok was an isolated place to compound all Chinese in the city from being too overruling. As the Chinese refused to be captured and sent as slaves to Srilanka, the government then responded with slaughter to cut down their number and built fear. Following it, they were forced to live in an isolated area, spreading from what we know now as Glodok.. If they were found to live outside of it, it would only mean: 1. you were a dead body, 2.you were fugitives, 3.you fled outside the fort.

The fort that we refer to here is the fort that East-Indies built to guard the center of their governance from the Sultans of Java attacks. The fort laid down from where the Cisadane river now takes place. After the rebellion, those who were fugitives and their family ran outside the fort. That is how I got my dark skin tone, as these Fort Chinese (Cina Benteng as we call it), is the most aculturated and assimilated group of Chinese. They had family with locals and absorb local culture like dances, outfit, and ways of life. Their wedding ceremony involves Tari Cokek (very similar with the Betawi kind of Yapong, involves "saweran" too), and they have not used any dialect of Mandarin for ages. As for me, I'm stuck with the way I pronounce "jam"(clock), as "jem".

On my way down the Confucianism Temple on Lunar New Year's eve in Glodok, I was asked with questions from the friends who joined the party. It was a Confucianism Temple, not a Buddhist Temple. It's similar yet not the same, as Confucianism is not considered as a religion. More of a way to believe. Thus, it combines the main beliefs of gods that Chinese has as well as rooted to Buddhism, which is also part of their beliefs.  In the temple you would meet a number of statues, including Siddhartha. All statues refer to the god that you pray to. When you pray out front, there's an altar where people hold their incense and face the south with a bow - south is the suggested as a good direction to pray to for this year. The prayers done here is given to the GOD.

On your way in, the god of money wait right at the door. Money and prosperity he was, with a big fat belly, a big smile on his face, and a pile of fake money that you burnt to give offerings to the god, as well as giving your ancestors some money for them to spend in the after life.

Your eyes would start to tear, right after you enter the altar rooms. The amount of fume is surreal that some people wore goggles. In front of the Kuan Im offering tables, you find people lining up. At hers, the amount of incense weren't as much, they were trying to get the smoke from the incense to cover their body, though. She was the goddess of mercy, and man, how we need mercy in a world that we have now. Then goes the rest of the gods, the kitchen gods, the door gods, the gods of heaven, the gods of earth, and other god you have and feel the need to pray to.

I ended the eve taking my friends to have a late dinner to a porridge parlor nearby. I was surprised of how empty the place was. I know now, we were not suppose to eat porridge on new year, for it represents a hard and poor life. That explains the lenient night out. A good thing I ate noodles that night, with pork of course.

I was amazed that I actually live in a time where these sort of things were actually shared. There were ladies with hijabs at the temple, asking a fellow Indonesian - who happened to be Chinese - the meaning of the words, the prayers, the custom. It's surprising to see how far we have gone into accepting one another after that year where things were reformed. It was 13 years ago. I was 12. I remember that during the day, as I watched the tires got burnt right down the main road, I thought that I was stuck to this unexplainable situation of hating and not understanding. I was the only Chinese family in my area. All my neighbors called my Mom "Jie". And that night, as the main road is filled with cars being burnt and rumors of raped and murderers, my neighbor stopped all drivers heading to the main road, asking them to open their windows or helmet. They were invited for a tea at one of the houses and forbidden to proceed from traveling if they look any slight of oriental. My mom told me they were trembled when they stopped, but the tea help them to feel warm, inside out.

Images were taken at Petak Sembilan, February 2011.