I hope to see red lanterns, lion dance, family dinner, more ManadoPop, and all-sort-of-red-ornaments in this coming Chinese New Year. This might probably be the best Chinese New Year celebration I’ve ever had.Just in case you don’t know what was going on in my country a decade ago:
SOLO, Indonesia (Reuters) – Indonesia’s ethnic Chinese communities, repressed and persecuted for many years, are enjoying a cultural revival even in the heart of the predominantly Muslim island of Java.
The royal city of Solo, in central Java, suffered some of the worst anti-Chinese attacks during the 1997-98 crisis, when shops and businesses owned by ethnic Chinese were smashed and looted, and many Chinese Indonesians were killed, raped or injured.
The crisis eventually led to the ousting of Suharto, the long-ruling autocratic president who now, at 86, lies critically ill in hospital. His New Order regime was instrumental in suppressing Chinese culture.
But in the decade since Suharto was forced from power, the Chinese Indonesians have experienced greater cultural freedom. “Nowadays we feel very happy. We can perform lion dances and conserve it (our culture). Not like in the past, in the New Order era we couldn’t do it,” Adjie Chandra, who heads a lion dance group in Solo, told Reuters.
Despite their suffering under Suharto, many of the ethnic Chinese are praying for his recovery, he said. “No matter what he has done and what his sins, the important thing is our existence. We pray for his recovery,” Adjie added.
I’m glad that the country is moving forward. The ‘villain’, who used to put huge pressure on Indonesian Chinese, is now ill.
Update: The entry above was written last week. The main subject, Suharto, passed away a few days ago…
